I’m running. One mile gone up and down dry hills beneath a sweltering sun. The Adriatic glittering below. Water would be nice.

My choice to come here feels far away. I had made it days earlier. Meeting up with friends. That’s it. Stockholm — for all its modern maritime charm and cool afternoons — would always be there. My Dartmouth friends would not.

It had been a long day. A scooter, train, plane, taxi, and finally a faltering, damp walk to what would be my abode for the next few days. Then I was running. It was 7:30pm.

Everything in Dubrovnik is a hill.

There were cliffs and they were beautiful. White heat-crumbled stone dotted desiccated green. Native plants. Beyond them, crystal clear blue water. Blue because the beaches were not sand but stone.

I bombed downhill to old town. The gates were cut white stone like the landscape and lit by spotlights beneath. I turned and ran back uphill, dodging small, pugnacious cars ferrying tourists from hotels.

The thin layer of water on my skin all over my body keeping me cool. I swept a thick sheet off my forehead. How the hell could I run here?

I probed side streets. Always up or down. Never flat. Never easy. Cars flying. Pedestrians choking sidewalks. I turned one street and swung a sweeping downhill curve into the bowl of a low parking lot far below and then I saw a field. It was gated. Locked.

Next to it was a sandlot. Two net-less football goals stood white and aching in the heat like elephant bones. I stripped off my tank top and hung it from the goal post.

Other men jogged around the perimeter of the sandlot. Slow and methodical. Counterclockwise as if this dusty plain were a track. I joined.

I passed a tanned ancient man. We acknowledged each other. I began to feel better. The sun dipped casting long golden shadows across the sandlot. I watched my shadow run. I ran faster. Sprinting. Once around. Twice. This was a real run now fast and slow like the track workouts I used to do at Dartmouth. I was committed. I began counting laps. This time I’d do four fast. One slow. Always only one slow. Two fast. One slow. Five fast. One slow.

The sun dropped behind the hillside shielding the sandlot. Thick golden beams fell diagonal onto the nearby football field as if pouring through a window made for giants. We who ran were now in shade. A relief.

Sprinting felt good now. I could sprint a while without tiring too much. I opened my stride. Swept down one side of the sandlot. There, a boy. On a bike. He had been watching me from the opposite fence for some time.

He got on his bike and pedaled up next to me as I jogged my one lap. We did not speak. I gestured to him as I reached my mark. Waved. I’m sprinting. He’s cranking the pedals all knees and sneakers hurtling down the sandlot one two three feet ahead into the football net turning hard to spray a cloud of dusk and stop. “Safe!” I motioned like a baseball umpire. He smiled widely. I smiled back.

I finished my run with a jog back up to where I had first set out — the tiny white stucco apartment of an old lady named Violet who spoke only Croatian and treated me with great kindness.

Violet was fond of feeding me soup before I ran and waking me up early.

I protested by eating all of the soup and getting up early.

This was not easy because I was spending energy doing those things friends do where they go out and grab drinks and generally enjoy themselves with an ease unachievable perhaps by a solo traveler. In the days since, I’ve found it strange to return to the company of myself only. I went to Venice and will write about it soon.

I am in Slovenia now. Rain crashing outside and thunder shaking the shutters of this old yellow building. The dining room table is slender wooden and made for China. Here I type on my MacBook.

I’m thinking back to Dubrovnik. This is not a choice. I would have written on it then had I the time. But life got in the way. The things I want to pen here — the long day at the beach whipping over the water on a jet-ski driven by a good friend who could get anywhere in two seconds flat. The spray of the saltwater. The bright blinding sun. Screaming. Yes, me. Eyes shut scared shitless gripping her waist.

When I drove it was like the drip drip drip of a faucet after you turn it off.

Back on the sand. Tiptoeing over rocks hot like embers. Laying on my stomach on a towel. Chatting. Squinting. The sun getting lower. The mechanics of the sunset: First gold. Then red. Then light yellow once the sun was gone.

Swimming in the crystal clear water skimming the bottom greeting fishes.

Later: rising the salt off of my skin. Getting dinner, drinks, eating lamb and chatting in the light evening air. I wondered briefly if this was what my parents had referred to as “young adulthood.”

A local bar, empty club, walking around old city. Empty white corridors wet with lamplight. Joking — always joking.

Sitting outside. The abandoned tables of a hotel far too expensive. It’s 3am. Warm and still.

The next day, another beach, bar. Lights dotting the hillside. Wind whipping up gusts clattering shutters with a distant roar. Another club, briefly. I like it more outside anyway.

The wind again. Buffeting my shirt. Licking my skin. Finally cool. Walking. Almost morning. Sleep like a truncated nap. Leaving. Venice.

No big takeaways now. Just memories.