I LOVE CROATIA!!

I think the subject line says it all.  This place is like paradise.  Monday night we had another family dinner and celebrated my quarter birthday along with another girl’s half birthday.  The cake was awesome per usual.

 

Once again, we woke up early to watch the sunrise.  This time there was too much fog and clouds, so we couldn’t really see any land, but it was neat when the sun got above the clouds because right as it did, you could sort of make out some mountains.  I went back to sleep after watching for a while, but I wish I had woken up to hear the “bells.”  It is tradition that when we pass a certain point the captain rings the “bells,” which aren’t so much bells as they are an extremely loud fog horn.  Also, our captain is from Croatia, so when we went past his house he rang the bells again and apparently you could see her waving from through her window.  When I got up later on in the morning I saw the captain, who is usually walking very stiff and doesn’t smile much, bouncing down the stairs with a big smile.  Then later we saw him off the boat in normal clothes, which was a little odd.

 

In the morning a few of us got off the boat to look around the new part of the city a bit.  There wasn’t really anything to do, so we didn’t do much.  We got back in time for our city orientations of the old town.  The old city of Dubrovnik is walled in and is absolutely gorgeous.  The tour guide told us all about the war which just ended in 92 and how much the people here have done to make things go back to normal.  It really was unbelievable to see this place and to think about how not long ago they had bombs dropped on them.  They were able to get back into UNESCO already and are currently trying to get into the European Union.  This country has had so many hardships, yet they look like nothing has happened to them.  The people here seem so nice and friendly.  It also helps that a large majority of them speak English.  Anyway, the city orientation was very nice.  We got to go into a few museums and it was all very cool.  We returned to the ship and later that night we got on the bus and returned to the old city to eat dinner.  We ended up splitting up and Maria and I went to get some food while they shopped a little, then ate.  We went to a small restaurant on a side street.  There was a man outside who said that he would give us two free “appertivi,” we thought this was pretty cool (we both thought this meant appetizers).  Immediately after we sat down a woman comes buy and plops two drinks on our table (brandy, we think) and says “welcome drinks!”  Turns out that appertivi means some sort of drink.  I gave mine to Maria and we went on with our meal.  The food was really good.  I had some traditional dish (I forget the name) which was a lot like sausage, but much better than any sausage I had ever had before.  Maria had some delicious risotto with shrimp scampi and some sauce.  We switched plates near the end.  We eventually met up with the other people and just went around the city for a few hours.  It was so beautiful at night and not creepy at all (except one street, which we decided not to go down).

 

The next day Carly and I went to old town to do some more exploring and shop a bit (we didn’t actually buy anything other than postcards).  We ate lunch at a place right next to the harbor and had some traditional Croatian pizza.  It was really good…mozzarella and arugula.  Afterward we got on the ferry boat and headed to the island, Lokrum which is only a 15 minute ride from Dubrovnik.  The island is a “natural island” (as they call it).  There is an old monastery there and a restaurant, and that’s about it for man-made.  We went around the botanical garden for a bit and saw some of the weirdest plants I’ve ever seen.  Also, the island is covered in peacocks, so we kept having to avoid them (we were both wary of them, since a lot looked like they were nesting).  We headed towards the beach for a bit (which was covered in huge white boulders).  We got in to go swimming for a bit, but the waves made us nervous, so we mainly just relaxed.  Before leaving the island we went to the restaurant and split a banana split while a peacock begged for food from us then we headed back to the ferry and slowly made our way back to the boat.  We stopped to get me a painting from a street vendor and then went to a grocery store.  Neither of us had remembered that our boat had been tendering all day (tendering is where our boat is out in the water and we have to take little boats to get to it) and the last tender was at 6 (we had just missed it by 30 minutes).  Neither of us wanted to pay for food, nor were we hungry, so we just walked around and tried to find something to do.  When we finally got onto the ship we were really hungry and luckily they had kept the dining room open long for those of us who missed the tender.  After meeting we went back to old town with the intention to go dancing.  The first place we tried had no dancing, so we went to a cliff bar.  It was really cool.  You walk through this hole in the wall and suddenly you’re on the other side of the walls which surround the city and your standing on this cliff with rope lights showing where the edge of the cliff was.  The girls all got a drink while we watched a little lightning hop from cloud to cloud and the moon come out.

 

Then we headed back out on our mission.  We went around everywhere and eventually walked down this one road where we could hear people chanting and laughing.  As we got closer we saw a huge group of men chanting and singing something about who they were and that they liked to drink.  Completely confused, much like the other people on the street, we walked through the crowd of men only to find we had gone the wrong way and had to walk back through them.  When we got a little further down the road this man stopped to talk to us and told us that he was with the loud men and said that they were from Ireland and that they were a football (soccer) team.  He was very nice, but when he heard his team stop chanting, he had to go and make sure they didn’t go too far.  As we continued we were stopped by two more men who were from Australia and were there for business.  We started to go with them to East West (the place we were trying not to go to because too many SASers would be there and we wanted to go talk with locals).  By the time we got there it was almost 1am and three of us had 8am trips the next morning, so the three of us headed back to the ship while the other three went to the club.

 

On our way back a group of men were walking closely behind us and realizing how intimidating they probably looked told us that they were not in fact following us and that they were just going in the same direction.  They even started walking in front of us and talking to us from ahead instead.  They were from California (went to school at Sanford) and there playing water polo.  When they found some music coming from a building they said goodbye and we went to our ship to get to sleep.

 

The next morning I went to Montenegro.  We were in the bus for most of the day, but it was a beautiful country.  We stopped in a few towns in Montenegro and walked around a bit, but it was a bit rushed.  The coolest part was when we went up the mountain.  The road looked like it should have been a one-way road and there was a cliff on one side and the rest of the mountain on the other.  The view was absolutely gorgeous.  We did get out once at a scenic point to take pictures.  When we got to the top of the mountain we got a snack in a little town then headed down the other side to stop at another town where they finally gave us lunch (it was 2pm).  We got a brief tour and got to see the city a bit, then got back in the bus for a long ride back to the ship.  The country was incredible, but I think the trip should have been at least 2 days because we had no time.  We got back two and a half hours late which meant that the dining room was already closed.  We had been told we would be able to eat on the ship, so everyone was really annoyed.  One person was able to convince the dining staff to bring out some sandwiches for us though, which was very nice of them.  They weren’t great, but they were something.  After dinner I felt like I was beginning to get a little bit of a cold, so instead of going out (again, with the intention of dancing) I went to bed early.

 

Today I woke up (early again) and got back on the bus to drive two and a half hours to the island of Korcula.  The drive was awesome and the city on Korcula was really neat.  I have to write a paper on it for my religious studies class, so I took tons of notes.  Since today was our last day in Korcula, though I wanted to spend my last 130 Kuna (this equals about $20) since it seemed quite silly to get it changed when we got back to the US.  I ended up buying a really cool ring which the woman who was working in the store made.  It has turquoise on it and is so cool.  I still had 40 Kuna left (after I paid for Carly and me to go to the bathroom since she had no money and bathrooms cost money here), so we went to the grocery store and I got some more food for the ship and ended up with only .50 Kuna left.  We got back on the bus and I read all the way back (except for a short nap).  We are not sitting on the ship and they just announced that we will be staying in Croatia for one more night (although, we cannot get off the ship since we’ve already cleared customs).  Tomorrow we have classes again, but the day after we have no classes because it is the Sea Olympics.  The Sea Olympics is a bunch of random games and stuff that they have out on the deck and everyone competes with their “sea” (basically the hall we live in).  I’m not going to play in any of the games, but I will watch some of it.  The day after that though, we’ll be in GREECE!!!!

 

I think that’s it for now.  I love getting messages from all of you, but just keep in mind that because I have no real internet, I cannot reply to anything you post on this blog.  I love to get them anyways, though.  Feel free to send me emails too!

 

I also need to bribe someone…because I have no internet, I cannot look for some of the things online that I need to visit for class.  If someone could find me a rape crisis center, or a planned parenthood, or a family planning center in one of the following cities, I will get you an awesome gift from someplace I travel:  Istanbul, Turkey; Varna, Bulgaria; Alexandria, Egypt; Casablanca, Morocco.  Please!!  I need to give a presentation on it and I’m worried I won’t be able to find one!  Thanks to anyone who looks!

 

I’ll try to post pictures soon.  I should go write my paper, though!  Good night everyone!