Croatia

Dobar Dan!

Serbo-Croat looks scary on paper but it actually sounds a lot like Russian when people are speaking it. Every time I used one of 20 words I knew they assumed I spoke it fluently, so I just decided to only speak in English since they all spoke it pretty fluently. It was interesting hearing people talking about before and after the war, it's amazing what people of my generation had to endure in another country. I could finally talk to people about that sort of thing because there wasn't such a language barrier. Yes in Spain and Italy they speak English but it is usually quite broken and more complex things like cultuaral debates and political discussions just aren't reasonable. However, the people now-adays seem quite happy, this may have been due to the big music festival that was happening while we were there. Unfortunately a lot of the events actually were quite expensive. Some music was free though, there were quite a few free outside concerts in the middle of the Old Town. Anything big though like the Folk Festival and the National Symphony were about $60 for cheap tickets. Not kuna, dollars. Even though the conversion was 5 kuna to 1 dollar they just charged a lot for everything, probably because they wish they were using the euro, everywhere excepted them. I did go to a supermarket and everything was cheap. For instance I got laundry detergent for 24 kuna, that's $4.80.Also they had a conversion spot right near the port, and I made sure to go to the one with the best conversion rate. 5.20 kuna per dollar versus the port authority which was exchanging for 4.70. As for the city itself, Old Town was one of the most unique places I have been. There is the new city which was built around the Old Town. The Old Town has the oldest complete set of walls in Europe. I am happy to say that my first day in Dubrovnik, Croatia I hiked the walls. And I said hike due to the number of stairs up that I took in 105 degree weather -_-  It was gorgeous and a lot of fun, and yet another test of my defeat of my fear of heights. Also when you walk in the town itself there are NO CARS you only hear people's feet and clothes rustling. Yes, clothes rustling, which was awesome. It looks like you are walking inside a castle, which I was nerding out about since I love medieval history. People also knew a lot about the history of my name here, which was rather random....In Old Town you can tell the road is old because it literally shines from wear. Unfortunately I saw this little girl slip and break her leg because of the slick worn down surface :( The ambulance had to come and get her) on a brighter note...that night my friends and I decided to get dressed up and go to a fancy dinner in Old Town. We ate at a place called Renaissance, the food was the best I've had so far. I had an amazing seafood rissotto that I split with my friend Caroline. Along with a really yummy tuna salad. Yes, I said yummy and tuna in the same sentence, I usually hate it. However, when it was swimming around earlier that day it's hard not to like. We spread that on bread and then we all got free applecake :) This is because we followed the man handing out advertisements to everyone and he said if we went there we could have free dessert. It had an amazing caramel sauce. Then most of my friends except for Caroline wanted to shop and then go back to the ship, we however decided to do some exploring. This is when we met the merchants that wanted to talk about the war. We were sitting on a pier enjoying the quiet and the water, when these two merchants were greeting us to their country and asking us where we were from etc. etc. We ended up talking to them for at least an hour if not more. Then we ended up wandering back to the ship...well we took the bus..it's about an hour and a half walk from the ship to Old Town. The next morning I had a snorkelling trip. I went to an island...idk which one...haha there was a cave about 5 feet under the water that you could swim through and into a little lake. This lake had another cave that you unfortunately needed dive equipment to explore. This trip has motivated me to become dive certified, so hopefully I can save up and get mine during spring semester at my school. They have it available as a class, since we have Lake Erie :) There still weren't very many fish, this is mainly due to their fear of people, also there are less in general because of the higher salt level in the mediteranean. I was fascinated by the lake though. There were also a lot of tidal pools that I took my fins off and just crawled around them. Thankfully I have to write a paper on my snorkel trip anyway so my general curiosity will pay off. I did step on a little sea anenome and for a couple days my baby toe was all swelled up. That fate was much better than the couple of girls who were dumb enough to step on sea urchins. They're the size of my hand...how do you not see them? That made me laugh, I seriously felt like I was in my prime just crawling around on these rocks poking sea urchins and star fish...I watched a starfish suck a mussel out of its shell. It's actually a little gross how they do it so I won't go into detail, but since I am a biology major I was quite fascinated by it. I made decent friends with one of our tour guides who was amused by my curiosity. He's the one who had convinced me that swimming into a dark hole in the rock under the water was a great idea. Then we were taken back to the hotel where the snorkel company works out of. There I did a little swimming, by this time it was around 11 in the morning. That day got up to 111 degrees, (44 celsius) which is really hot. So I would lay out in the sun maybe 20 minutes and then jump into the water. Needless to say I am quite tan. I was a little burnt but between my spf 15 and Italian blood I managed to not turn all lobstery like many other people. I was happy because they made sure you had snorkel experience first so we didn't have to wear a vest or a wet suit. I was able to go under easy and explore more, but I was much more tired after this trip. I ended up showering and sleeping until after dinner. Then I found my shipboard mom Jeanne. Her and I walked around the dock and looked at all the private yachts, sail boats and other various types of boat. Then we stopped at a little restaurant and had some variety of custard that's supposed to be the dessert of Dubrovnik or something. It was amazing, and she made it her treat so that made me happy. Then I went back to my room with the intention of watching Harry Potter before bed, it's the only thing that was playing on our t.v.s. But I ended up falling asleep at 10:30. Then the next morning her and I headed over to the island Lopud. I think I found my absolute favorite beach there. It was called Syjab or something like that...the names are nuts. The island was a 50 minute ferry ride across the adriatic and there were a lot of shops and a mediocre beach right off where the ferry lets you off. There are no cars allowed on the island except a few transfer golf carts and tractors. I have never been so happy to see a tractor in my life. I just really miss them from back home, and big cities don't tend to need them. Sort of how I felt when a staff member treated me to a glass of milk, which I haven't had in a month :) Well they needed these transfer vehicles to get to Syjab. Jeanne and I decided to walk since it was in the woods. You could hear the locusts singing all over the island, and it sort of sounded like they were chearing us on. Thankfully it wasn't as ungodly hot (90 some vs 100 and some) so hiking wasn't so bad. We made the hike, which was a trek over the mountain over to the other side of the island on a little trail. Just past where the path to the beach was was a dirt road. This also made me really happy. I was in nature and there were dirt roads and such. This is good because one reason I was spending time with Jeanne other than I really enjoy her as a mentor is that my friends and I have spent too much time together and we were all starting to just rub each other the wrong way. So we all split off into different directions for a little while. When we got just above the beach we had an amazing view of the mountains on the island along with the beach, and all the boats and little sail boats that had pulled right up to where the bouys were that marked off the swimming area. People were swimming right out of their boats and people would drive their jetskis right up to the beach. Then we walked down to the beach and we rented two chairs and an umbrella (I didn't really need any more sun). I napped and read a book and even enjoyed a Pina Colada :) Then around 3 we headed back to the other side and had a super late lunch. I had grilled shrimp that were very fresh. She had fish, cabbage and potatoes. It all was really good. Then some man that was sitting near me couldn't eat his sundae so I helped him with it....it was a fruit salad! They take fruit and rum and mix it up and then stick a few scoops of icecream on top and THEN put whiped cream and chocolate sauce on it. I was overly excited when he gave me nearly half of it. I suppose he didn't realize the size of it when he ordered it. After that we did a little touristy shopping and took the ferry back. Then we had to wait for the ship to come back because it had to move to let a few other cruise ships in. Then I went out with my friends for gellato, and everyone seemed to be in a better mood, including myself. I'll admit I was cranky, I needed some nap/sun/outdoorsy time. We ate our icecream on the pier and it was nice to just sit outside and chat. Then we decided to go to the bar called skybar. We had a few drinks and then listened to the folk music playing outside and headed over to the club. You may be wondering why I've decided to inform my blog of this. Well the club was inside a CASTLE. So we went dancing in a castle, pretty much the coolest place I've ever had a drink in my life. If you looked up it was all old brick and everything. It made for a strange accoustic, and people could smoke inside so it was like a fog machine. I also met an Australian guy named John  and we had a funny chat about animals. I told him he should go visit Locrum (another island) because of the peacocks that live there and since i hadn't gotten to see it. He wasn't that excited since duh Australia has them, then he was shocked that I've never really seend  a kangaroo. Those sort of things are what I really enjoy learning about people. After that my friends and I headed back, and then I promptly slept until 1 the next day haha I had lunch and then that was when we went grocery shopping. Which isn't as easy as it seems. Nothing is in english so telling laundry detergent from softener is quite tricky, or conditioner from shampoo...this is unless you find an american brand. haha I bought a couple funky types of granola...well what I think is granola...it might be Croatian Surprise for all I know. We can't have twist top bottles on the ship because people might try and smuggle alcohol on board..and they don't want us drinking anything except their alcohol...so I bought juice boxes. I also got a couple snicker bars for when I crave chocolate. Oh, and more shampoo I'm almost out. Then I just sat outside and chatted with my friends while they used internet, I was going to use it, but they had stopped selling passwords because of the sheer number of people using it. So I just updated facebook using Jeff's computer, but then I forgot a few things. So yet again I will try and get dependable internet in Piraeus, Greece. Of which is our next port of call, and is 20 minutes from Athens.. There's not a heck of a lot to do in either place, so I may end up seeing the last Harry Potter movie after all. I spent the night still meeting new people on the ship and doing homework...I miss Croatia it was the prettiest place I've seen so far...maybe second to the Tuscan Valley. Well I need to get to bed....I will try and write about Greece in multiple writings instead of just one. Sorry about that!! :-/  I hope all is well. Hug a maple for me. Seriously, all the foliage is different here. haha

Bog!

Gwen