Croatia was a blast and the men are beautiful

I hate to say I love Croatia, but I do. I think I am just gonna love EVERYWHERE we go! They are so different but amazing in their own way… like Barcelona was just hoppin all the time, Italy was so happy (I just don’t know how else to describe it!), and Croatia is freaking chill and rustic and normal. It was way hot everyday, allday, but the geography and people made it so much better. It had all the best parts of a city- mountains, trees, a beach, and islands- but the people are what sold it. Besides a few (alright, like 15) old women we saw with hairy moles, Croatia has the prettiest people. Everyone is tall and has dark hair, which makes for a super saucy guy hahah. But for real, Croatia is probably the one country we have visited thus far that I could actually live in.


DAY ONE---

This morning we woke up at 8 as always for breakfast, so me and Amanda went over to get Nikki and Kellie (since they are roomies and Amanda and I are neighbors). They have a window and outside was… phenomenal. All the houses are white with red tile roofs and the water is the bluest thing I have EVER seen. We had breakfast on the deck and… golly. It is awesome pretty.

Once we cleared customs at like 9:45 we all went out immediately. Since Nikki, Miranda, and I had FDPs at 1, we decide to split from the rest and go see as much of the city as possible. Well, we ended up only walking like a mile in cause there was soooo much to do! I exchanged my money to kuna and the dollars are so cute! It also makes me feel rich cause $1= 5.14 kuna. Let’ just say I have a couple of 200$ kunas in my purse hehehe.

So I was about 10 seconds away from selling my FDP to someone, since it wasn’t required, but Nikki convinced me to keep it…. And boy am I glad she did. We had a blast!!! It was called “Osojnik Village and Folk Show” and it was sooo much fun. Basically we hopped on a bus and went into the hills around Dubrovnik (which is like a super small and cute peninsula city in way south Croatia) and could see EVERYWHERE. I think it may be my luck to see the view of all the cities since I have seen them everywhere thus far. We went to a village-ish area (I brought like 50 out of my 200 silly bandz thinking there would be kiddos, but no) and went into this lady’s home. They immediately handed us a shot glass of plum flavored brandy (apparently the drink of Dubrovnik), a dried orange slice, and a candied fig. We didn’t know what to do with the brandy (sip? Pshhh we are NOT that cultured!) so we threw it back. Yuck, never again. The fig was not too tasty and the orange was alright. After that the lady and a man (who were both dressed in “traditional” garb of Croatia) sang and danced with a lijera (like a bango but smaller). We all started dancing with them and had a blast. Not a lot of bootie shaking like in the US, more finger snapping, clapping, and feet stomping. But it was fun nevertheless. After that they put out raw bacon with bread slices and handed us sticks with a sharpened edge. So we roasted our own bacon and toasted our own bread to make BLTs… minus the L and Ts hahaha. It was quite interesting. That kept us occupied for some time. Then they passed around a ton of wine, water, and OJ to keep everyone happy. For dinner (literally at like 5pm) they sat us all outside in this covered porch that overlooked the family garden and vineyard. Nikki and I stole grapes so shhhh hahaha. We had “traditional” salad, potatoes, and pork ribs… probably in the top 5 list of best things I’ve eaten on this trip. So yummy.

So we got dropped back off at the ship and sat around a bit. We were wayyyy sleepy, until we met up with Kellie, Amanda, Lindsey, Miranda, and Randy. Instead of going to Fuegos (the club that everyone is going to tonight, not the taco bar :(  ) we decided to walk in the old town (a super cute area of Dubrovnik) and find a place to chill. We ended up walking and walking and walking and walking, but the downtown area is so cute that none of us minded. The streets in Dubrovnik are like cliché ‘40s movie scenes… narrow streets, clothes hanging from windows, flowers in window pots, cool wooden doors… it is beautiful. Dubrovnik is by far the prettiest city. We found an Irish pub (always a safe bet) and walked in to see like 40 SASers. It was fun, but we decided to head back earlier for our early morning. On the way back we chanced upon “Buza” which is a famous bar. It is literally a hole in the old wall (the wall that encircled the city back in the 1100s ish) that you step out on and BAM is the water. It’s a big cliff-jumping bar (take a shot and jump!) but since it was nighttime obviously no one was doing it. So we sat and looked out (beautiful!) and left cause the drinks were expensive…. And it was a romantic spot and yeah. We were 5 girls. So we walked back and called it a night.


DAY TWO---

Wow, I love Dubrovnik so so so much. I know I say that about them all, but I do!! Today I was supposed to go on an FDP for my anthro class to Medugorje in Bosnia, but I bailed cause it seemed so dull. It was a required one so… we shall see what type of trouble I get into. Oops! So today we went on a cruise to three islands on a boat! It was with all SASer and was only 50$ for a whole day of fun and lunch, so we went! We were told of it yesterday by a girl on the Osojnik trip and decided to just go for it.

So we walked out of the ship at 9am with about 40 other SASers and walked over to the docks. The captain was THE cutest man ever- Mario. He was super sweet and made us listen to his Croatian music, which I actually enjoyed! We were cruising along when he gave Amanda the wheel and started passing out what he called “Moonshine.” It was in an old Jack Daniel’s bottle and had sea weed in it so everyone was kind of just like “what the heck may as well!” Yuck. I shall never have moonshined Croatian liquor in my life ever again hahaha. It tasted like pee. After that I think he felt bad so he gave us cookies hahah.

Island #1 was called Lopud and it was really fun. We all jumped in the Adriatic at the same time and it would have been an AWESOME picture… if someone had taken it haha. The water was freezing and super salty, but because it was boiling it was perfect. I went off to go climb rocks and cliff jump around the side of the island with people while Amanda, Nikki, and Kellie stayed in the beach with the others. Me and Emily (the girl I lost the drinking game to at Sr. Frogs) were climbing every which way trying to find a non-sea urchin infested area to jump in… but no avail. So we ended up climbing to a huge rock and waiting for the rest of our troupe to catch up. We eventually frog dived in and swam back around the island. We hung out around there before leaving for the second island, where we would be having lunch.

It was a super cute little fishing village with not any tourists… way old with a cobblestone main road with a wall around it. The church looked like it got blown to smithereens (maybe it did!), but the city was adorable. We walked to Mario’s house, cause that was where we were having dinner. I thought we would have sandwiches or something, but no. They went all out and cooked a delicious 6-course meal for us!

They gave us an appetizer of bread, cheese, and ham, chicken noodle soup, a salad with homegrown veggies and delish tomatoes, a side course of mussels (I tried them and ate like 7. So flipping good!!!!), a main course of fish (literally a whole fish cooked. I tried some and I could’ve eaten it. Sooooo good.) or chicken with mash potatoes. Dessert was little donut hole tasting things with sugar and cinnamon. To drink was moonshine brandy (to start with) and moonshine red (sooo strong) or white wine (it was brown). All of it was super amazing and was WELL worth the $50, EASY. Mario’s little son was serving us and he was soo cute. We were teaching him some slang English words hahah. The bathrooms at the house were literally an outhouse hahah. SO COOL.

After literally having to roll out of there, we went back to jump into the water before going to island 3. There were little kids playing in the water and were splashing us, so we splashed them back! It turned into a pushing match where we pushed them in and they tried to push us in. They were adorable and really hard to get in!! They were so rowdy hahah. Super adorable though. When we left we were trying to say bye in Croatian but majorly failed (dovindenja= hard to say) and said it in English. They understood and then it turned into a “let’s say bye in every language possible” competition. They won, needless to say. It was super cute when they repeated our adios (I guess they didn’t know that one!)

On the cruise to the 3rd island, we just hung out and swam since we were pooped. We headed back and crashed for a bit and then a few of us went out. Croatian men are SMOKIN. So perfect in everyway.

DAY THREE----

Since the ship had to be moved out to the middle of the port today (cause a bigger ship needed our space!) we had to leave before 9am or get stuck there until 11. So we left with the intent to find a kayaking/snorkeling place. We went into a few, but ended up with a gem. We somehow got 20% off and it was like $20 USD for a 3 hour tour and lunch. Nikki, Kellie, Amanda, and I had a blast! Amanda and I shared one and we were quite the team paddling across the channel to Lokrum Island! We went all the way around and saw the whole place, caves and all! We paddled past a nudie beach… which was ALL nude, not just topless. Eww for old naked men! Thank goodness there are not too many of those in Texas… hahah.

After that we got dindin at the only Mexican food restaurant in the whole country (maybe)! It wasn’t nearly as good as Fuegos or Alamo Café, but it was pretty dang delicious for Croatian-Mexican hahahah. Sooo good. After that we looked for a theater playing Harry Potter (SINCE IT CAME OUT LIKE 2 DAYS AGO!) but sadly the last showing of the night was at 9:30 (HOW LAME!). We split up after that- Amanda and Kellie went out while Nikki and I went back cause she pulled a muscle in her arm paddling. It isn’t surprising cause it was ridiculous hard. The channel between Lokrum and Dubrovnik was probably like a mile, but we had to go super fast cause cruise ships pass through there and we almost got hit! So poor thing. We ended up missing our bus stop with a lifelong learner couple and ended up 2 cities away hahah. Just our luck… I swear public transportation has it out for us. So it took us 1.5 hours to get back to our ship, when it would’ve taken a 40 minute walk. Haha oh well!

DAY FOUR---

We had a great idea to get up EARLY and get out of the ship by 7:45am to walk the walls of the old city. Needless to say, only Amanda and I woke up. We ended up seeing Randy at breakfast and inviting him to go with us to walk the wall. Basically, back in the day (1100s??), this huge long and thick wall was made to protect the city, complete with towers. When we got there it was like 8:15 and BOILING outside. Dubrovnik is super duper hot, we were all dying. But we soldiered through and walked the whoooole thing in about 2 hours, by which time we were completely pooped. The walls had an incredible view of both old and new Dubrovnik and the sea! It was really cool and… well, as fun as it can be at 9am in 100 degree weather (no joke, 37 degrees Celsius at 9:15. That’s like 98 degrees!! Yuck.).

After that we decided a dip in the ocean was in order, so we walked until we found an exit and jumped right in. The water felt AWESOME. After that, we decided it was time to meet up with the other girls, but realized that when I left my phone with them, I forgot to give them my passcode haha oops! We accidentally ran into them while we were eating lunch and decided to hit up Buza (the cliff diving bar) and hang out. A ton of SAS people were already there and it was so fun watching them all jump (I didn’t. Amy= chicken hahah).

The guys jumped off a 60 ft rock that was by the bar of Buza, which I thought was impressive until they climbed up all the way to the middle of the wall. They got out on some rocks and were literally like 90 feet above the water with plenty of rocks and boulders to hit on the way down. I though they were gonna die! But they didn’t and it was AWESOME. It was a solid 5 second fall and it looked painful yet so cool. After that we just headed into the ship and we all passed out before a lifeboat drill.

Croatia was awesome and I hope I come back someday! I really loved it, but I think I will love every country we go to haha… oh well. I liked how we didn’t go to museums everyday and instead saw the landscape, it was a nice change of pace! Right as I was just about to get teh language and it is time to move on. Now for 2 days of icky class again and then the history and beaches of Greece!! Let's see how good I am at sounding out non-english letters! Yayayyayy hahaha... yikes.

γεια σου!!