Croatia

Hi there! Ja'Nae again. I am in charge of getting our blogs completed today while Beth works on our taxes.

We are still on a high from our trip as we met our fellow passengers last night for a drink. What a great time. Such a shame to go from beautiful weather to rainy weather, but at least I can get back in my routine. (Geez, I am starting to sound like Beth now!)

Croatia was beautiful. We spent 8 days sailing along the different islands and had the chance to swim in the salty, blue Adriatic Sea. Again, all of our pictures are on Facebook but hopefully we will post some of the best ones on our blog.

Day 1 (Friday) - It's my birthday and we spent 4 hours of it travelling to Split, Croatia. 15 minutes away from landing, my head begins to feel like it is going to explode. I had a bit of a sinus infection and the pressure from the flight was making things much worse. My forehead had a sharp shooting pain and my ears wouldn't pop for the life of me. When we arrived at the Split Airport, we were very surprised at how small it was. Only two people were working the Passport Control line, which is unheard of and once you passed that in 2 minutes you were outside. We waited outside for a bit to catch the bus since it was pretty cheap to get into the city this way vs a cab. We waited and waited hoping that a bus would show up. After 10 minutes, we met another couple girls that were on our flight and waiting for the bus as well. We chatted about the bus situation and what we should do. One of the girls asked a rent a car company when the next bus was coming, he told us it would be another two hours because that is when the next flight comes in. At that point we were a bit frustrated because the bus obviously didn't wait for EVERYONE to get off the plane before it left. After waiting 30 minutes for the bus, we decided just to take a cab because it didn't make sense for us to wait another 2 hours. We negotiated 40 Euro to get to the city centre. After almost getting killed because the driver didn't really know how to drive and someone almost ran us off the road, we still had to negotiate the price because it seemed as though he was trying to rip us off. Whatever, we were in Croatia and I was ready to have a good time. Beth and I were a bit skeptical on our hotel that I had booked for the night. The name of the place we were staying had apartments not hotel listed. We had no idea what to expect. We weren't able to find the reception so I ended up calling and the owner came by and picked us up. The place we were staying was quite nice! I expected pure crap, but the furnishings and style was quite modern and sleek. I will be staying there again!!! I didn't mention that Beth and I travelled in jeans, so once we arrived in our hotel room, we quickly changed into shorts and put on our spf 50. We walked around Split, ate gelato twice, bought a bottle of wine, and had a nice dinner. Ater dinner we always feel that it is appropriate to walk it off. And we did just that. We walked up 750 stairs (it may have been less, but it felt like that many) to reach one of the highest points in Split. We have pictures of the stairs and the views too.

Day 2 (Saturday)- Woke up and had breakfast and made our way to the meeting point for our tour. Our tour consisted of visiting 5 islands, swimming in multiple coves, and sleeping on a cruise boat (sleeps 20 people). As we waited at the meeting point, we stared at one of the boats hoping that it was ours and luckily it was. Soon, we were on the boat and getting settled into our rooms. We had a meeting just after lunch where our tour guide, Kasey, explained the house rules and the itinerary for the week. Everyday we had breakfast from 8 to 10, swim at 11, lunch at 1, and arriving at our destiation at around 4 or 5. Shortly after our meeting we make our first swim stop. As most of you know, I am not a big fan of water and I don't know how to swim. Beth, on the other hand is completely opposite. Prior to our trip, I took swimming lesssons (5) thinking they would make me feel more comfortable in the water and it did. But I still didn't know how to relax enough so that I could float or tread water. The first swim stop I did get in the water but held on for dear life onto the ladder. The captain of the ship had his family on board and his kids or grandkids were watching me. I think they were making fun of me, but I have no idea because they were speaking Croatian. Rude little bastards!!! We make our way back onto the boat and make the attempt to shower before reaching Makarska. If you haven't seen the pictures of the shower, then you should. The place where we showered was the same as the toilet. So imagine a stand up shower, with a sink, and toilet. The shower was connected to the faucet. If the boat wasn't moving, hot water and pressure were hard to come by. Since this was our first night as a group, we all stuck together and had dinner together too. My dinner was not so appetizing. I should've known when I asked the waiter what type of meat it was and his response was 'Mixed. Like hamburger meat' that I shouldn't have eaten it. It did not taste anything like hamburger!!!!! We spent the rest of the night walking along the beach and later meeting everyone at a bar to dance the night away. Being the old couple we are, we headed back to the boat at midnight. I am not sure when everyone else came home, but this was one of the quietest nights of the week.

Day 3 (Sunday)- We wake up and we were already making our way to our next destination- Trstenik. Nothing like waking up to the sun and sea. The ride was a bit bumpy though and most people were seasick (or hungover from the night before). Not too many people went swimming on that day. Trstenik was a VERY small place, smaller than Vermillion, South Dakota. It really took about 15 minutes to walk through the town, but still a lovely town. Croatia is knows for its wine, olives, and olive oil. The wineries are on the sides of very high hills so that when it rains, the grapes soak up what they need and let the rest run off, and due to the position of the water (reflection of the sun) and sun. I didn't realize there was such a science to wine-making. The hills are so steep that the workers have to wear harnesses to prevent themselves from falling. Beth and I decided against wine tasting and hit the beach instead. We swam for about 2 minutes and realized that these little fish were attacking Beth ( I guess she just tasted so sweet!) But seriously they were nibbling at her feet and ankles and it just freaked her out. So she didn't swim for very long. Istayed in the water a bit longer and then they started following me! I quickly made my way out of the water. We think the fish in the water may be those pedicure fish that eat the dead skin from your body, but nothing has been confirmed! Later that night we had a Pirate Party. We didn't have anything that resembled a pirate and didn't want to rip our clothing so we just attended as civilians. The boat party consisted of a few competitions such as tug of war, bobbing for apples, ice cream eating contest, and an arm wrestling contest. I participated in the bobbing for apples contest while my muscle woman wife did the arm wrestling. I am not going to complain, but I think that my team won the bobbing for apples competition. My team did win the tug of war competition fair and square! Our tour also went against another tour - Sail Croatia to see who could win at tug of war, of course we won!!!!! We even did a best two out of three!! Go Travel Talk!!!! (I didn't want to mention it, but Beth lost in arm wrestling.)

Next posts will cover the rest of the trip.