Conquering Croatia!

For my last full weekend I took my exhausted body to the land of Croatia! As much as traveling is fun it is very exhausting on the body, especially when you travel some place different for 6 weekends straight. On Thursday (6/14/12) I accidently slept through my first class. My roommate has class before me and when she got back she was like what are you doing?! You have class right now! So instead of going to class we spent the day relaxing, cleaning, and packing up for our big weekend. At 9:00 pm on Thursday we got to the bus station to meet the rest of the group. There we checked in like usual and made our way to the buses. But this time when we got to the bus there was a surprise..students from Rome were already on the bus. We had big plans and high hopes of being the first ones on the bus so we could get the good seats for the long 12 hour bus ride. So instead we found a set of two open seats and plopped down. It didn't take long before we found ourselves extremely uncomfortable. The Rome gals in front of us thought it would be a good idea to recline there seats back as far as they possibly could. Keep in mind--they don't make these bus with tall people in mind. It was a very cramped ride and it didn't take long until we were brainstorming different ways to rearrange ourselves to be more comfortable. My roommate ended up laying down on the floor where our legs usually would go and I got the seats. Then after a couple hours we switched spots. The floor isn't my favorite spot but the space and being able to stretch out was so worth it. We arrived in Split, Croatia at about 9:00 am to piping hot weather conditions and checked into our hostel (Goli I Bosi) and had some breakfast. In Split Croatia there is a huge palace called Diocletian that was abandoned many years ago and lies on the south side of a short peninsula running out of the Dalmatian coast. Our hostel was actually in the palace and you can also find different shops and restaurants in and around it too. Once we got situated in our hostel we needed to get some Croatia money. It was difficult to gage how much money to withdraw because the currency and worth is so different from the dollar or Euro. For example; 12 kunas is equivalent to $2.00 American. So we ended up withdrawing $300 kunas which is about $50.00 American and it got me pretty far, lasted me the whole weekend! At this point the majority of the group left to go do white water rafting and me and my roommate headed for the beach. There were two to choose from--a sandy white touristy beach or a rocky pretty secluded beach. We thought we were headed in the direction of the sandy beach but ended up at the rocky one. It was still a good beach, nice to be away from the big crowds and group. The water was so pretty and blue, you could see through it! The only downer was that there was no breezy--it was so hot we were reapplying sunscreen countless number of times! After a few hours we were sun drained and decided to make our way back to the hostel for some lunch. For some reason all we were coming across were pizza places and that was the last thing we wanted. At this point my roommate and I were starting to get really irritated and annoyed at everything and each other because we were tired, hungry, and I was apparently being picky! So we finally find a place with salads, burgers, sandwiches and that kind of stuff. I ordered what I thought was a nice big salad with grilled chicken on it based on the picture and turns out to be the exact opposite. It was a very small salad, with minimal lettuce, chicken, onions, tomatoes, and cucumbers. It wasn't awful tasting by all means but the size and the fact that it hardly had any lettuce was disappointing. Once we finished our lunch we headed back back to the hostel for showers and much needed naps! Then when we woke went had dinner at the restaurant in the hostel, it wasn't anything special. Word on the street was that there was a 16 euro pub crawl happening so we decided to tag along. At the first bar we were told that it was all you can drink but what they didn't tell us is that the selection was very minimal. There ended up being three choices and it was the really cheap nasty stuff. I spent most of the night playing the roll of the mom. I ended up finding a girl that was staying in the same hostel as us on the street very drunk and with strangers so I brought her back to the hostel along with my drunk roommates, it was an eventful night! One of the bars we stopped at was outdoor with music and lights and was right by the water, it was pretty neat! The next morning (Saturday)We left at 10:00 am to go island hopping. Which included a lunch of either chicken, fish (whole), or vegetarian and all you can drink wine. I went with the chicken and it wasn't that bad. The unlimited wine on the other hand was so awful that people were mixing there juice or pop with it to make it taste better.we arrived at our first island and were there for 45 minutes. There was one kiosk souviner shop in sight but most of us went to the grocery store to get water, goggles, blow up rafts and snacks. Then we got back on the boat ate lunch and headed for the second and last island. The boat wasn't able to make it to the port so we ended up just jumping off and swimming to shore. Some people put there towels and cameras on a raft and swam them to. Thankfully my camera is waterproof so I just swam with it. The beach was small but had soft sand and the water was beautiful and crystal clear! We were there about three hours then we got back on the boat and headed back to Split. Once we got back bus2alps (the student travel group we came through) was organizing a group to go to this city 30 minutes away for dinner but we decided to do our own thing. Many of the students on the boat were acting obniouxly drunk all day that we just couldn't handle them any more for the day. For example; a friend of mine got peed on because a girl passed out on the boat and peed herself. Another girl was so drunk that she was at the front of the boat and did a front flip down the stairs to the main part of the boat. Any way, so we got back to the hostel, took showers then headed out to dinner. I was determined to find myself some breaded shrimp! We went to a restaurant a man at the hostel recommended but they didn't have breaded shrimp. We looked around for awhile and were having no luck and we were getting to the point that we were so hungry and tired that we started to get ornery with each other. So we ended up going back to the place where I got the salad the day before. This time I went with the chicken nuggets and French fries, it wasn't anything special at all. Once we were done with dinner at about 9ish my roommate Megan and our friend Allison wanted to go back to the hostel and call it a night. I still had Kaunas to burn before the morning because we weren't going to have any shopping time in the morning because we were leaving early. Because they are such good friends and didn't want me walkin the town alone they decided to come with me (: we walked around for a little while and bought some souviners. One ofnthe outdoor kiosks we stopped at the owner was very friendly and asked if we were Americans and proceeded to tell us that we are very lucky to be because the economy there is so very bad. It was really sad and made me think about all the complaining we as Americans do regarding our economy and to here someone say we're really lucky was convicting and touching at the same time. And of course after hearing that we couldn't walk away and not buy something so we did! After a little souviner shopping i still had some kunas to burn so i treated us to a little late night snack, some deep fried dough balls with nutella and powder sugar and some cinnamon roasted almonds! The night life reminded me of Key West, you'll know what I mean if you've been. Random street performers Skattered around all putting on different acts for a donation along the water. After our late night snack we all agreed it was time to call it a night since we had to wake up early to get back on the road. The next morning we got on the bus, even got there early to get good seats and it still didn't happen! People were crowding and pushing each other that it just wasn't worth it. Once we got on the bus our next destination was Krka national park (google image it!), which was about 2 hours away from Split. There we saw some beautiful waterfalls and got to swim in one of them--pictures to come, as soon as I get home! Before we got there we were thinking about skipping the swimming in the waterfalls but once we got there that changed quickly. It was so beautiful and so hot out that we would be stupid not to go in. Side note--the cool water felt so good on the sun burn I got on my back from the day before. After we swam and took pictures in the water falls we sat down for some lunch and used up the last of Kaunas before we left Croatia. I got myself some French fries and sasauge. If I would have known I was ordering breakfast sasauge I wouldn't have gotten it, but oh well! What can you do when you cant ask questions about the menu due to a language barrier. You just gotta guess and hope for the best and it really wasnt that bad! After a good three hours at Krka we all piled back on the bus for the dreaded 12 hour bus ride home. Thankfully this time the fella in front of me reclined his seat a reasonable amount without taking up the little leg room I had to begin with. This helped make the ride a little more bearable (: we arrived back in Florence at about 11:00 pm, just in time to wish my Dad happy fathers day!! We shared stories with our roommates about our weekend then put it to a close and called it a night. It was yet another successful weekend trip through Europe! The only thing I'd change about the weekend would be some of the people on the trip. Other then that it was great! Now that I've conquered Croatia its time to take on finals week here in Florence and soak up every moment as I will be heading home on Monday (6/25/12). This week has in store for me roughly 4 papers to be completed as I've put them off this whole time. Thankfully there short ones compared to papers back in the states! It's bittersweet thinking about leaving Florence and going home. It's been an amazing adventure filled with tons of memories and growth. I am beyond blesed to have been able to experience this and travel the places I've been. I hope one day to come back and explore the rest of Europe--with my roommate Megan, hahahah (she wanted in my blog). Well that's all for now. I think Megan and I are gonna attempt to watch a movie to wind down the day but when ever we do we never seem to make it through it, we always fall asleep from pure exhaustion. Until next time--ciao! Xo-