Croatia. Is. Hands. Down. The. Most. Beautiful. Place. I've. EVER. Been.
But seriously, if you have some spare change laying around and need a place to go to relax, go on a honeymoon, go on a second honey moon...this part of the world is where its at. Just picture the cute light stone houses with red rooves among so many trees in between the stony mountains and the perfectly blue water. Its really incredible.
We ported in Dubrovnik 3 (or maybe 4?) days ago. The port is either a 20 min walk or a 1 hour walk away from the old city depending on who you ask. I personally walked for 35min and was no where near the city walls. Whether that is a sign of how bad I am with directions or how much I exaggerate is a good question hehee.
Regardless, the first day I didn't have a field excursion until 1 pm (or 1300 shipboard time!!) so my crew and I attempted to make it into the city. That did not work but we did stumble upon a grocery store called Konzum which is remarkably similar to grocery stores in America - a refreshing change from the past two ports which have had real weird grocery stores the size of gas stations. I suppose the size of the grocery stores in America probably directly correlates with our circumferences.
Anywho so we stumble into Konzum just trying to get a nice cold something to drink and what do we find? Apple juice in these weird carton things except they call it apple nectar. I was a little skeptical but it was only 4.99 Kuna - AKA 1 US dollar so I got it. IT WAS THE BEST JUICE I'VE EVER HAD IN MY LIFE. it was literally a liquid green apple. fabulous. (this will come into play later in this port too I promise!)
The we go a pastry for very cheap and go back on the boat so that I made my field excursion bus.
My trip was to the old city which is basically a fortress so it has these really thick walls / watch towers / etc. surround all of the red-roof houses. (literally every roof is red. I think its probs a building regulation kind of thing) So we climb up these walls and walk all around it. I have no idea how long it was because they told us in kilometers and I can't quite grasp that...hahah
So then after becoming a sweaty mess, I came back to the ship to meet up with my friends and make our way back to the old city. Lucky for us / the rest of the cruise community, there is a bus that runs from the port to the city that comes about every 10 minutes and takes less than that to get there. Its a major time save and only 10 Kuna!
That night we got dinner right in front of the clock tower. Best quesadilla I've ever had in my life. It tasted sweet? but it worked. Then a few of us went to a piano jazz bar. Really cool atmosphere and its right outside in the middle of one of the main squares. Funny story - we tried to order a glass of wine each and dessert to split. Something got lost in translation so we ended up getting a glass of wine each and a dessert wine to split... oh Croatia!
Next morning I had a trip to Montenegro which is actually a different county than Croatia. They both used to be part of Yugoslavia. This turned into a mini nightmare. I set my alarm for 6:35 becuase my trip left at 8 and I wanted to meet Amanda for breakfast. (Fun fact: Amanda is from Hawaii!)
Well turns out I set my alarm for 6:35 PM...!! So I woke up at 7:57 by the shear grace of God and my roommate's watch alarm that we can't figure out how to turn off. I am immediatly stressed out. This is so bad. I haven't showered since the previous morning and I was suppose to meet for the trip at 7:45. I honestly almost started crying. But then I pulled it together and threw on a dress that was still wet because I washed it the night before. On my way to the bus I bobby pinned my hair up (thank goodness for the "poof") and threw the rest in a bun. I got to my bus out of breath at exactly 8:01. Pretty impressive actually.
I'm sitting on the bus for about 7 minutes when I realize I DONT HAVE MY PASSPORT. So I get off the bus which thankfully hadn't left yet and ran up to my room in record time, got my passport and got back on the bus. SO BAD.
Then follows an hour or so of super high winding roads and extreme nausea from not eating anything and not having my trusty little earth water bottle. But its ok because it was EVEN MORE beautiful than Croatia and definitly worth it. Words and pictures wont even do this place justice. Plus the bandwith limits wont allow me to upload pictures. But look it up online. We drove through / around all of these inner bays that were so remote that that they looked like lakes. Turns out, this aread used to be a valley until the Adriactic Sea (I think) flooded it.
We stopped at Kotor which is a UNESCO World Heritage site. It is another fortress type city with the walls, the saints, the cathedrals, the works! Really pretty and we got a guided tour and we got to tour the catherdral and the museum upstairs. Then it was off to the next place - a small village / cheese farm out in the stoney hilly countryside of Montenegro only accessible through roads with "hairpin turns" (according to our tour guide)
While we're all freaking out winding through these super crazy roads, our tour guide then told us a joke: "A priest and a bus driver died driving on this road. When they got to heaven, God said he will only let one of them in. God chose the bus driver. Outraged, the priest asked 'Why?!' God replied 'When you were doing your job, everyone was sleeping. When he was doing his, everyone was praying.' " bhahaha
The cheese village was very quaint. Basically just alot of farms and then a big house / restraunt where you can buy their home-smoke ham and home-made cheese sandwiches on their home-made bread. I didn't realize that Montenegro only takes Euro...so I did not buy one.
Next stop - lunch time! We went to yet another area, this time - a city (sorry I have no specific names for these places!). Got lunch and then had half hour of free time so I walked around the harbor and the old city / fortress there. Then back on the bus and time to go home and SHOWER.
That night we went out to the old city again! Pretty much every night we made our way there. Last night we went for dinner again. I had the best salad of my life with super fresh feta cheese! One thing I love about these old cities like Dubrovnik and Rome, there are huge fountains with safe drinking water all over the city, so you can refill your water whenevery you want and don't have to pay for it!
After getting dinner we walked around for a little "exploring" aka wandering aimlessly thoughout the city. We stumbled upon a dock and hung out there for a while. Then we went to meet our friends at a club. It was 11 and I was so tired. We got to the club and they told us that it doesn't really open for another hour or so. Since I felt that I would probably fall asleep in an hour no matter where I was, a few girls and I left to go back to the boat. I couldn't hang - I'm gettin to old for this! ;) But we didnt leave befor gettin nutella and banana crepes!
This morning we were extra productive. Woke up at 7, breakfast at 8, off the boat by 8:30. We went to the old city (of course) to hit up the beach and go kayaking. For only 60 kuna (12 bucks) we got to rent kayaks for an hour. So we kayaked around the city walls and one of the harbors and then Kaleigh and I kayaked out to one of the islands. Ah it was so cools. You could HEAR the island there were so many birds / bug / wildlife on it! Plus it was super far away so I was pretty freaking pleased with myself that we got there and back in an hour. We also got to spend alot of time swimming and stuff. The water there is amazing and clear. Also it was a nice not crowded familyish beach.
Then we went to lunch where we all got pizza (typical Americans) and I got fresh lemonade. And let me tell you - they weren't kidding! I basically was drinking lemon juice hahah but it was really good!
After lunch we found the war museum. Really neat place. Basically its just all of these pictures with stories under them about the people. For anyone who doesn't know, there was a civil war / genocide in Yugoslavia in the 90s with concentration camps, rape camps, the whole nine yards. Thats basically what the museum was about. It was really modern but mostly just really sad. Glad I went tho - I learned alot.
Then we came back to the boat. But not befor stopping back at Konzum to get more of that apple nectar. We were all so excited to spend out last 10 - 12 Kuna buying juice to bring back onto the boat. Usually youre not allowed to bring twist caps on board because you could have "contaminated it" (put alcohol / drugs in it) But they let Vanessa bring on these juice box things with caps two days ago so we bought HUGE things of it.
They wouldnt let us on. This was not funny at the time. I luckily only bought a liter of it. Vanessa bought 3.5 liters. HAHAHAH. So we had to sit outside and drink it or throw it away. I drank probably 3/4 of it until it was no longer good or worth it. Too much sugar!
The next two days are class days in which I have a huge midterm paper due and a test. Then we'll be in Greece!!
Dovidenja (Goodbye in Croatian!)
