ciao everyone!
i hope april has been enjoyable for everyone.
croatia has turned out to be one of my favorite places yet. after a wicked 23 hours of bus and train travel with a quick stop in bosnia, i ended up in dubrovnik (its a city near the bottom of croatia). its hard to say now because its too soon after being there, but it may just be my favorite city in the world (so far). but then again, its always hard to fairly judge a city because the people you meet there count for so much.
it was great being at a hostel again. i hung out with one of my roommates for nearly the whole time there: Urban, a cool swedish snowboarder traveler. i'm really glad he was there because our other roommate "old man," didn't get along with either of us. we had a bit of communication difficulties.
its a bit difficult to describe why dubrovnik is one of my favorite places. its just perfectly beautiful. a small walled "old town" with marble streets and red tile roofs...all right on the sea. the first day urban and i walked the top of the city walls for a few hours and then climbed a mountain to see an old fort where a lot of fighting happened in the early 90s. it was really strange up there because they just left it after the fighting, so you can explore the building and imagine what it was like. the best part was bullet holes and the ends of each hallway and on one side a desk turned on its side, to be used as a shield, with more bullet holes. it was like walking onto a movie set but creepy because it was real.
the next day was relaxation day with some time at the beach. we asked an english family if it was alright if we left our stuff with them while we swam, which turned into them adopting us for the rest of our time there. it was great because the oldest daughter traveled in thailand and australia, so her family understood how things were for us. it was one mom, three daughters and one friend of the youngest daughter. my favorite moment at the beach was a competition between Urban (aged 27) and the friend of the youngest daughter (aged 14) of who can stay in the water (ice cold water) the longest. i think Urban did the right thing by walking out of the water first, only because i'm pretty sure hypothermia was setting in for both of them. his core body temperature dropped a bit because he was still shaking about 25 minutes later. that night we (Urban, me and the english family) went to an irish pub and talked for about 6 hours. they are some good people--and incredibly honest with each other. I'll be visiting them in england someday.
After such a good day, urban and i decided to stay another and visit an island just off of dubrovnik. i guess he's also into rockclimbing so we took the long way around. there's a nude beach (although, in my mind beach implies sand, which this place had none. only big rocky levels). i think we scared the crap out of the one naked man on the island because we weren't on the look out for naked people (the water is freezing!). he was on the boat back, but fully clothed and sunburned. i think we had a moment of "oh, you're the naked guy" and "oh, you're the ones that snuck up on me." One more night at the irish pub, but with even more random people. it started to feel like dubrovnik was getting to be a home.
Urban left in the morning for montenegro and i went to the beach (the non-nude one just outside of the wall) where i met amy and jess (two of the daughters). it was a great last day of dubrovnik.
for the past three days, i've been on islands off of croatia: korcula and hvar. in korcula i got an amazing room in someones house that was right on the sea and had the best view of the old town at sunset, and it was only about 1.75$ more than the one that looked at a wall--probably my most well spent 3.50 of the trip (i stayed two nights). tonight i go to a city called Split for a night and then its another overnight bus to Trieste, italy. i think it is easier to get there and then go back to Slovenia to see Piran. i'm not sure really, i just point at the map and they point at a bus.
i'm happy i chose to go to slovenia and croatia. slovenia was exactly what i was hoping for and croatia was probably the coolest surprise country of the trip (so far).
well, have a good day.
your friend
chad
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