Split, Brac, Sarajevo, Hvar...

August 1, 2007

I’ve done a LOT of traveling in the past few days. First I made it over to Brac (the island where the Arnerich family comes from!), which is about a 50-minute ferry from Split. There is another 40-minute bus to the town of Bol where the beach is. I think this beach was one of the top three most gorgeous places I have ever been. It’s not a sand beach but it’s made up of small stones and the entire stretch is covered in beach chairs and umbrellas. The land stretches out in a long skinny peninsula and on one side it’s calm water and perfect for laying in the sun, while on the other it’s windy and wavy. There are a ton of wind surfers out there jumping almost 30 feet in the air and I got a lot of great photos. Along the beach were casual little restaurants and small hotels with tons of vacationers from all over the world. I don’t know if I’ve mentioned this but the ocean everywhere along the Croatian coast is completely crystal clear. It’s bright blue and you can see straight to the bottom where it’s shallow. The temperature is great too, cold enough to cool you off from the hot, hot sun but not as freezing as the ocean at home.
After coming back from Brac I had a trip planned with a few other people from the program to go to Sarajevo for the weekend. We booked a bus ride that took about 9 hours from Split to Sarajevo. I have heard a lot about the city, especially while studying the war in Bosnia and I was really interested to see what it looks like now. The bus ride was long and hot, but I have gotten used to being hot and sweaty pretty much all day long in this heat wave. The Bosnian countryside was absolutely beautiful. Everything was really green and there were small lakes and rivers all over the place. We didn’t see a single big city the whole time but lots of small villages and towns along the lakes. When we started pulling into the outskirts of Sarajevo we were all a little nervous because it looked really run down and dirty, but as we got closer to the center it looked more and more like a regular city. We stayed in a hostel in the Turkish area of town that was cheap and very nice, it was good that we had two of the foreigners from the program with us who speak the language so they could help us find our way around.
One of the girls from Northwestern had a professor who was living in Sarajevo so he met us at the hostel to take us to a dinner place that he recommended. We took cabs up and around the windy roads until we made it to a small outdoor restaurant with wooden tables that had the most incredible view of the city. You could literally see for miles and miles and from this height we could really appreciate what an interesting and beautiful city Sarajevo really is. The town is built in a valley between hills on every side and houses are completely packed into every available space. We watched the sun go down as the professor told us all about the history, culture, and architectural changes within the different time periods and influences over the city. As the sun finally set we heard the Muslim call to prayer, which happens five times a day, one of them being right at sun set. The call to prayer is like a long low series of sounds that are echoed all over the city and makes you feel like you are in a surround sound theater. That was an amazing moment to be able to see the full spectrum of the city and hear the call to prayer so loud and clearly.
We sat down to eat and the native speakers ordered a lot of great food for us. We started off with bread and cheese but the bread they served was really unusual and delicious. It was halfway between a doughnut and a roll but not too sweet. We were starving so we ate every last one and then they brought out salads (lettuce, cabbage, and tomatoes with oil and vinegar) and platters full of meat. The girl on the program from Zagreb mentioned that they served brain and everyone was grossed out but I said “my mom puts that in ravioli” which they all thought was disgusting. So she ordered us some fried brain along with a bunch of other meats. There was sausage, something called “cevapcici”, which are like sausages made of hamburger but with more flavor, potatoes and of course, fried brains. Everything was really good, but after a few full bites of brain I got a little grossed out by the brainy texture. Since I didn’t turn down trying snake in Vietnam I figured brain in Bosnia was something I had to try.
The view of the city at night was even more spectacular. There were thousands of lights filling the entire valley. We finished eating and started to walk down toward the center of town. It was actually cold at night in Sarajevo and I think this was the first time on this entire trip I have actually been cold. The professor took us to the center of town along the river and showed us exactly where the Archduke Franz Ferdinand of Austria was assassinated. He had us stand in the place where he said there used to be markings of where the assassin’s feet were at the time. This was the event that set off the war between Austria and Serbia and started World War One (I am learning some interesting stuff over here). After he gave us some more historical information he took us to where the nightlife of the town was. There were a lot more westerners than I had expected in Sarajevo. I heard a lot of English and I think there were more Americans there than in any other place I have been on this trip. We stayed out for a while to have a few drinks because it was Cambrey’s 20th birthday.
The next morning we walked around town a little and Jeffrey and I decided we really wanted to make it to Hvar (another island off of Croatia’s coast) so we took the 2:30 bus back to Split. The rest of the group stayed another night and left at 10am the next day. Our bus was a little faster going back and not quite as hot since it started later in the day. We had to cross the Serbian border again and give our passports to the driver to show to the border patrol. On the way to Sarajevo the bus was really full, and I think we were the only foreigners. When the driver came back on he started calling out names to give back passports or ID cards. We were laughing because literally every single name ended in “ich”. He called out maybe 25 of them, all ending the same and then stopped for a second and in a heavy accent said “Simpson?”, and the whole bus started cracking up. I guess Simonson is hard to pronounce over here.
We got back into Split around 9pm and had dinner, then got to bed so we could wake up and take the 8:30am ferry to Hvar. This ferry was almost two hours and then we took a 20-minute bus ride to the town of Hvar where all of the hotels, shops, and beaches are. The town of Hvar is gorgeous and perfect for anyone who owns a yacht. There were tons of giant boats lined up along the marina with restaurants and bars on the other side. The water was gorgeous as it is all over the coast and the people in Hvar were young and mostly very attractive. Jeffrey and I walked around the entire town trying to figure out where to stay so we could put our stuff down and go to the beach. We walked into one of the hotels in the center of town just to see what the price range on the island was. The cheapest room in that hotel was 350 Euros a night…about $500 a night. This was definitely much ritzier than the island of Vis where there was only one hotel in the town of Komiza. We found a place to stay that wasn’t too expensive and had a great view and spent the two days there sitting in the sun and relaxing. The nightlife in Hvar is supposed to be the best of the islands. There were groups of people dancing and drinking on the boats and lit up bars and restaurants all along the marina. The people-watching was great but the drinks were ridiculously expensive. After two days of getting sunburned and enjoying the atmosphere we took a late ferry back to Split.
Only one more day of class and then the final and I’ll be traveling for a few days in Venice before I get home Tuesday night!

From Vis to Split

Monday July 16, 2007

For the past week we have been enjoying our time on Vis. I have been going to breakfast, class, the beach, then napping and dinner pretty much every day. The actual town of Komiza where we are staying is tiny, but really beautiful and worth visiting.

The program put us up in a few different private apartments, which are the nicest accommodations we have had so far. I am staying in a room with another girl, Betsy, and then Leah and Katie are in a room connected to ours by a little kitchen. It is clean and nice and we have air conditioning! Unfortunately if you turn on the air conditioning and more than one light at a time it’s pretty likely that you will blow a fuse. I have taken a few showers in the dark so far. Life on Vis is relaxed and incredible, There are tourists but not nearly as many as the other places we have been and almost everyone sits in the sun all day and there is a solid few hour block of the afternoon where nobody works or does anything but nap and relax. At night there are cafes and restaurants all along the water where everyone sits and eats and drinks.
The women who live in the apartments that I am staying in are very nice and they make us breakfast every morning and dinner every night. The food is great. There is always homemade soup and some kind of meat or seafood and vegetables. There is also a lot of homemade wine on the tables at every dinner. One night a few of us decided to go to the lobster restaurant on the island that is supposed to be famous and known for attracting celebrities when they vacation there. We didn’t see any celebrities but the meal was amazing.
During the second week our lecturer was a man named Yoshko who was basically an old fisherman and the historian on the island. He was an interesting guy and he told us all about the life of a Croatian fisherman. For one of our day trips we took a small boat to an island called Bishevo where there is a famous cave called the “Blue Grotto”. We took a tiny boat into a small opening of a cave and once we entered inside it was literally glowing blue. There are areas under the water where light comes into the cave and creates the effect that makes everything an almost neon shade of blue. We took a lot of pictures but it was hard to capture what it looked like and felt like inside. For lunch Yoshko and the other fisherman cooked up a “fisherman’s lunch” for us. They brought a big grill on the boat with us and dug a hole in the pebbly beach where they made a small fire and threw in coals. After this heated up they put the grill on top and then out about a hundred small sardines. They cooked them and turned them right there on the beach and served them to us for lunch with big loafs of bread and salad made of tomatoes, cabbage, and onions. This was a great afternoon and we ended up with way too many sardines and bowls full of the sardine skeletons with heads still attached.
Leaving Vis was sad but we were ready to move on to Split. We loaded up all of our luggage and took cabs across the island to the ferry port. The ferry to Split was about 2 and a half hours and it was extremely hot and muggy the whole time. Once we arrived our program director met us and lead us to the bus station where we waited to take the bus to our new dorms. I can honestly say this transport from the ferry on the bus to the dorms was the hottest and sweatiest I have ever been in my entire life. Everyone was literally dripping with sweat and the bus driver opened the door while we were driving to cool everyone down. We finally made it to our dorms, which are about a 15-minute walk from the main part of town. The dorms in Split are probably my least favorite of any of the accommodations and I literally took my mattress out to the balcony to sleep the first few nights because it was so unbearably hot. We also discovered that every store in the city was sold out of fans. For the first few days we explored the city and went into every shop and restaurant we could all day because it was way too hot to walk back and sit in the dorms after classes.
We all went to see the Harry Potter movie because it was in English and it is really nice to sit in an air-conditioned theater for a few hours. Split is a great city, especially because it provides easy access to a lot of nearby islands. The main part of the city itself is within Diocletian’s Palace and is built out of white stone, just as Dubrovnik is. We took a tour of the main chapel and inside the palace walls then down below in the cool cellars. The incredible heat makes it a lot harder to enjoy Split but we are doing the best we can.

More...

Monday, July 2, 2007



Here is a photo from Vis where I'm jumping off the end of the dock. I managed to kick a sea urchin on my way out of the water, but I didn't realize it was a sea urchin so I didn't have anyone pee on my foot. Vis was beautiful and I will write all about it soon, the heat of Split has made everyone really lazy and all we've been doing is walking from store to store to enjoy the air conditioning that we don't have in our rooms. I am planning a trip to Venice with a friend from the trip for the last few days after my program ends and then I will be home two weeks from tomorrow! Can't wait to see everyone, and I will write and add more pictures soon!

Kelsey and Melissa arrived at 7am on Friday morning after a 9-hour ferry from Italy. We brought their luggage up to the apartment and walked around the Old City as things were just starting to open up. The market was open around 8am and we watched the locals set up booths of fruits, vegetables, and fish. We had omelets at a little restaurant and wandered around for a bit before deciding that we were going to take a boat to a nearby island called Loput. It took about 40 minutes by boat to get to Loput but we were excited to see that there were sandy beaches rather than just cliffs and rocks like the other islands. We rented some beach chairs for 10 kuna each and spent most of the day swimming and getting sun. We came back to shower and get ready for dinner after turning into lobsters in the sun. We went to dinner with 3 other friends from the program and had another great meal in Dubrovnik. I took Kelsey and Melissa to this bar that our director, Gordon, had showed us the night before. The bar is literally built into the cliffs on the outside of the city walls. It has three small levels and almost no lights, but it was a full moon so the reflection on the water lit everything up and it was beautiful. We sat to have a drink and listened to the Frank Sinatra that they were playing. We met up with some more kids from the program who were sitting at the Irish Bar again. We were all pretty tired from waking up so early so we headed home fairly early for bed.
On Saturday we went to Locrum, the closer island that I had already been to. We explored and went swimming and took pictures of the bright peacocks that live all over the island. We went back to the small “lagoon” to go swimming but right as we were going in to test the water we found a dead bird floating with no head. It was disgusting, and you could see right into its neck. One of the guys scooped it out with sticks but we were still too grossed out to swim there. We swam along the coast and lay out on the flat rocks all day instead. We came back in the afternoon to shower and went out to dinner before going to a few bars and the local club called “Fuego”. It was a fun night and we stayed out pretty late so Sunday we basically just slept in and napped.
We also went to one of the small markets and got some ham, cheese, prosciutto (here its Prsut), a loaf of bread and olive oil. The language barrier made this a little difficult and the woman seemed pretty confused. We came back to our little courtyard at the dorms and had a picnic of all the food, and it was delicious.
On Monday we had class in the morning, which included an architecture tour of the old city with our new professor from Northwestern. He pointed out the features that each building or church had that represented different time periods. We also went into the apothecary, which is said to be the third oldest pharmacy in the world.
While we had class Kelsey and Melissa walked the city walls. We came back to the dorm to change and walked to the ocean to swim for a while. There is a little cove about 5 minutes walk from the dorm where you can jump off the rocks and swim and lay on the concrete steps and ledges. The water there is a little dirty and there are a lot of little ids running around, but the location is great for us and it’s nice to dip in the ocean on such hot days. Kelsey, Melissa and I heard there was a smoothie shop in old town so we went with my roommate, Leah to find it. The shop is called “Fresh” and it has smoothies and wraps which is a big nice change from the bread, cheese, and meat that we have been eating all week. We got good homemade smoothies and a wrap that was similar to a burrito at home. Kelsey has been in Italy since last July but spent two weeks at home around Christmas so she was happy because she hadn’t had a burrito in 6 months. We shopped around and got some more snacks for the girls to take on their 9-hour ferry home. They left around 8 so they could walk down to the port and I had another late dinner and a good night sleep.

Wednesday, July 4, 2007
Yesterday we had classes in the morning and afternoon and then I went on a hike with one of the guys from the program. There is a huge hill behind the city that has great views from the top, but it’s a long walk to get up there. We had to start around the entrance to the Old City and walk up hundreds of steps to get to the base of the hill. After all the steps there were foot paths that zigged and zagged back and forth about 25 times to get to the top. We finally made it up there after about an hour and the views from the top were incredible. It’s about 2/3 of a mile up so you can really see the entire city and many of the islands that are off the coast. We got some great pictures from the top, and the walk down was much easier.
That night we went to dinner at one of the best hotels in the area. The restaurant there sits right on the water and the food was great, but I managed to get about 13 mosquito bites over the course of the meal, It’s really nice to find places in Dubrovnik that are a little less touristy, and this hotel restaurant was not nearly as crowded as most of the town. After the hike, a long dinner and enjoying the view from the pool bar, I was exhausted and ready for bed.

Thursday, July 5, 2007

For our last day in Dubrovnik we did some souvenir shopping and walked the city walls, which is a necessary touristy activity. The Old City is surrounded by huge stonewalls and there is a pathway all the way around it to walk. It costs about 50 Kuna but I thought it was well worth it. It is really a beautiful city and it is unbelievable how many buildings sit inside the walls. Everything has a red tile roof and is made of the same light stone, making the streets look clean and extremely picturesque.
We took our last pictures, shopped around, had a leisurely dinner and sat for some people watching at one of the many cafes along the main street.

Friday, July 6, 2007

Friday morning we left Dubrovnik for Montenegro, which has only been an official country for less than a year. It was part of the former Republic of Yugoslavia, but it was technically a territory and finally received independence very recently. We crossed the border and got our passports out, but other than this technicality there wasn’t any real distinction between Croatia and Montenegro. The scenery and landscape stayed very similar, with the rocky and green coastline and sparkling blue water. We stopped in a small town called Kotor, which sits along a cove and only has a few streets and a harbor. One of the students on our program is from Serbia, and he warned us that the people in Montenegro would probably be rude and unfriendly, especially to American tourists.
Kotor was a cute little coastal town, but I think a few hours there was enough for a lifetime. We boarded the bus again and left for a town called Budva, which is known as a vacation spot for Russian and Serbian mafia members. Our hotel and rooms in Budva were nice, but I don’t think anyone enjoyed the time we spent in the actual town. There was a small stone old town, and then a huge strip along the beach which someone described as “the state fair goes to Russia”. It was a bit of a culture shock, especially after coming from the more conservative and scenic Dubrovnik. Almost every woman in Budva was wearing some form of a bathing suit as clothing, and always with at least 3-inch heels. Many of these women were also pushing strollers with small children. We stood out very obviously not because we are Americans, but because our clothing covered more than 30% of our bodies. The people watching was entertaining but everyone felt a bit uneasy because there were so many huge foreign men who looked exactly like stereotypical organized crime bosses. The main strip was lined with restaurants, huge nightclubs, and a bunch of old carnival rides and games. Apparently for this area this is where families vacation with their kids, like Disneyland in America. It was definitely an interesting experience but I wouldn’t pick Budva as a favorite vacation spot.
We went back to the rooms early and were happy to wake up and leave Budva in the morning.

Saturday, July 7, 2007

We drove from Budva into a small town that had multiple museums and the Montenegrin King and Queens Palace. It sounds interesting and beautiful, but it was neither. The first Museum was fine, but by the fourth one every one of us (including the professor, was dying to leave). We had a tour guide who was very nice and enthusiastic about the history, but he also apparently had never heard of deodorant. Every time he walked past anyone there was a strong scent of B.O. following him, and this lasted for the entire 3-hour tour. One thing that he told us that was actually interesting is that Montenegrins are the tallest people in the world. He showed us their war uniforms and they were made for men about six-foot three at a time when most other country’s men were less than six foot.
We happily left that town and continued on our way to an Eastern Orthodox Monastery where we were going to sleep that night. We stopped at a restaurant on the side of the road and got a “mixed grill” of meats ranging from pork and lamb to liver and sausages. After that big dinner we drove up a tiny mountain road around hairpin turns in our giant bus. Our bus driver was extremely talented but there were times when you could look out the window and not see any part of the road, and only see the hundreds of feet down the rocky side of the mountain. After the long drive we arrived at the place where the monastery was built into the side of the mountain. After waiting for a while our professor came back to tell us that the monk who had reserved us rooms there was unreachable and we had no reservation. We took taxis up the road to see the monastery at night where hundreds of people sleep outside waiting for services at 6am. It is believed that coming to these services at this monastery has a healing power, so pilgrims come from all over the region to attend the morning or night mass. It is literally built into the stone of the mountain and it was amazing to see at night with so many people setting up camp around the base.
We drove back down the mountain road to stay at a hotel in a main town at the bottom. This hotel is hard to describe but our professor said it was a perfect example of why communist Yugoslavia failed. It was disgusting looking from the outside, a huge concrete structure that looked like an abandoned apartment building. The inside was decorated in a terrible bright red shade of paint and the rooms were hilariously tacky. We were happy to get out of there in the morning.

Sunday, July 8, 2007

Sunday was a long day of driving, from Montenegro back to Dubrovnik, then to Split. In Split we got on a ferry to Vis and arrived at night. The island is tiny but absolutely beautiful, I can’t wait to spend 12 days relaxing here.
It is set up for us so that we get breakfast and dinner every day served to us in a house right below where our apartment is. We have had great homemade Croatian food and I spent all day at the beach enjoying the weather. I’ll write more soon, and hopefully get some pictures up. We finally have wireless but it only works in about a 6 by 6 square foot space outside the library. Thanks for reading!

Week One in Dubrovnik

Wednesday June 20, 2007

I’m waiting in the Heathrow airport for my connecting flight to Vienna and the trip has been great so far since Jan and John cashed in a ton of miles to let their spoiled daughter fly first class to London. The ten-hour flight was great because I got to recline and sleep in the giant first class seats. I almost asked the flight attendant to take a picture of me but the other first class passengers seemed a little stuffy so I opted not to wake them up with my camera flash. It’s a little past midnight at home but a little past 8am here so my schedule is already pretty thrown off. I’ll have a flight to Vienna and then a connecting flight to Dubrovnik. When my parents dropped me off at the San Francisco airport we met Martin “Mato” (an old friend of my grandfather’s) and his two daughters, who left a little after me and will arrive in Dubrovnik around the same time. They are nice enough to let me stay with them for the first few days in Dubrovnik before my classes start. I’ll take a lot of pictures once I arrive and get them linked up to the blog. Thanks for reading! I miss everybody already.

Saturday, June 23, 2007

It’s been 3 full days and I am finally getting used to the time change (we are 9 hours ahead of the West Coast here). The jet lag was pretty bad but after forcing myself to stay awake I was able to sleep through the night last night. We have spent the last few days down by the water, swimming and enjoying the weather. Mato and his two daughters and I drove from Cavtat (the town that their house is in, near Dubrovnik) to a town about 45 minutes away where Anita’s (Mato’s wife) sister has a vacation house on the water. The house was literally 20 feet from the Adriatic and it was a beautiful day, The weather has been extremely hot and a little humid but luckily it’s been breezy enough so that it is bearable. The ocean temperature is great, warm enough to jump in but cool enough to help with the hot, hot weather.

I don’t have too much to report but I’ve taken a lot of pictures already. The towns here are tiny and look like they are out of a movie. Little houses with red tile roofs poke out between green trees and stop at the rocky beaches along the coastline. There isn’t too much development, just small towns here and there. The water is so clear it is unbelievable.

Tuesday, June 26, 2007

We’ve settled into our dorms and classes here in Dubrovnik. The location of the building where we live in our little “apartments” and have class couldn’t be better. We are about a 3-minute walk from the entrance to the old town, which is the area of Dubrovnik that is made completely of white stone and sits directly on the water. My little apartment has a small stove and bathroom and a loft upstairs with two beds. The building is a great old place with four sections built around a courtyard in the center. It’s pretty hot in our rooms but the hallways are cooler when we open the giant windows. Our classroom is one floor below the apartments and we go to class lecture everyday from 10-11:30 and again from 1-2:30. Between classes we have been walking into the city and getting lunch or going for short swims to cool off in the hot weather. At 2:30 everyone has been either napping or heading to the beach for the long hot afternoons. It doesn’t get dark until late and we have been meeting to go to dinner around 8 every night.

The atmosphere in the old city at night is unlike any other place I’ve ever been. The white stone center street stems off into alleys left and right that seem never ending. There are no cars or roads inside, only people walking, shopping and eating at the countless restaurants. There are ton of tourists from all over the world and the streets are full at almost all times of day and night. Each restaurant has outdoor seating, which is great for the warm breezy nights. The first night we all went to a restaurant that sits right along the harbor and has great, affordable seafood. I actually went to the exact same restaurant twice when I was visiting Croatia in November of last year. But it looks entirely different in the summer, and has about 25 more tables outside. Our director, Gordon (who is fluent in about 4 languages and is originally from Split, Croatia) showed us the sights and told us the best places to go. We ordered all kinds of seafood from grilled shrimp to fried squid to cuddle-fish risotto (the seafood risottos here are incredible). There are about 18 of us in the group so it is hard to sit all together but it was great to have our first meal all sitting at one table. The grilled shrimp ended up being served in a big pot that is brought directly to the table and we had to shell them one by one, which was extremely messy but well worth how good they were. The cuddle-fish risotto was great too, although it looks like thick, black tar with rice in it.

Walking through the alleys can be like a maze because they are narrow and almost all identical to each other. We have had a lot of fun exploring the shops, bars and restaurants that line the small streets. The class lectures have been very interesting as well, for the first section we have a professor from the University of Sterling who is an expert on the rise and fall of Yugoslavia. It’s incredible to be in such a beautiful country and to hear about the war and conflict that existed just 15 years ago.

We are only in Dubrovnik until a week from Thursday so everyone is trying to take in as much of the city as possible. I’m so thankful that our location is so convenient because it only takes a few minutes to get anywhere. I’m sure I’ll have more to report in a week or so. I love the relaxing life on the Adriatic.

Thursday, June 28, 2007

Today is our last day of classes for the week. We are getting tomorrow off so we’ll have a 3 day weekend to explore Dubrovnik and the surrounding islands. Some of the girls might be taking a ferry over to Italy to travel there. My best friend from high school, Kelsey, has been in Italy since last July and she is coming to Dubrovnik on a night ferry with her sister Melissa to stay with me and spend a few days here.

Tuesday night we went to dinner at a little restaurant that is literally 30 feet from our dorm. We were served sardines (or anchovies I’m not sure what the difference is) at the beginning of the meal, and I had to try a bite for the experience but I think it was one of my least favorite things that I have ever eaten. The rest of the meal was great. The proscuitto, cheese, and olives here are really good. In the middle of the meal we heard high pitched little screeches and when we looked above us there were two mice fighting on the wooden rafter. They each ran in opposite directions directly above our heads, which made us all lose our appetites a bit but it’s at least a good story.

Yesterday after class we took a small ferry to the closest island to explore and swim. The ferry takes about 10 or 15 minutes and it was 35 Kuna (a little over 6 dollars). The island was a lot of fun, I went to the same place back in November when I was in Dubrovnik last time. It was really different in the summer because there were people everywhere. The “beaches” here are not sandy but basically rocks or pebbles, so it’s not the most comfortable place to lie down but it is kind of nice to not come home with sand all over everything. We found a spot that the Croatians call the “dead sea” which is actually a small saltwater lake that is surrounded by rock and connected to the sea through a few little coves. There were a good amount of tourists but it was a great place to hang out in the sun and swim. We stayed there until around 6 and came back for naps and showers before we left for an Italian dinner and a few drinks at one of the 4 Irish bars in Dubrovnik. One of the girls, Katie, and I talked to two Croatians at the bar who were fascinated by our program and why we came all the way to Croatia to study. I asked one of them what important phrases we should learn to say in Croatian and he said something that sounds like “Obojavamante”, which isn’t an easy one to say. I practiced it a few times then asked him what it meant and he said, “I adore you”. I couldn’t stop laughing at that, it must be a good way to pick up tourists here.

I'll post more in a few days, thanks for reading!