Monday, November 4, 2013

CWS Family

Split, Croatia 2 nights

Night 1: After a beatiful bus ride along the coast of Croatia I checked into my hostel and then went on a walk. I made my way up a hill to get to a park. I got an amazing view of the sunset before heading back down and having chavapi for dinner and gelato for dessert; it was a very plesent afternoon. 

When I got back to my hostel there were more people around hanging out and socializing. I met a girl from Brazil, a girl from China, and two guys from Paris. We all decided to go out and explore the night life. We started on a street with a bunch of bars, had a couple drinks before making our way to a club. The club was full of locals and there was a live band playing music. 


The next day, I walked around a market, the old town, and touristy areas of the city. The market was nice. I was able to get good deals on fresh foods. 

That afternoon new people arrived at the hostel. Everyone was outgoing, social, and had an interesting story. As the afternoon turned to evening we decided to go to a market and by giant beers for about 1 USD. 

We played some drinking games before we made our way out to the bars. Since I had gone out the previous night I ended up being the tour guide and leading the way to the street with bars and then the club. This time we went to Vanilla which was across the street from the club that I was at the night before. The club atmosphere in Croatia is not the most upbeat. For the most part people are just standing around with stone faces smoking cigarettes. However, we did not let this stop the fun for us. There were enough of us from the hostel that we made our own fun. We had a few rounds of Yeager shots and danced amongst ourselves. After we had enough we all left and headed towards the water which was a little bit past our hostel. We had initially intended on finding a beach party before going to vanilla but were told by locals that because the season was ending that nothing was really happening. Therefore, after Vanilla we ended up at the port and went skinny dipping. The water was cold at first but refreshing and energizing. After our midnight swim we made our way back to the hostel and got ready for bed. 



The next morning I met up with some relatives that I just found out lived in Croatia. I'm not entirely sure how we are related but never the less we are family and it was great to spend a little bit of time with them. Later that afternoon everyone from the hostel met up again and we made our way to the beach. There was a small cliff on the way that a couple of us jumped off of and I swam the rest of the way to the beach which was about a 15 min swim. Several of us swam out form the beach to a water polo court that was in the middle of the water. Once we got there we just floated and chatted because we did not have a ball to play with. After about five min a local threw us a ball to play with and we invited him to play with us and about 6 local guys ended up joining. They were very good and said they played pretty much every day. I know some basic water polo but was no where near their skill level and including myself there were only 2 girls. It was a ton of fun though. We were in the water and playing for a couple hours. It was refreshing not only to be in the water but to get some exercise because it is very difficult to exercise while traveling, especially the kind of exercise that I am used to. This was by far one of my favorite days while traveling because I absolutely love being in the water and enjoyed the sun, loved meeting locals, and relaxing with great people. 

After a wonderful day at the beach I gathered my things from the hostel and made my way to the port to catch a ferry with a Brandon from California who showed up at the hostel and was headed to the same place. We got to the blue line ferry where I checked in and got my room key. I got an amazing deal online that allowed me to have an outside room with one other roommate for 20 euro and with port taxes ended up being 40 euro. This was cheaper than just buying deck space the day of so I was quite pleased to have a bed. Brandon and I hung out in the lounge bar area for a while before heading to bed. The next morning we met up, watched the sunrise, and then made our way to the train station. I did not have any plan at all. I wanted to go to Venice but thought it might be a bit out of the way and was thinking of skipping it and going to Florence. It was a good thing that I met Brandon though because he was planning on going to Venice and then making his way down to Florence and Rome so I decided to travel with him to Venice. However, when we were at the train station we bought different tickets to the same place. Out first train was the same but when we had to switch to another one realized he had paid for the fast train and I had paid for the original train. I took a picture of the dictions to the hostel he booked but once I got there did not end up finding that hostel but walked into another one and got a bed for the night. For not having a plan it worked out really well. 


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