Hairy much? Croatia Day 1

Since I am writing these entries on the ship after being in Croatia, I will give you my general feelings of the place and then go into details. I LOVED IT. Okay, so I know I have said that for every country so far, but it was truly amazing. The city of Dubrovnik is where I spent most of my time, and the city is super old. The Old Town, or the main part of the city, is surrounded by these amazing city walls and is right on the ocean. The coast is rocky and gorgeous, and the mountains behind the city make it even more amazing. Now for the dirty details 

My friends and I woke up early on the first day and had to wait for the ship to be cleared. I don’t think I have gone into details on this, but every port we go into someone from that country has to get on the ship and check all of our paperwork. The students don’t have anything to do with this. We just have to wait for an announcement that says we can get off. I had to get my passport from the purser’s desk, who is the person in charge of everyone official, because I went to Montenegro the second day. So, I waited in line for that, than got off the ship. I am a little upset they don’t stamp our passports, but there are just too many people. I had an FDP (faculty directed practica) the first day at 1 P.M. so I had to be back at the ship around noon. So, we decided to go walk the city walls.

The city walls are the walls surrounding the Old Town, or the oldest and most adorable part of the city. We had to take a bus to get to the Old Town from where the ship was docked which was interesting to say the least. Okay. So it is 9:30 A.M. when we get on the bus. Guess how hot it was? 100 degrees which is about 40 degrees Celsius. I am getting used to people talking in terms of Celsius. Anyways, SO RIDICULOUSLY HOT. Not to mention the fact that the bus is completely packed. In the U.S., the bus driver will usually say, Okay! We are full! Not here! Here, the bus driver will wait until everyone standing outside somehow squeezes on to the bus. In 100 degree weather. Now, our first bus ride had a super fun twist. The second stop after our stop, once I was already sweating from every pore in my body, this lovely woman got on the bus and basically beelined to me! The thing about this woman is that it took me about 2 minutes to figure out she was a woman. She had a sleeveless dress on and had the hairiest armpits I had ever seen. Seriously. Hairy than most guys I know. It was DISGUSTING. Not to mention the fact that she had a decent amount of facial hair too. So, of course, she decides to stand right next to me and hold on to the hand rail right above my head. AKA…HAIRY ARMPIT IN MY FACE. Candice seemed to think this was pretty funny, and honestly, I was laughing pretty hard too. I mean, I know its culture and I was being rude, but I couldn’t help it. Especially with Candice also laughing in my face. Oh another fun fact. Europeans don’t believe in deodorant. Yah. Think about that one for a minute. Anyways, she eventually got off, and we had a good laugh about it. Ugh. So gross.

So, we eventually get to the Old Town. To get into it, you have to go through this main gate and cross over this old school draw bridge. It was so medieval and awesome. Then, right when you get in, you head to the right to climb up a TON of super steep steps to get to the top of the wall. We luckily got a student discount though and headed up.

Oh, small break from this story to discuss the exchange rate. So, it was 1 U.S. dollar = 5 kunas which is their currency. It was SO CONFUSING. Think about it. I would see something on like a menu that was 100 kunas, but it would only say 100 obviously. So, you think, HOLY SHIT! THAT’S SO MUCH MONEY! But really, it’s only $20! It was really hard to grasp it. Because then you were like, okay, so things are really cheap, don’t worry about it. Then, we went to a restaurant, and Katie wanted lobster. It was 700 kunas which is $140! So, it was really hard to get used to and figure out.

So, back to the walls. So, we head up to the top, and it is beautiful. Definitely the best view of the city. All of the rooftops in the city are these bright orange tiles and all of the buildings are this beautiful white stone. The rooftiles have an interesting history though. Back in the day, they were made over the thighs of women in the city because they didn’t have any automatic way of making them. But, after the Yugoslav War, a lot of those beautiful tiles were destroyed. So now, some of the houses are the same, old school tiles that have a ton of character because they aren’t the same size or the same shade of orange. The houses that were rebuilt are obviously all the same size and the same shade. So, it is still gorgeous, but it really does put the devastation that these people experience about 20 years ago that more real. The city is so picturesque. Not to mention the amazing mountains in the background and the ocean on the other side with a rocky coast. Amazing. Lucky for us, it was 100 degrees. So, by the time we had walked like half the wall, we were drenched in sweat. But it was still amazing. I really enjoyed walking the wall.

After that, we headed back to the ship because of the FDP I had. My friends didn’t have tickets for it, but three people ended up not showing up, so they were able to jump on! The trip was to a small, Croatian mountain village. The actual title of the trip was Osjinik village and folk show which is the actual name of the village. So, we head up there in these two huge tour buses because there were so many kids on the trip. It was a crazy drive up the mountain, but we stopped to take pictures at a look out place which was pretty cool. When we arrived, we were greeted by this man and woman, clearly married, in traditional dress. They were adorable. The woman had on a long, blue dress, and the man had these high socks and old school suspenders on. Hard to explain, but really cool. So, we follow them by foot down this dirt road, and I discovered that we were going to their home. So, these two cute, old Croatian people were about to welcome about 90 American college kids into their home. Wow.

When we got there, they greeted us with candied figs (gross), candied orange peels (delicious), and a shot of brandy (ummm yah). The brandy was so strong, and I guess we were supposed to sip on it, but we just shot it because it was gross, and we didn’t want to be rude. So, we were relaxing at their home which had this huge patio that overlooked the country side. There were grapes and vines growing above it and onions and garlic hanging out too. It was so quaint. They also had a room that had an open fire in it for cooking food obviously. No oven. Crazy huh? After mingling for a while with each other and looking around, the husband came out with a traditional Croatian instrument that looked like a weird shaped banjo. His wife then did a traditional dance while he played. Once we got to the house, all of their sons were there too so one of them was dancing with their mother. After dancing for a couple minutes, she made us all get up and dance with her. Haha. It was basically clapping and turning in circles. Picture 90 students all crammed on a porch in 100 degree weather clapping and turning in circles. Pretty hilar.

After the dance, they served a small snack before the actual dinner that we would be having there. She had a ton of homemade bread which was amazing, and she had plates and plates of bacon in small pieces, uncooked, on places. We were each given a spite made of some sort of plant, and we were supposed to cook the bacon over an open fire that her husband started up. It was SO GOOD. The bacon wasn’t like American bacon and was so fresh. I loved it. They also served water and homemade red wine which was delicious. So, we did some more socializing and relaxing as we ate and drank. Then, it was time for dinner.

Okay. So, keep in mind. There are 90 kids at this house. This couple has opened their home, danced, and cooked for us. As my friends and I sit down inside of this cave like dining room that has three large tables, two girls from SAS (Semester at Sea) STUMBLE into the room WASTED. Like, so drunk. Can’t walk they are so drunk. Like are you seriously? One of them sat down next to Candice and proceeded to apologize for being so drunk. Then, she tells us that she had PREGAMED the trip, as in took shots before we even got on the bus, and had like 5 shots of brandy because some people didn’t want to drink it. I was so annoyed. This girl and her friend were so rude and obnoxious when these people had been so nice to us. UGH. Anyways, they first served us salad with a really light dressing on it, bread, and pork and potatoes. The potatoes were SO GOOD. Like amazing. They had definitely been cooked over the open fire and were so delicious. So was the meat, but the potatoes were amazing. With dinner, we also had wine and water. Those two girls were basically chugging the wine and just being super loud and rude. After dinner, we left about two hours early because of these girls and headed down the mountain. When we were walking out to the buses though, we saw a donkey! I petted him. He was super cute and chill. I loved him. Haha. The experience was really great, but those girls really put a damper on it. Needless to say, one threw up all over herself on the bus, and one threw up behind the bus once we got to the boat. Super classy huh? I don’t know if they got in trouble, but I hope they did. Can’t you hold your boos?

We got back from the trip, and I took a short nap and showered. The sun really takes it out of you. We decided to have more of a chill night, so we went looking for this bar that Rick Steve’s, who is my favorite tour book writer, suggested. It was called Buza. There are apparently two of them, but we went to his favorite. It was literally a hole in the wall the surrounded the old city. The hole lead to this really steep, small staircase and opened up to the rocks on the outside of the walls. It was amazing! It was really dark, but the walkways were outlined with white rope lights. They also had red, green, and blue lights flashing all over the places. Not like how it is in the club, but more chill. There were little rock plateaus and each one had a table on it. So, everyone was on their own little rock plateau with the most beautiful view of the ocean and moon that I have ever seen. While we were there, it was a full moon. So, we sat down and ordered some drinks. It was pretty expensive which isn’t surprising because of the view, but they were playing jazz music, and it was really cool. Katie and Megan felt like they were getting eaten alive by bugs, so they left with Maggie kind of early. Candice and I stayed with another group of girls for a bit longer and then went into the Old Town to shop and get gelato. Yummy  It was a really chill night which was nice because we had to be up super early the next morning for Montenegro!