Dubrovnik!!!

I LOVE CROATIA!!! I’d move there but then I would miss Chicago…

Before I get into what I did in Croatia I wanted to write down some things that I want to remember. I’ve noticed that hamburger, bus, no, and Disney are the same in every language! And according to Bridget so is magenta but I haven’t said that word in any of the countries yet. I’m keeping my eyes out for more so I’ll keep you updated. Also, I’ve noticed that the further we get into the voyage the more delightfully ridiculous the S@Sers are getting. For example, there are now running jokes about Dia (the assistant dean of students) and Roman (the captain… who by the way doesn’t even pilot the ship. It pretty much runs on auto pilot) having a love affair and people using their pillows as shields and running down the hallway and crashing into people. I love it! Its like summer camp but better. Yay S@S!

And onto croatia!
Day 1:
This day was Bridget’s (my roommate) 21st birthday!! So the first thing we did in the morning was get off the ship and get a beer. My first impression of Croatia, besides the clear water and beautiful mountains, was that a lot of people speak English. Their national language is Croatian but all the waiters/waitresses spoke English and explained Kuna to me. The Croatian currency is Kuna and the exchange rate is 5 kuna to a dollar aka. I’m a kunanaire! After sitting at the café (which was in the port… we didn’t get real far) for a while we went for a little walk toward the old town. Cadiz spoiled us and we assumed that most of the ports would be near the old historical parts of each port city but that is dead wrong. It was a 30-40 minute walk to get to the old town (ew). Since only me and Georgina had S@S trips and Bridget, Taryn, and Justine didn’t, me and Georgina went back to the ship a lot earlier than them. My trip was packed! We had about 5 buses of 40 students. We drove up the mountains to this one point where there were pretty views of Dubrovnik. The tour guide was adorable and said, “We start with nice drive up to mountains so you can have Kodak moment.” On the way up she told us random information about Dubrovnik. For example, its patron saint is Saint Blaise, the patron saint of throat diseases. On February 3rd (St. Blaise’s holiday) everyone, including exiled outlaws, go to the cities center to get their throats blessed by a priest. I thought that was hilarious so I bought a St. Blaise statue. If you ever have throat issues come visit me! When we got to the picture spot me and Georgina ended up standing on the guard rail thingy so that we could get better pictures. Then we drove to the actual old town and went on a tour of the city walls. The town is really old and so the walls were built to protect it from invaders. A lot of them were damaged in the early 90’s when the Yugoslav army attacked Dubrovnik. They had a really sad map that showed everywhere a bomb/missile (I don’t know the difference… are those the same thing?) landed and all the buildings that had burnt down. Our tour guide said that the whole town is still really sensitive about it. The walls were awesome! They have beautiful views of the city with the ocean in the background and at one point you can go really high into this old fortress and go into this little room that I call the Batcave (too much time with Zane I think…). The tour was fun but the tour guide was slow so me, Georgina, and Lexi decided to walk ahead. When we got to the ocean side of the walls we saw some people jumping off the cliffs into the Adriatic sea. We wanted to join in but I was a party pooper and forgot my swim suit. So we went and got gelato instead. After that we had to meet our tour guide for the bus ride back. When we got back we got dinner and got ready and went out for Bridget’s birthday.

Day 2:
We all decided to sleep in a bit on this day and when we woke up the ship was already tendering. Because Dubrovnik is such a popular port there were a lot of ships that needed to dock so the M/V Explorer went and anchored a little off port and we took little boats called tenders back to port. Me, Courtney, and Jill took one together right after lunch and then Taryn and Georgina met us on the dock. Since Jill, Courtney, and Georgina had an FDP, me and Taryn had to figure out what we wanted to do for the day. We decided to check out this tourist store where you could rent kayaks, buy ferry tickets, rent jet skis, etc. We decided on a ferry to an island and we asked when they were leaving and they said now (1:30) or 4:30 so we ran to catch the ferry before it left. They had just untied when we got there so we asked if we could get on and they said sure and pretty much pulled us up and then they asked what island we were going to and we said any island. We bought tickets and sat down and figured we’d just get off at any island when our friend Will who we had hung out with the day before came up and said him and his friends were sitting 2 rows behind us so we went and sat by them and asked them what island was best and they said the second island called Lopud. We got off and walked to the new beach which was GORGEOUS!! We had to walk over a big hill to get there and were gross and sweaty by the time we got there but it was worth it. The waves were huge so after we found a place to leave our stuff we went in and body surfed for a while. Then the guys (Aaron, Will, Casey, PJ, and Will) decided that they were going to launch each other into the waves. It was really funny because they flew so high! I only went twice since I was wear a bikini and they aren’t exactly made for falling into waves. After that we went to the restaurant and got burgers and I got a milkshake (yay!) we sat around for a while and just enjoyed the beach and then we walked back so that we could see the ferry when it came again. We were a little early so we went swimming on the beach on the other side of the island. It was strange because the water was really calm on that side so we just floated around for a while and skipped rocks. When there ferry came we got on and since it was the last one of the day it was packed and we ended up sitting on the front where there weren’t any seats. It was a beautiful ride back and when we got back to the dock the ship wasn’t tendering any more so we didn’t have to wait for another boat. So then we all showered and ate dinner and then some people went out but I was really tired so I went to bed early.

Day 3:
I had an S@S trip to Montenegro this day so I got up early and sat on a bus for 3 hours for the drive to Montenegro. Thank goodness I have the best little sister in the world and she gave me a bunch of CD’s for big sis reveal or I’d have been bored out of my mind! I got in trouble for taking a picture at the border too… oops. We stopped at this little medieval town called Kotor fist. We went to the old fortress and got a tour and then had a whole 15 minutes of free time! (that was sarcastic…). I ended up sitting at a café with 2 of my friends (both named sarah) and talking to the tour guide about the differences between Montenegro and America for one of my classes. Then we got back on the bus and drove up the mountain for about 3 hours (ew) it was beautiful but they only let us out twice, once to take pictures and once to sit in this cute little village and have a snack of ham and cheese on bread. That is pretty popular snack in Europe and that would be fine but the ham isn’t that great (its like mildy cooked bacon and its really hard to chew). So then after too little time in the cute little village we got back on the buses for another hour and a half to go to the main tourist town for lunch. I can’t remember the name of the town because I didn’t like it. The waiter at the restaurant ignored my table pretty much the whole time and when we finally got the lunch paid for by S@S it was mashed potatoes out of a box, soggy peas, soggy carrots, and chicken that was so hard I couldn’t cut it. I was a little crabby about this and then I remembered that Montenegro is a pretty poor country with 30% unemployment and that was probably a really good meal for their country and then I felt bad and ate the food. After dinner we had 45 minutes to walk around but the area we were in was overrun by tourist shops and so it wasn’t very interesting. So then we got back 1 ½ hours late so I got ready really fast and went out with my friends.

Day 4:
I got up super early for some reason on this day and went to the market to get groceries (aka pop). I liked grocery shopping in a foreign country because it was cool to see signs and foods similar to the US but in a different language with slightly different food. So then I got back to the ship and Bridget was awake so me, her, and Taryn went to get lunch. We went to this little sandwich shop and ordered kabobs and strangely they handed us huge sandwiches with gyros meat on it. They were delicious though! They let us pick the toppings so I got lettuce, tomatoes, corn, mayo, and some random other sauce that tasted kind of garlicy. So then we walked over to the old town and I finally got to jump off a cliff!! We had to walk through these curvy and confusing streets to find this bar that was on the outside of the city walls and so we went down and I went first from the higher cliff (40ish feet). I was pretty scared but I didn’t want to wait long to go because then I’d chicken out so I jumped and it was SO MUCH FUN! So then Taryn went off the shorter one (25ish/30ish feet) and then a guy was in line before Bridget. He was really nervous and stood there for a long time so Bridget went and talked to him and said she’d go really fast and show him where to stand and stuff and then we all cheered for him and did a count down for him to go. So then he finally went but when he got in the water he started splashing a lot and after being a lifeguard for 3 years I knew he needed help so I went and got him and dragged him over to Bridget and the two of us same him over to the rocks while Taryn climbed out so that she could help pull him up. On the way there Bridget asked if he could swim and he said, “Not really.”… Ok. Seriously? What kind of dummy jumps off a cliff into the Adriatic sea if they can’t swim?!? So after that we stood around for a while to dry off in the sun and watched other people jump. We ended up meeting some dancers on the Holland America cruise line. They were really funny because they were all scared so I told them it was like a grand jete with water at the end and they for some reason thought that was hilarious and all jumped off… so then we did some touristy shopping and got some more gelato (yum!) and went to take the bus back to the ship. The bus SUCKED. It was packed with people and it smelled horrible and it was so hot but there was no air conditioning. We ended up getting off a couple stops early and walking. The bus was so hot that the air outside actually felt cool! When we got back we got our computers and attempted to get some internet but it didn’t go well because everyone was doing the same thing. So I gave up and went to send out my postcards before on ship time.

Now we have 2 ship days, one of class and one for the Sea Olympics, before Greece. I had a test today in my second class and I’m normally fast when I take tests so I got out after 20 minutes and now I’m really bored. I already took a nap, watched a movie, and did laundry and now I’m pretty much done with my blog and I still have 2 hours until I got watch Ryder…

My only S@S trip for Greece (a service trip to a children’s village) got canceled because of some complication with the people at the village. I’m pretty bummed about that one because I was really excited about it but its fine because now I’ll just spend another day in Mykonos.

My plans are…
Day 1: Athens
Day 2: Mykonos
Day 3: Mykonos
Day 4: either Mykonos or back to the ship… I haven’t decided yet
Day 5: I can’t remember if we have 4 or 5 days in port so I’m not even sure if there is a day 5.