I couldn't have imagined a more beautiful country

Wow, what amazing days these past days have been. Unfortunately we are leaving Croatia tomorrow. I don’t think that 4 days was enough for this country for me. There is so much left to do! I guess I’m just going to have to come back… or move here… Originally I didn’t know what to expect with this country. I knew that I was going to love it. It was the port that I was most looking forward to but didn’t want to get my hopes up too high so that I wouldn’t be disappointed (yeah, like THAT could happen!).

So we got here on Tuesday. My trip was set to leave at 1 and we pulled into port around 8. I was up for breakfast at 7:30 and was amazing at exactly how gorgeous Dubrovnik is. We are harbored in the new city, but it’s still just as gorgeous and picturesque as stari grad (old city). I just sat there in awe at the table outside on the deck staring out across the harbor. It was definitely 10 times better than Naples already and not just because I wasn’t throwing up the whole time. I then ran into some of my friends and we decided to hit up a beach by the casino before our 1:00 trips through semester at sea. We walked there, which took about 20 minutes. The beach was beautiful. It was all stone and the water was Crystal Clear up to like 15 feet!! We swam around for a bit and then headed back to the boat.

I was supposed to go to this faculty directed practica (FDP) for my ethnomusicology class. In the description we’re supposed to go to this village and see a folk performance and then hang around get some food and such and then leave and be back at the ship around 8:00pm. We boarded our buses and headed up the winding and narrow streets through the mountains as our tour guide told us all about Croatia’s history and about the war and about just about everything that we needed to know and a lot of things that we didn’t. We then stopped in this village by a church, which we thought was just a short stop before continuing to Osojnik village. The church was beautiful. After he told us about the church, we were to follow him to “this nice lady’s house”. We were really confused at this point, but decided just to roll with it. On the way there, he was telling us all about the herbs and spices that grew all over Croatia like the different types of mint and the basil that was all over. We stopped to pet some donkey’s before arriving at this house where we were served fresh figs and what we thought was water in small shot glasses. Not the case. We were given shots of their home made brandy. And they didn’t just stop at one, they told us to drink as much as we wanted. I sipped it. Let me tell you, that sip burned for a good 10 minutes. I definitely ate another fig. ( Which was delicious!)

After that we all congregated on their back porch. One of the things I loved about Croatia is that every house has grape vines growing on a trellis above their front and back porch along with various other vegetables and flowers. Everything is beautiful. All of the homes are off white with red terra cotta roofs. It’s so beautiful. We sat on their back porch, and then we were treated to some authentic music of the area. The man of the house played this small string instrument that was all hand made with various animal parts and wood. It was really cool. He played while the women danced and then we all joined in! After this, we were given water and home made wine and they brought out small fire burners and we roasted bread, homemade cheese, and smoked bacon over the fire as an appetizer. It was SO good. We all ate so much! And they continued to give us more and more wine!

We were then joined by 2 men, one with an accordion and one with a guitar who sang us more traditional songs from the area. They took a break and we were ushered downstairs to their dining area which was 3 long tables. We all sat down and ate a fantastic dinner of roasted pork and potatoes and salad and again served more wine! The wine was delicious and the pork just fell off the bone and melted in your mouth. It was amazing. I’m really going to miss the food here!

After eating, the guys started playing again. The one guy said that he felt bad that we didn’t understand any of the music, but he wanted us to get a feel for the music from the area and Croatia in general, which I really enjoyed. So then 2 songs later, I actually recognized what he was singing, it was one of the songs that we sang in class! (Sta je ona meni), I told him this and he asked me what else I knew! I was so excited! I’m going to be on the SAS DVD singing Kad Te Vidim with everyone. It was so fun!!! They were so excited that I knew some songs! I didn’t know any more until the end when they played a sad a dio which we also sang in class. It was super fun! I told Nate that we would have to go to the Serbian club in Pittsburgh so that he can hear some turbo folk. I haven’t had a chance to hear any of that yet while here. All they play is American music. BOO!

I had my picture taken with them and then we all piled onto the buses, full of wine, and headed back to the boat. We then headed into Stari Grad by catching a bus right by the harbor, which was really convenient. We wanted to go out and just hang out and have a beer or two and just chill since it had been a long day and we were all exhausted, so we walked around until we saw an irish pub (why go there when in Croatia? I dunno, why not?) but when we walked in it was full of SAS kids and they were being loud obnoxious American’s, so we walked out and found another bar by the city walls and just had some drinks. The main tap beer here is Ozjusko. It’s actually pretty good compared to most cheap beers. I liked it a lot more than the tap beer in Spain. We were all exhausted after about an hour and ½, so instead of heading to the club that everyone was talking about going to, we just headed back to the ship to get a good nights sleep and get up early for another day in Croatia!