To jump or not to jump

Today I jumped off of a 30 ft. cliff into the water. It was awesome. I was terrified. The plan was to get up early, and head to Lokrum on a ferry. There were stories passed around that there was good cliff jumping on the other side of the island from the dock, so when we got there, we just started walking. And walking. And walking. We walked for the first 2 hours. It was fun. I would have enjoyed it more if I wasn’t dehydrated and if it wasn’t so hot. But it was, and I was, so it was a pain, BUT I’m alive and the island was beautiful. I have never seen so many butterflies and so many varieties of butterflies around even in Phipps! And the island has a ton of peacocks everywhere that just kind of walk up to you. It’s so weird. We ended up walking around the entire island and didn’t know where these cliffs were, so when we got back to the pier, we asked the one guy at the restaurant. He told us where they were, but to be careful because the water was really choppy today in that area because of the wind direction. We went over to the area and scoped it out. None of the locals were there jumping, so we opted for the second option – jumping off of this cliff into this small salt water lake that was fed through a cave. The water was so clear that it looked like you were jumping into 10 feet of water or less, but in all actuality, I think it was more like 20-25 ft of water.

We watched some other people do it before our whole group did it. It was so much fun! It is so far down! You just keep falling and falling! The worst part is standing at the top getting ready to jump. It was definitely worth it though. I have a video! (Thanks Grace!) After that, I caught the ferry back to the Island without everyone else, and went to the post office. NOTE: buy your post cards at the post office. They are only 1.8 kuna instead of 3! (that’s not even a dollar, but still). Oh well! I then went to get ice cream and wait for the bus back to the harbor. I went in and asked the guy for Hazelnut in Croatian and he looked at me and asked me where I was from and I told him the US and he asked my why I knew Croatian. I told him I was studying for 2 years and he was so happy! He told me that I had to practice and wasn’t allowed to speak any English any more to him. He was so nice! I really liked it when the locals were excited that someone was learning their language. I never thought about it, but I guess it is a weird language for someone to learn. I would love to use this to my advantage and perhaps work over there someday! Not in Dubrovnik, but just in Croatia in general. In Spain, and Italy and France, they just kind of expect you to know their language in most cases, and usually people know a few words from highschool classes, but I guess Croatian speakers from the US are hard to come by. I feel special! Haha. Someday…


After getting ice cream, and waiting for the bus and running into Rachel, we decided to walk back. We hit up the grocery store where we tried to spend our remaining Kuna (I have like 30 left, which is about $6, so I’m not concerned). We went back to the ship and chilled. Then there was an announcement that we’re not actually leaving the port until tomorrow morning at 10 am, which sucks! We could have had at least an extra few hours here and had everyone back by like… midnight or at least 11pm. It would have been SO much better. But since we had already been cleared by customs, we couldn’t leave the ship.

Out of all of the ports that we’ve been to so far, this is my favorite. I had no idea how beautiful of a country Croatia was. It’s amazing. I really need to come back here. I’m very sad to leave. Yeah I know, I’m going to Greece in 2 days, but still. This was amazing and 4 days definitely wasn’t enough. I wanted to hit up Split and Korčula. Eventually I want to make it to Zagreb. I definitely think I’m going to look into coming back here for something, whether it’s a job or school, in the future when I get back to Pitt. I want to see Montenegro and Serbia and Bosnia. This area is great and I really really want to make it back! I was talking to a few of my friends and they said that so far out of all of the countries we’ve been to, this is where they see themselves coming back to first. It’s just so beautiful here! Hopefully I’ll get some pictures up soon!

So, tomorrow is classes, then a day of sea Olympics and then Greece!!

Doviđenja!

A Kayaking adventure

Alright day 3. I woke up early to get some shopping done. I got the regular souvenir stuff – a futbol jersey for me and one for Alan, post cards, something special for my mom and her sisters for Christmas (be excited!), and all that jazz. It was fun walking around. They had a ton of fresh fruit markets everywhere! I wish we could bring fruit onto the ship. It would have been so good. I should have gotten some Olive Oil too since Croatia is supposed to have the best olive oil in the world. I didn’t know this, but I guess it’s true? I then got ready for my Kayaking adventure!

We left the ship at 1:30. We got to the kayaking place where the bus dropped us off and had to walk down this really steep hill and then hundreds of stairs to the beach, which was beautiful and all stone. The instructor, who was pretty attractive, haha, asked if anyone was experience and a few people said they were and they were in the kayaks where you sit inside them and have a skirt. My friend Janae and I were going to get a sit on top double kayak, but the lady said she had a double sit inside one, so we opted for that since we were so eager to get in. I think it was a good choice since it was so hot and our legs were covered. We had an interesting start. We didn’t know how to turn it exactly, so we had some other SAS guy tell us. It was amusing! But we definitely got the hang of it! By the end, Marco, our other instructor for the advanced Kayakers, was teaching us how to surf the waves in! We kayaked probably for a total of an hour and 1/2- - 2 hours. It was definitely a workout! My arms loved it!!!! I had this nifty rudder in our kayak so I was able to steer with my feet which was really nice. Needless to say, I’m addicted to kayaking now. It was SO much fun!!!! I really want to do it again. We kayaked to this Island, Lokrum, and then had a chance to snorkel, which I had to do for my oceanography class. Worst homework assignment ever, right? After observing the life in the water, we got back in our kayaks and headed back to the beach. At this time I started asking Marco questions in Croatian and he was SO surprised that I knew Croatian! He was so happy! He asked me about studying it and everything. It was nice talking to him about learning it and practicing.

That is one thing I disliked about Dubrovnik. I wasn’t forced into working on my Croatian. Everything was in English. Everyone spoke English. Only in 2 instances did someone say dobar dan to me first instead of Hello. It was really annoying. So it was nice talking to him and everything. He said that he’s never met anyone from the US that speaks Croatian or that is learning it. I was amused. So on the way up to the bus, I asked the other guide what his name was in Croatian and he was really caught off guard. Again, he said it was the first time in his life he met someone from the US that spoke Croatian. It was really funny. He wasn’t as talkative as Marco though.

So that was an eventful time! We got back to the ship and I stuffed my face. I was so hungry after kayaking and walking around the city! At the end of the night, we hung out for a bit waiting for some people to get back from Montenegro and then we thought about heading into town. Erin and I were exhausted and wanted to get up early, so we just went to bed. The sun really wears you out and it’s SO hot here. And it’s only going to get hotter!

Swimming with the fishes in crystal clear water

So day 2. It was pretty interesting. I forgot that we were going to be using tender boats between certain hours and slept through the dock time, so was stuck on the ship until 11. I ended up just waiting until some of my friends got back from trips to head out into the town. We did a tour of the city walls. We walked around and I was taken to a “swimming hole” which was basically a doorway in the city walls that was super shady that led out to rocks sticking out of the city walls that had stairs carved in them so that you could get in/out of the sea. It was awesome. You just jump in off of rocks (like 2-5 ft) and then swim around in the water then scramble up the rocks to get out.

Unfortunately we picked a terrible day for this since it was really windy and the waves were a little high, but we did it anyway. Definitely made it more interesting! Nate jumped in first. The water is so deep that it was dark blue, you can’t really see the bottom, and you definitely don’t touch, which freaked me out a little at first but it’s easier than deep Atlantic water when you can’t even really see your hands underwater. We swam around to the stairs and then this Croatian boy had to show us how to use the handholds and hoist ourselves out of the water. It was really hard with the waves as big as they were! You would go to grab the hand hold and the wave would pull you away, but then you had to make sure that you didn’t get slammed against the rocks (ask Tim Gallo about this, he has a story and will have some scars…). It was SO tiring. We were all panting when we got out!

Nate and I swam that twice before we decided to go and get changed and get some dinner. Three of us walked around until we found a menu we liked with good prices. I really like how all of the little restaurants have outdoor seating and they all have their menus on display so that you can check prices and see if they have stuff you like. It’s so convenient. I wanted traditional food, so we picked a good place. I don’t remember what it was called though; I have to check my camera. I ordered these pork skewers that came with a side of French fries and then had this weird red sauce with it and a radish which made me really happy. Nate ordered civapi per my suggestion since we made them in class. They are just small sausages with round beef and garlic and herbs and Rachel ordered the vegetable risotto, which I had a taste of and it was DELICIOUS! For desert we split palachinke. Wow… it was amazing. I mean I love palacinke with nutella, but these were filled with this ticker chocolaty filling with chunks of hazelnut. I love how Europe uses the hazelnut everywhere. It’s my favorite gelato flavor. But it was delicious!


Unfortunately this was my last traditional Croatian meal. Since everyone spent so much money on food in Spain and Italy, no one wanted to eat out here, everyone usually went back to the ship for meals or their trips arrived just in time for a meal on the ship and it was convenient. I am a little sad that I didn’t have a chance to try other things, but Dubrovnik isn’t a great place for that anyway. It is really tourist oriented. Not US tourist, which is good, but European tourist oriented. Most of the restaurants didn’t serve traditional Croatian food. There were Italian restaurants everywhere! I am hoping that when I’m in Bulgaria, it’s different. (And when I come back to Croatia!)

After eating, we met 2 other people at the theater to see Transformers - in English with Croatian subtitles. We went to the wrong theater first then tried to find the real theater. We walked passed it before someone pointed it out to us. It was just a door in the wall with a movie poster on it, then the guy opened the door and we got our tickets. I then realized that it was an outdoor theater! All of the seats were arranged on a cement terrace type area directed toward a screen. Just like a drive in, only on a small scale! It was awesome watching a movie with Dubrovnik in the background! The movie was OK. I don’t think I would have spent the normal amount in the US for it. The movie was a lot cheaper here AND you could bring whatever you wanted in with you! There were people there with ice cream and everything. It was really nice. So when in Dubrovnik, I recommend seeing a movie at this theater… and I can’t remember the street it was on… oops! After that, we were all tired from the heat, the meal, and the long day, so we went back to the ship.

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!