Off the Couch and On the Road

Firstly, apologies for the delay of this entry, the first draft sounded something like ‘the weather was shit but Split was nice’, and I had doubts as to whether that would truly engage my audience (hi mum).

I left Hvar town in such a mad rush, which is so unlike me, that I ended up on a bus hoping it was heading to the port at Stari Grad and not Slovenia. It didn’t, and the ferry ride was only two hours, which would have been ok save for the backpacking guitar-strummer next to me, who I’m sure was a virtuoso but could only quite manage 3 chords over and over. Maybe he brought his guitar half-way around the world to practise.

The first thing I noticed about the very modern harbourside city was that every second shop was a shoe store. The second the was McDonald’s. Both these things made me very, very happy.

My hostel was in the centre of town so I spent the first afternoon walking through the marble paved streets, before the rain set in (see note above re: shit weather). The town surrounded Dioletian’s Palace, originally built as a fortress, now hosting modern shops alongside temples, statues and Roman ruins, similar to Old Town in Dubrovnik.

The palace was made up of so many narrow alleys, some only an arm’s length wide, that it was inevitable I would get lost - although I had a wonderful time window shopping whilst trying to find my way again. There were 4 or 5 cinemas (Kino) showing new movies in english, with each tiny theatrette showing one film twice a day. Stumbling across one of these in between shops was a real find, and during my 5 day stay I saw Pirates of the Carribbean 3, Spiderman 3, and some really bad movie with Ryan Phillippe in it, for only $4 a movie.

Granted, 5 days was too long to spend in Split, but the horrible weather meant I couldn’t spend any time at the beach, and the only morning it was sunny I went for a walk through the forest that covered the entire western end of town and came across a fat naked man waiting on the track who was definitely a little bit special. Needless to say I gave him the auntie Sarah ‘this is very bad behaviour’ look and got someone to call the police.

Which really pissed me off, because I wanted to visit the zoo at the top of the hill. But on arrival back at the hostel I found a TV channel that had nothing but CSI all evening. Which totally rocks more than the zoo anyday. Love it.

On the morning I left Split, it was hot and sunny, and I jumped on a bus to Dubrovnik, freaking a little when a sign said ‘Welcome to Bosnia and Hercegovina’. I calmed down a bit when we kept heading south towards Dubrovnik, and proceeded to spend the next few hours wondering if I could count it as one of my countries. I mean, it’s not like I just saw the airport, right? I saw trees, a highway, and even a service station with a toilet. I experienced that country, man. If anyone asks me for details I am sure I can mumble something about a bus.

From Dubrovnik, a 5-hour ferry trip back to Italy, and an overnight stay in Bari would prelude my 18 hour ferry trip to Greece, which didn’t sound as daunting as it did a few weeks ago. Maybe I am getting used to staring into space with my iPod playing and ignoring annoying old men wanting to know here I’m from (who cares? I don’t care where you’re from. If you’re hot, then we can talk).

-Sarah

PS Yes, I did buy shoes, but only one pair of trainers to replace my sketchers that I kindly left for some little sherpa on a mountain in Nepal.

The real question is, how many words can you use to describe beautiful seaside towns of stone, with narrow traffic-free alleys and endless steps? Beautiful churches and pebbly beaches? Because I think I have run out. As Positano and Dubrovnik were all of the above, so was the island of Hvar. And yet it didn’t make it any less spectacular or unique.

I left Dubrovnik very carefully, so as not to wake MAPOTP (successfully, thank christ) and spent seven hours on another ferry, just as it started raining, which was fortunate timing. In seven hours I updated my itinerary, budget and created a three-year plan with timings and action points - the group sitting next to me discussed where they would most like to travel and why, and how many years they had been living on less than $10 a day (’When I left Boston in 1964 with $400 in my pocket….’). I was so dissappointed in my lack of creativity and adventure. But no matter, they won’t have a fantastic credit rating, right? Right?

Hvar was stunning, as expected, and the weather hot and sunny, which wasn’t considering the weather in Dubrovnik. I only had two days on the island and spent those walking along the promenade playing a game called ‘which of these ridiculously massive yachts would I buy if I won the lottery?’, swimming and sunbaking.

A continuation of ‘Sarah’s chilled out summer holiday’, really.

-Sarah

PS. Nobody seems to know where I am so I thought I would clarify. I am in Croatia. In Split. I know, the above says I am in Hvar, but it’s slightly delayed, kind of like episodes of ‘Friends’ used to be before they realised we could download them anyway so they may as well put them to air the same time as the US. Ok, so not exactly like that. But kinda. Get me?

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