Croatia: the weekend in Split
We were all supposed to be off the boat by 9am on Saturday morning, but that just didn’t happen.
Most of us girls had packed the day before, but the boys had their shit everywhere. Flames and Handles’ room looked like a bomb had hit it – they had literally removed all the clothes from their bags and they were in a huge pile covering the floor, reaching the sink and spilling out of the room! Jimmy had a task deflating his floaty canoe Pedro. The rest of us sat around the boat watching the racing, and watching mama clean up, we couldn’t check into our hostels until later in the day and didn’t want to walk around town lugging our bags and packs.
Lija and I decided to change our flights to Monday rather than Wednesday because I really needed a doctor – I finally got cold and flu tabs from the pharmacy but they weren’t that helpful. There were about ten of us still in Split over the next few days, so we found a local pub that was showing the rugby and met later in the afternoon to watch England beat Australia (it was only two points people!!!) Disappointing outcome but we all felt very patriotic. Lija and I got food then I just went back to the hostel to sleep/die whichever came first. She went to watch the France V Kiwis match with the others.
Sunday was the same, we wandered around Split and watched the rugby. We found out that Split was playing Zagreb in the football and wouldn’t that be awesome to go to?! So we wandered up to the stadium which was already busy with people selling scarves and jerseys and food. The ticket box was literally a dingy white box – and we asked the guy where the ‘safest’ seats would be for tourists. The tickets were 80 kuna (8 pounds) and we all bought scarves for 5pounds – we were pumped and roaring to go!
Walking back to town all geared up somehow the locals could still tell we were tourists and continued to stare at us. We all went back to our hostels to rug up. Jimmy was staying at ours this night so he came back with us and then we all met up again to walk back to the stadium. We met up with three of Daniella’s friends who were also going to the match. The stadium seats are numbered but once you walk in it’s a free for all. It was already dark and the stadium was filling up fast – the Zagreb team had their own enclosed area to sit in, which was away from the Split fans and fenced up tall. There weren’t many there but the boys said as soon as the game begins they start coming in – for safety reasons!
There were some quiet parts but the match was pretty exciting most of the time, and frustrating – Split was sixth on the ladder of twelve and Zagreb was first. The crowd’s atmosphere was buzzing the whole time – they were chanting and singing, clapping and waving their scarves. Jimmy and I were wondering why our scarves seemed so short, but we figured they’re more for waving than wearing over here.
Within half an hour Zagreb’s area was almost full and they made a great deal of noise on their own. I really got into it yelling and screaming that I almost lost my voice again (After the first night out and all the smokers on the boat I had no voice for the first three days on the boat – I must have come across as a pretty quiet person!) The flares began being let off within five minutes of the game starting (even though everyone got pat down on entering the stadium – and they only serve non-alcoholic beer) but when Zagreb were handed a penalty shot down our end the Split fans went nuts and about 8 flares in a row were lit up from that end and pitched onto the grounds trying to hit the player. The firemen had a task running around trying to stamp them out, especially on the grass!
The flares continued through the whole game, which Zagreb won 2-1. There was no finishing siren but the players walked off the field and dozens of swat team police who were waiting in the wings all marched out and stood below the rowdy Split fans, who began throwing all sorts of objects including removing seats and pitching them down onto the ground. One seat was thrown from the very top and it only made it halfway down, hitting someone on the head. So that person and their mates began running up the stairs to find the culprit.
We had walked down to the entrance gates but stood there for a while watching all the commotion, which is apparently quite tame tonight, until about thirty police positioned themselves in every second row and walking up the aisles to flush people out of the stadium. When they headed towards us we decided it was time to leave and got out of there quick smart. It took the police several hours to clear the stadium of Split fans and enable the Zagreb fans to leave via the back door. The boys all had pizza and Maccas and us girls waited till we got to the promenade with the gelati stores. I bailed after that and went home because I was still sick.
The weather was beautiful on Monday, our last day in Split, in Croatia, in EUROPE, so we all headed down to the beach (with its quite average sand). All of us had packed our bags and left them with hostel storage, so the boys either went in with their jocks (as Degs did quite proudly) or borrowed Jimmy’s shorts, because he went in in his little red European swim shorts (which both he and Mick had bought and worn proudly together). I just rolled my shorts up and had a paddle, it was nice to cool down.
We just dicked around for the rest of the arvo, got our bags and caught the bus to the airport. There were seven of us on the same flight with Wizz air, which is first on, first seated. We had a while to hang around the airport – Lija, Alex and I all jumped on the airport scales to find minor indulgences had gone straight to our hips, whereas Jimmy had a better result – so not fair! I had remembered to take Swissy out of my daypack and they weren’t that strict with the liquid rule – they let me have my cough medicine on. I did have to open my bag still cos I had my nearly empty jar of nutella in there – I just laughed at the security guy and said yeah, it tasted really good! He let me keep it.
I was coughing and spluttering in the waiting area and this nice Indian lady came and offered me cough lollies which I greatly appreciated, and we found out she works in the same hospital as Jimmy back home in Sydney in a different ward – small world! She also gave me panadeine which was good but my head managed to spontaneously combust on landing – the pressure just exploded in my head and my hearing was reduced for several hours. We all jumped on the night airport bus which took an hour and a half to get to Victoria Station, I slept most of the way, and we all said goodbye for now. Lija and I had to take a taxi to Clapham because we were staying on Ali’s couch for a couple of days. It was past 2am when I fell into bed.
Welcome home London, work, winter, long dark days and a new chapter to our lives.
Keep reading though, because the dramas are neverending!!!
Tags: Travel
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