Travel Journal

Blogging is a big responsibility.

As is often the case with major episodes in our lives, we want to share at length, but the idea of setting about the task of finding the time to pen a decent recap missive can be daunting.

Such is the case with the trip to Croatia. Sure, I wrote about the engagement. And then I wrote about the nightmare trip home. But I have not even written about the trip itself yet.

I am going, in an effort to keep things as short and sweet as possible, simplify matters by hilighting the 10 best and 10 worst aspects of the trip.

As Charles Dickens once said, "It was the best of times, it was the worst of times."

Let's start with the best of times.

1. The engagement. Yes, I know. I already devoted an entire blog entry to it, but still, it is not to be outshined by any other fabulous moment of the trip.

2. My awesome friend, Lars, from Germany, came all the way from Hamburg, Germany with his friends, Thomas and Katherin, just to hang out with us. "The Gorgeous Lars" as he has long been called by yours truly, is one of the funniest people I know. I have now had the pleasure of meeting him in his homeland, hosting him in mine, and hanging out with him in Croatia! Here we are, pictured below.



3. Ice cold beer, which we consumed in mass quantities on a daily basis. I kid you not when I say that I drank at least one beer every single day. At LEAST.



4. The cool, refreshing waters of the Adriatic Sea. The picture below was taken on the first day of our trip. We were exhausted. We had been up for around 30 hours, but were determined to stay awake until a decent bedtime hour so as to avoid severe jet lag. The waters of the Adriatic were a bit rough this day, and we were sitting on a wall against which the waves were violently crashing and creating a really high spray. Here is Stephen and some French guy, Jose, whose restaurant we later dined at in Dubrovnik, getting a nice refreshing little splash.



5. The rocky beach near our favorite little fish restaurant in Cavtat. Going to the restaurant for a beer or two to take a much-needed break from our strenuous sun bathing.

6. The water taxi from Cavtat to Dubrovnik. The breathtakingly beautiful Dubrovnik harbor as the taxi approaches.



7. Dubrovnik is a walled city built in the Middle Ages. The walls are open to tourists and the walk around them is incredible. On one side, all you can see are the red tiled rooves of Dubrovnik homes. On the other side, the Adriatic stretches out as far as the eye can see. There is a little bar on the walls. You can go down there, have a beer, then jump right off the walls and into the Adriatic. Amazing!

8. Having a major cruiseliner (10 storeys) sail within 50 feet of us as we swam in the waters just off the Dubrovnik walls. We could actually HEAR what individual passangers on the ship were calling to us. The waves created by that thing were enormous! I had taken the picture below from the bar as we drank our beer. By the time we jumped into the water, it was close enough to swim over to!



9 Hot sun. blue skies.

10. Meeting fun people, like the Norweigan guys who joined us on a trip to the beach and then pulled out their iPod, plugged them into speakers and treated the entire beach to a rotation of their favorite 80s pop tunes.

It Was the Worst of Times.

1. The nasty-ass "sponge" bathmat in our bathroom in Cavtat. The thing would appear to be dry, but it was made of this spongey material, so when we'd step on it, it would ring out all over our feet.

2. In keeping with the bathroom theme...the TINY showers typical of Europe. In addition to being tiny, there is nowhere to put your shower stuff. No little shelf. No hanger. Christ, every time I shaved my legs I felt like I was performing in the Cirque du Soleil.

3. Rude tourists. I don't get it. I mean, when I'd hold the door open for people, they would walk right by and not even acknowledge. I mean sure, everybody there is a tourist and very few of them are English speaking. However, if you hold the door open for somebody, and then that person looks at you, smiles pleasantly and says something in a nice tone of voice, aren't you just going to be able to figure out that they were saying thanks in whatever language they speak? Nope. People here took language differences as an excuse to be rude assholes. Un a non-related asshole moment, in Dubrovnik, some French guy was entering a store. He turned, saw me, made eye contact as I reached out to take the door handle. Not only did he not hold the door, he actually FORCED it shut on me.

4. crowds everywhere.

5. Croatia is not as cheap as it was even two years ago.

6. Finding a decent room was somewhat more difficult than it was last time.

7. Three stormy days that we had. What's up with that? Croatia is supposed to have guaranteed hot weather every day!

8. The trip from hell home.

9. The lack of English books in bookstores. I ran out of all my reading material within two days of the trip!

10. The fact that we had to leave!

As you can well see, the far outweighed the good. I recommend Croatia very highly to anybody who wants to visit!!