dubrovnik, croatia

We ended up catching a bus into Dubrovnik. It came on time and we got on, you know, the way buses are SUPPOSED to work! It took about 4.5 hours, and we actually had to pass through Bosnia for part of the trip. The bus stopped and the police came on to check our passports. We had no idea until another passeger told us we were in Bosnia. Add another country to the list!

When we arrived at the bus station in Dubrovnik, we were swarmed by people offering us places to stay. This one lady zeroed in on us and gave us her whole spiel about her place, showed us where it was on the map and told us how close it was to everything. We were open to the idea of staying in someone's home again, because there was only one hostel in Dubrovnik and it was all booked. We told her we would think about it for a bit because we wanted to take a minute to get our things together and look at the map and stuff. We had just stepped off the bus for pete's sake! She followed us all around the station, stalking us and trying to convince us. Her offer sounded alright, and it was the cheapest we had been told, but she was very pushy and that was a turn off. If another lady approached us, she would talk over them and interrupt, saying that they were no good. As we were about to give up and just start walking into town, we talked to one last lady, who was super nice, not pushy at all, and had an even better location. She was the same price as the pushy, far away lady. We talked about it and decided we would commit to one night with her and see how we liked the place. At this point the pushy lady stormed off, I guess she wasn't to happy about not being able to close the deal! haha.. Our lady, Nikola, led us to her car where her husband was waiting and they drove us to their house. When we got there we were so impressed! The house is up on the hill, with the most amazing view of the ocean and our room has it's own balcony. We share the bathroom with the family, and they also let us use their kitchen. The couple gave us cookies and juice, and their daughter who lives upstairs and speaks English came down to talk with us. We asked how to get to the airport and she said Nikola could drive us. Sweet! We decided that we would stay here for all 4 nights. I was so happy that our gamble was worth it!

There are steps beside the house that take us all the way down into the Old Town which was great. We decided to go for a walk and check things out. The grocery store had already closed for the evening, so we went right into town and got some food, and checked out this bookstore. I bought a book called "The Curious Incident of The Dog in The Night Time", by Mark Haddon. It's about this 15 year old boy with Asperger's Syndrome (he is very good at logical things like math, statistics and patterns, but has problems reading human emotions and interacting with people). It's a bit of a detective story, he finds his neighbour's dog murdered and sets out to find out who did it. It's great so far and I think I'll be done it really soon. It's hard to pick out a random book at the bookstore, but this was a good find!

The next morning we slept in and lazed around a bit, but this is our vacation from the vacation, so it was ok! We took the little ferry to nearby Lokrum Island (15-20min away) and spent most of the day there. It's kind of like a nature preserve, with peacocks walking around and all sorts of trees and stuff. We climbed up to the highest point, Fort Royal for an awesome view of the island and the city across the water. We could see a lightning storm wayyy in the distance across the water, very neat! I don't think one day has gone by without some sort of hike though! Sheesh. Even the stairs going back up to our place are tough. It's a climb we wouldn't want to make more than once a day, so once we go into town, we stay there! haha..at least it's a nice walk though, passing under kiwi, orange, and lime trees. Anyways, after the little hike we went to the beach area and went for a swim. I didn't really want to swim at first, but the water is just so beautiful and inviting and warm that I couldn't resist once we got there. On the ferry ride back, it really started storming. The waves were huge, and crashing over the front of the boat (right where we had chosen to stand!) and we got soaked. Then it started to just pour rain. When the boat docked we ran for cover. The streets and building of the Old Town are made of white marble, which was sooo slippery with my flip flops! The square and streets were completely empty, with everyone taking cover under walkways. It was freak storm though, and didn's last very long. After that we made our way home and cooked up some spaghetti and garlic bread. For dessert Nikola brought us out some watermelon.

The next day was a designated beach day. On the ferry the day before we had seen some sort of cove that we wanted to go check out, so that was the plan. First though, we went to an internet cafe and booked accomodation for our next couple of stops, Budapest, Hungary and Salzburg, Austria. While we were walking along the main road in the Old Town, the craziest thing happened! We ran into Aaron! (Aaron is the guy from Vancouver that we met in Munich and toured the Neuschwanstein Castle with.) It was so bizarre, I mean what are the chances? haha.. He told us about this place called Fresh (also run by a Vancouverite!) that has good wraps and a happy hour at 6, so we agreed to meet up again after we were done at the beach. We walked and walked and walked, trying to find the cove we had seen, but it was hard because we were walking along the road on the hill above the beach, and couldn' t tell where it was below us. We did find these stairs that led down to another part of the beach though. It was all rocky, and no one else was there. We found some big rocks to put our backpacks on and went for a swim. We hung out there for quite a while, then made our way to Fresh to meet up with Aaron and a couple more people for happy hour. We ordered this crazy beer tower thing, which is this big 3L tube of beer with a little spout on the bottom to pour it. I had never seen something like that before! hahaha.. We met Aaron's friends and roomates that were all sharing a place here - the two Charlies (Aussies) and Lucy, Holli, and Frances from London. When we were done at Fresh, Aaron and the Charlies went on a mission to find some really tacky tourist t-shirts. They decided to go with the really bright ones instead of the ones that had pictures of wildlife on them, lol. I think the girl that worked at the store was getting quite annoyed at all their indecisiveness. Once they finally picked some out, we all went back to their place and played some drinking games. All in all it was a pretty fun night!

In the morning we went back to Fresh for a breakfast wrap. It was sooooo delicious. The we did the walk of the wall that surrounds the Old Town. The price was 50 Kuna for adults and 20 Kuna for students. Mike still has his student card, so it's no problem for him when they ask for ID, but I only have my youth travel card. It was pretty much a waste of money because they all want to see the official ISIC Student Card, but I try flashing it sometimes anyways and some people let it go. We said two students, and he asked for ID and we went into our bags to get it and he said oh nevermind. I guess he was just testing us, hahaha. Oh well, we saved like $12! (which we bought ice cream with later!) Anyways, the walk took a good chunk of time and had some great views. Afterwards we had a nice dinner at this place called Surf n Turf. The had filet mignon sandwiches with garlic potatoes for cheap, and it was soooo filling. We're eating away, and who should walk by? The guy that gave us his condolences while we were stranded at the bus stop in Plitvice! He was being picked up by someone in a car that night, and we talked with him for a bit before his ride arrived. We tried to get his driver to take us back to Split for 400 Kuna but he didn't want to. Anyways I digress.. Dubrovnik also has an open air movie theatre, and we were going to go see Pirates of the Carribbean 2, but it didn't start until 9 and we didn't know what to do to kill time before then! We ended up going back to our place and just getting packed up for the next day when we were leaving. It's a good thing we didn't end up going to the movie, because it started raining again. Later in the night there was a huge thunder and lightening storm and I couldn't sleep. It was even louder because Mike had the patio door open trying to take pictures of the lightening! Sheesh.

Today we are leaving Croatia, and catching a flight to Budapest, Hungary. Our flight is at 9pm (I think! we have to go check our email..) and they are letting us keep our packs here until it's time to leave. I'm not sure what we're going to do today though, it's pretty cloudy and we've covered pretty much all of the Old Town already...Anyways, time to check out of here!

<3 shanon