Korcula, Kunas, and Kabobs

Korcula, Kunas, and Kabobs

Croatia…oh, what an amazing time I had. When I found out we were going to Croatia, I wasn’t sure what to expect because the last time I was in Croatia was when I was 15 months old. Last summer when the family and I did a cruise to Eastern Europe we saw a lot of beautiful countries but some of the countries like Serbia were still very war-torn. I was expecting either a broken country or a gorgeous country with lots of beaches (which is what I was told by the student from Croatia on the boat).

Well, we get to Croatia and I looked out the window to the most BEAUTFUL site ever. There were red brick buildings along the coast with the white houses and blue water. It was amazing. The first day we exchanged our Euros to Kunas (the Croatia currency) went to the beach near the Old Town in Dubrovnik and we found out really quickly that the beaches are all rocky and painful for your feet. ☹ The water is clearer in Croatia than anywhere else I’ve ever been though so the pain is worth experiencing the Adriatic Sea. After the beach we went to the city walls that go over the old town and look over the red brick roofs but involved a lot of stairs and sweating. I feel like this voyage has allowed me to loose about 20% of my body weight through sweating profusely in the humid summer Mediterranean environment. I’m trying my hardest to stay hydrated with lots of water so I don’t pass out during a day trip somewhere. After the city walls, we saw people cliff diving and Heather and I decided we were too accident prone/smart to cliff dive but we wanted to jump off of smaller “rocks” into the Adriatic. There was a little cliff side bar we found that had a 5 foot jump into the sea which seemed much safer than the 40 feet cliff diving on the other side of the wall so Heather and I “Carpe Diem”-ed it and jumped into the Adriatic sea from the little rocks. Well, jumping INTO the water isn’t the hard part…it’s getting OUT of the water. We realized that even though there were stairs that lead us back up to the bar, the tide was really strong and we had a hard time getting up out of the water. We made it out safely, with the help of many, many sweet local Dubrovnik people. That night I decided to take it easy because I had to get up the next morning at 6AM…ahhh!!

The next day I went on a day trip with my friends Vi-Zanne and Sayble to two small towns in Croatia: Trsten, Ston and we took a little boat to the Island of Korcula, where Marco Polo was born. We all decided that Croatia is charming everywhere, not just in Dubrovnik. That night we all went out for beef kabobs and hit up the bars in Dubrovnik, which was a blast. We ended up in a Latin dance club, Fuego and we stayed there until about 4:30AM. Exhausted, we decided t walk back to the boat, which took longer than we anticipated so we ended up watching the sunrise by the time we made it to the pier.

The next day MY FAMILY GOT TO DUBROVNIK!!!! We met up with Daddy Bob, Momma Mary and Sarah (as well as Sarah’s friend, Ax from home) and we all had lunch and went sight seeing in Dubrovnik. It was sooo good to see my wonderful family. I missed them!!! After my parents left to go back to their ship, I took Sarah and Ax to the ciff bar to jump off little rocks with Heather, Shannell and I. It was a BLAST!! We jumped off little 5 foot rocks into the water and everytime I had a little bit of trouble getting out of the water, there was someone to lend a helping hand. At one point, I was struggling in the water and I swear…my guardian angel came to rescue me. He was a Brazilian man who looked exactly like Jesus in some green swimming trunks. All of a sudden he came out of no where and said, “Hello…I help you.” and I was beyond grateful for him jumping into the water and pulling me out. Jesus has his angels everywhere…it’s a known fact for me. I’ve seen guardian angels all over the world. ☺ After the beach we went to dinner with Cheyenne and Shannell and got kabobs from our favorite little kabob stand. Then we did our laundry and watched Hitch because we were exhausted and we did not want to go out again and have a repeat of a bar hopping, Latino dancing night. We did not regret our decision to stay in, especially when we talked to our friends that DID go out and had to be up early the next morning.

Heather, our friend Vi-Zanne and I decided to go parasailing the last day in Croatia. We found a company that could come pick us up at the harbor and we found a few other SASers that wanted to go with us. It was a BLAST!! I’d never been parasailing before and it seriously was the most relaxing thing I’ve ever done. Heather and I went up together and enjoyed the view and the fact that we were swinging up high about the sea. After parasailing, I went to an internet café with my friend Rachel and I tried to upload pictures onto Facebook but was extremely unsuccessful. ☹ I’ll try again in another port though…I promise!

Croatia was such an amazing experience and I had the best time with all my new and old friends here on the boat. We had so many stories and adventures with one another and it’s weird to think I’ve only known these people for about a month. Tomorrow at 0800 hours we get into Piraeus, the port for Athens and we all are going on an SAS trip to on the sites of Athens and the Acropolis. We watched Mamma Mia and My Big Fat Greek Wedding Tonight to prepare for Greece tomorrow and I am sooo excited!! All of our friends are coming to Mykonos with Heather and I the last three days of the port in Greece and it’s going to be great!

I love hearing from you guys via e-mails and I’m sorry if it takes me a while to e-mail you back. I miss you all and I love you guys sooo much!!!!

Angie ☺