ONE OF THE GUYS - ZADAR, CROATIA - DAY 25
I slept 8 hours under three blankets. When I woke up, Kay and I sat in bed chatting about last night to make sure we still had a friendship. It turns out her night driving with the boys was equally as horrific, and at the end, we both had to laugh.
Kay had started in Florence meeting up with the guys, and the next day, left from Venice. They had to rush to drop off one of their girlfriends at the airport who had also met up with them in Italy, and apparently, the boys move as slow as molasses, so this was difficult. Kay was stressed the whole way through because she sticks to a schedule, and she was trying to have her friend catch her plane, and then leave to make it to Zadar.
She was stuck in the car, crammed in a baby European Toyota with three big dudes, for as long as I was on the two bus rides. They spent over 130 euros for parking in Venice and tolls. They hydroplaned numerous times while driving on the ice and snow in Croatia, dodging cliffs, and regretted the car for all those reasons. On top of that, they nearly got detained for an additional 7 hours at border control because a female customs official was on a power trip. Kay didn’t sleep the entire commute either.
We ended our stories with me giving her the bottle of wine I picked up in Lake Como and a hug. We concluded that Croatia has only become a tourist hotspot after the exposure from Game of Thrones, but the locals are still figuring out how to cater to tourists passing through. There aren’t any trains, anywhere, at any time. There are only buses, flights, or "drive there yourself". The country is extremely hard to get in and out of at ground level, and very difficult to get anywhere WITHIN the country.
We’re laughing now, and I get up to meet the boys. I meet Alex, Norris, and Imran. The boys have this inside joke of calling each other "Chappie", and all of their other friends "Bruv". I catch on quickly, and become one of the guys. We recount our stories of the evening before. I tell them about my detective skills finding EU plates on their car, and they tell me about nearly sliding off a cliff a few times when driving. We click instantly, and all head out for the day. I’ll add that, thanks to Kay, the entire trip thus far has been extremely well planned, and fairly smooth with sleep being our only place of lack. But Croatia, is truly an ADVENTURE. It’s rough, wild, and hard to tame- We’re having fun but we’re surviving. One of the guys, Norris, is half Bosnian and the language is nearly the same- This helps us a lot.
The boys are all Muslim, so we drive them to their place of special Friday prayer for an hour, and Kay and I take the car into town. I wanna drive, but Kay said if anything happens, it’s in Alex’s name. It’s better if she fucks up instead of me. Fair enough.
We look for a place to ride ATVs, but they open next month for in-season. Bummer. We head into the city to do research on the parking situation. We head back to pick up the boys, and drive to lunch. I haven’t eaten since lunch yesterday, and with three boys, we are all STARVING. Honoring my "bro" status, I'm on par with their level of food consumption.
We find a restaurant and I order two dishes, and another Ozujsko beer. In the photo, the boys order one main dish and split a second on the top, and on the bottom is my side, with two dishes and beer. Everything is cheap, and I’m still full as I write this. I finished everything with my only leftovers being an empty bread bowl and some rice that I’ll have for dinner. We got pastries after this.
When we finish, Kay leads us all over old town. Something bizarre happens though, and everything shuts down at 4PM. It’s like their Croatian siesta. We have no idea why, but instead, we manage to see the Forum that was built by the Roman Empire, the Sea Organ, the solar panels that light up at night, (we’ll see them again tonight), see the city’s entrance wall built in 1543 by the Venetians, and try to hit the Illusion Museum that was unfortunately closed. My favorite part of today was touching the Adriatic Sea. It was cold, blue and crystal clear, but not nearly as freezing as I expected. You could absolutely swim in it comfortably by a Swede’s standards haha!
We head back, do more laundry and finally, for the second time on this trip, rest. The plus side of having the boys, is forcing Kay to move slower even if she’s not calm about it haha! Everything is so cheap here, we actually decide to go out and see a movie, "Red Sparrow".
This is a much needed complete relaxation, and a 180 from the travel Hell we all experienced yesterday. Rested and still full, we head out to the local mall for the movies. Admittedly, "Red Sparrow" was really hard to watch. I enjoy violent action films, but for some reason, the violence in this film was hyper realistic, and difficult for me to stomach. It was still fun to be with everyone though.
Tomorrow, we head to Split, and will try to make it to see St. Nicholas’ Fortress- My main attraction on my list!
Love you guys. Ready for Home...I think.
-eM
Xoxox
