My Croatian Adventure

...and an adventure it was! I don't have my pictures ready to share at the moment so until then, forgive my wordy picture-less story.

So for those of you who don't know why I went to Croatia, let me quickly explain. My step sister Renee is in the Navy and their ship ported in Split, Croatia. She was able to tell me a few days beforehand that she'd be there and asked me to come. I could only find super expensive plane tickets and kinda decided I couldn't afford it...until a lovely Slovak friend found me a cheap bus ticket. I decided this would be a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity and decided to go for it. Tuesday I bought my ticket, Friday I left :)

So I was able to get a ride to the Vienna airport on Friday morning because someone else was going there. However, my BUS left from downtown Vienna at 6 pm. So pretty much all day I walked around Vienna and took trains all over the place to check out the city. I finally feel like I SAW Vienna for the first time, even though I've been there like 4 times. I loved it because I was able to see the parts of town I wanted to that no one else has been interested in seeing.

A few hours beforehand I took the train to Erdberg station a few stops away from downtown. I didn't know where this place was or anything so I left in plenty of time in case I got lost. I went to the counter to make sure I was in the right spot and she said, "Yes, you will be in terminal A." So I wait till check in, go to another counter, ask another lady just to make sure, and she says, "Yes, Terminal A please." So I go to terminal A, show the bus driver my ticket who didn't know one word of English, and I say, "SPLIT?" and he nods his head and says "SPLIT!" and tells me I can sit down. I go get a breath of air before we leave and I ask some random guy if the bus went to Split. He says, "NO SPLIT (points to my bus), THAT SPLIT (points to another bus in another terminal)". It was 5:59 at this point. I run down to the other terminal and low and behold I see a big fat sign for Split on the window. I run back to my bus and get my stuff. As I left I showed me ticket to the silly old driver and said in a ticked off stern voice, "NOT SPLIT!!" and ran to the other bus. We left immediately. Just imagine if I didn't ask that other guy if I was on the right bus- I would have ended up in flippin' Afghanistan or something.

So within about 60 seconds I start to feel horribly motion sick. I thought to myself how there was no way I could get through the whole trip without puking, and started looking around for some place to vomit. I popped my 2 Dramamines and 2 melatonins to start getting sleepy early on. For the next 12 1/2 hours I found myself in about 10 different sleeping positions- the most effective being laying down on the two seats with my legs 'Indian style' against the window. I woke up probably 20 times that night.

At about 5:30 I woke up on the bus and decided I was ready to really wake up. I looked to my right and saw the moon beans shine off of the water then had a stale fluffernutter sandwich (peanut butter and marshmellow fluff). I don't know exactly why but for some reason I was hit with a wave of emotion - both good and bad - and spent like 30 minutes crying in my seat as I looked at the water, being tossed around the curves of the cliffs as the driver sped around them. It felt good to get it out- been too long since I have.

I arrived at the Split bus station at 6:30 am. All I knew about where to find Renee was that she was in a certain part of town. After asking 3 people's advice on how to get there in broken English, I decided to take a chance and take buses to get across town. By the way, I got different responses from those 3 people but I just took the best out of 3! So I couldn't believe it but I got on the right buses at the right time and it took me across the city. Renee had told me it wasn't in the main port so I was looking for a rinky dink little port. So as we were driving I asked a lady next to me where this particular part of town was. She said it was a little further---but I saw a huge gray ship at the bus stop we were stopping at. She told me I should stay on and wait even though my gut told me to get off the bus. I wasn't sure if it was Renee's ship so I thought I'd keep on going to make sure. That was one edge of this large bay. We went all around the entire bay to the opposite side where I eventually got off the bus.

I called the ship's number and the conversation went like this: (Does it sound like I'm in the Navy or what?)
"Hi I'm here visiting OS2 Melillo (or whatever it was) and I am trying to locate your ship. Do you have a number 17 on the front of the ship?"
"No ma'am, there isn't a number on the front but there is a number on the back."
"Ok, yeah honestly I can't tell the difference. Ok, so it's a big, gray boat, eh?"
"Yes ma'am."
"Ok good enough, this phone call is costing me a fortune, bye!"

The problem was, even though I could see the ship I still had to walk over an hour and a half across the bay just to get to the entrance (right beside the bus stop I should have gotten off in the first place). I FINALLY get to the entrance of the ship and wait for her. She comes running through the entrance and hugged and it was great. She took me to the depths of her ship and showed me her 'berthings' (where she lives) and where she works. It was really cool to see it, though I don't think I'm cut out to live in a place like that!

They said that if we didn't stay in this particular 5 star hotel then they wouldn't let her leave--which stinks because the hotel was like a 15 minute ride from downtown and it cost a ton to get a cab ride. Anyway we went to our hotel and got settled, bathed, and relaxed in our really really nice room. Later we went out to get pizza near our hotel but met up with some of her navy buddies who bought our lunch and some drinks which was very expensive, but it was cool I guess. We went back to the hotel and chilled for the night. Actually they gave us a free $5 voucher to use in the casino so we went down there for a while to play the stupid slots which stink. We went up to eat dinner at the fancy restaurant where I ordered a tuna steak. It was borderline rancid which surprised me at the amount of money it cost. I asked for a piece of chicken instead, so they brought me out chicken and fries and I ended up paying like $25 for that stupid meal and we had just spent like 2 hours in the restaurant waiting. How annoying! Stupid expensive rancid food.

The next day we had a crazy awesome continental breakfast in the hotel restaurant. It was AMAAAAZING, probably the best hotel breakfast I've ever had. We grabbed the shuttle to the bus station in downtown and pretty much spent all day from 9:30 to 5 walking around Split taking pictures and stuff. It was so cool and I really loved it there. We just explored every crack and crevice we could find and took pictures of it. It was amazing! I'm gonna post my pictures on Facebook soon so watch out.

At 5 I went to the bus station but I didn't see my bus. While I wasn't looking the bus right in front of me changed the sign to say they were going to Vienna. So I said goodbye to Renee and showed this big hairy tall ugly driver my ticket. In Croatian he asked if I spoke German or Croatian, and I said no, so he said "Why not?! Next time, German or Croatian!". He was trying to tell me I needed another ticket. I said I only had one ticket. So after 5 minutes of arguing he took me in the bus station and yelled at the guy behind the ticket counter so everyone could here. I didn't understand him but I knew he was mad and not happy with me....especially after I reached in my pocket and showed him my itinerary (not a ticket) and the ticket guy said that was what he was asking for.

So we went outside and he looked at my backpack and pointed to the back of the bus. I thought he was saying that I needed to put my backpack on the bottom. I said, "No this comes with me up there" and I pointed to the seats in the back. He said something in Croatian and pointed to the back of the bus. I said, "NO, you don't understand, I'm NOT putting this under the bus because it's small enough to go with me and" blah blah. We argued like this for another 5-10 minutes and he was looking at me like he wanted to kill me, but I wouldn't do it. After a while he grabbed my hand with his huge hand and pointed at the back door of the bus---MEANING that I could take my bag with me but I had to enter in the back entrance instead of the front. I felt pretty stupid. I got on and got settled. Later he came back and I said sorry and he winked at me so he wasn't too mad.

Later that night I needed to use the bathroom on the bus but he told me it was broken. Except, you have to pay to use the bathroom at the bus stop so just as we were about to leave he took me to show me the bathroom and convinced the ladies to let me go in for free cause I didn't have any money. It was nice.

The hairy bus driver and I were on good terms until he came to the back of the bus to tell me I couldn't lay down on the seats the way I was. I was pretty ticked!!

I got into Vienna at 4:30 am, an hour before schedule...but I woke up as we were parking so I was in a hurry to get off the bus cause everyone else was almost off. I looked back to make sure I had everything and didn't see anything. It wasn't till another 30 some minutes later till I realized I left my black hat on the bus!!! ACK! So I was about to get a train home but decided to delay my trip so I could go back on the other train to see if my hat was still on the bus. Of course the bus was locked and no one would let me in. I came back a few hours later again and it was still locked. I even left a note on the outside of the bus as well as leaving one on the outside of the bus station but no one gave a hoot. So yes, my favorite hat of all time is seeing the world without me. :( I'm still mad about that to be honest.

I took another train to Starbucks and tried to sleep there for another few hours but kept being rudely awakened by the espresso machines. I got a fantastic cup of espresso and muffin and left. I met some friends later that day and we walked around Vienna for another few hours and had some pretty good lunch. I got to the train station in Trnava and walked another 25-30 minutes to get home. I was pooped! I slept 11 hours last night and could have slept longer if it weren't for my alarm.

Let me just say that I really really enjoy traveling alone, as scary as it can be sometimes. I love the ability to make 10 different decisions in 10 seconds and no one cares. I like to be able to go wherever I want and spend as long as I want doing it and I don't have to worry about what other people want. On the other hand I like traveling with one buddy who doesn't care about that stuff either. It's nice to have companionship and for people to watch your back and your luggage and stuff.

Anyway I totally don't regret any part of this trip, I had a great time and I feel so refreshed coming back from it. I'm really glad my friends encouraged me/pushed me to go. Good times!!