Split: Monday Aug 2nd
Arrived first in the morning. The weather is the type that when you try and feel it you can’t. It’s the perfect tempurature to match one’s own body heat, and were it not for a very slight, gentle breeze there would be no sensation whatsoever. Wondered through the old town until I found a small group of backpackers sitting outside of the hostel. They had no room and were waiting for reception to open up to try and get a room. Fortunately I had already booked. I went to check in and of course they didn’t have a record of my booking but then I pulled it up and realized I was at their sister hostel down the street. Hostel itself was Ok, just a bunch of rooms with no common area other than the public bar downstairs. So basically if you want to meet anyone you have to sit in the empty bar and get drunk. I wasn’t up for that so I opted to rent a bike and ride around the peninsula for the day. Basically this was a really good decision. I stopped at 3 different beaches and had a swim along the way, rode up the bike path to the peak of the area, then opted to cruise down though the woods on the way down. This wasn’t really a bike path but more of a rocky walking path going almost straight down the side of the mountain thing. I had to ride down with 1 hand brake held down the entire time and at times had to get off and walk. I figured if I crashed I was pretty much stuck there until some random croatian walking through the woods on the shit trails found me. But alas I made it down and found a pretty isolated area with maybe 8 people chilling at to swim. I declare this the best swim I’ve ever had in my life. Floating in the ocean with no waves and clear water looking down 10-20 feet below me. Hard to beat. Again, the only thing lacking was someone to hang out and share it with. Cruised back to town, stopped to get some food at a market then went back to the hostel for a bit of a nap before heading down to the bar. Ran into the people from the morning and we decided on the pub crawl. This was the most ridiculus pub crawl I’ve been on so far (ridiculus in a good way). 1st hour was all you can drink beer and vodka. Probably 40-50 people, about half guys/girls. They said they only go to 4 bars, but it starts at 9pm and goes until down (the final club stays open all night). By the 3rd bar there was only like 12 people left because everyone was so wasted they had to go home which is about what I did as well. Woke up at 6 am to the roomates coming home and making loads of noise and laughing. I finally yelled and told them to shut the fuck up which they did. But now I was in a room with people who I had pissed off. I figured they might not remember, but none the less I didn’t really interact with them the next day.
Tuesday: woke up and since I wasn’t going to hangout with my roomates and there was no one in the bar, I headed to the sand beach by myself and figured I would try and find some english speaking people to hang out with. Got a bit lost and found 2 Welsh girls just as lost with the map in their hands so we headed down together and found it. Love the Welsh, they are massively fun to hang out with. These were 2 girls at University who were on their first day traveling ever so they had lots of questions about everything. Anyways, hung out with them on the beach, then decided to meet up later for drinks. Met at the hostel bar and they had decided they were going to get me as drunk as possible so they bought me 4 shots of croatian liqour and sang drinking songs to pressure me into taking them…well it worked. Got pretty drunk and closed down the bar at 1am then headed to the all night club. Ran into a few people from the pub crawl the night before but basically got drunk and a bit tired and eventually went home.
Wednesday, met up with the Welsh girls at noon and headed to the rock beaches for another day of chilling. Swam out to some rocks and set up there for a while until the waves came in and splashed us out. Headed over to the shade as I was getting a bit burnt and the hangover was certainly present in full effect. Walked back for a nap then back to the bar. I took it relatively easy (i.e. I closed down the bar but didn’t go out until 5am like the previous night) as I had a 10am checkout and 11am ferry to the islands. Met a few cool people…all australians and britsh…not really any americans here and I love that. But honestly I’m getting a bit tired of going to bars and having the same conversation with people every night. The only good thing is that no one realizes I was born in the 70s and am in fact older than everyone in the room most nights.
