Siesta

One of the best parts about making Croatia our "vacation" spot is their observation of the siesta. At noon most of the shops close down and don't open back up until about 4 or 5 in the afternoon. Why? Because they are all taking a nice afternoon nap. This is quite the difference from the American work day where lunch is an hour long, and really that is mostly reserved for union workers who have a contractual obligation to an hour lunch. In Croatia, they take a nap after thei lunch. All of us at the villa have no problem abiding by the siesta. We got up around noon, went to the beach to swim around for a while, then took a nap after lunch.

We woke up around 7pm to make dinner. We really did absolutely nothing today. The only thing that I can say about today is that I am absolutely sold on this whole siesta thing. A midday nap is an absolutely brilliant idea. Croatia has a different heart beat to it than most sleepy beach towns as well. The Coatians are all so nice and they have absolutely no sense of time. When they say noon, that means two. It is a bit disconcerting at first, but Seth and I have eased into the lifestyle quite easily. It will be hard to get back to normal tourist stuff when we get to Vienna, but we still have one night left here at the villa. That means one more day enjoying a siesta.

IM ON A BOAT!!!

We rented a boat today. It is pretty nice being outside of America. America has such a litigious society that renting a boat would probably have been a much more complicated ordeal, but here in Croatia they will hand over the keys to just anyone. In fact, they didn't even take a credit card deposit or anything. We have no experience and they didn't give us any life vests. We payed cash upfront, which meant that we could have just taken the boat anywhere we want and never returned. That would definitely not have happened in the States. I did not sign one contract and the only safety advice the rental guy gave us was that if we were stopped by the police we should tell them that we are using this boat because it is our friends, not a rental. Of course this seemed a bit sketchy, but what the hell, we were all game for an adventure. So, anchors up and we motored away at a blistering 8 miles per hour.

I must stop for a second and say that if you would have told me a week ago that I would be on a boat with ten other people, all of whom I only met less than a week ago, motoring through the Adriatic Sea, I would not have believed you. We were on a boat with four girls that we met at a bar in Prague, then ended up seeing them in Budapest and so we planned to meet up here in Croatia. Then there are the two Irishmen we met while on the train from Berlin to Prague, who knew Clark, who is from Canada and came us on the boat today. Then Clark met James in a cab from the airport in Dubrovnik, and James stayed with us at the Villa and came with us on the boat. Lastly, there is Becca, who is an old friend of Clarks. Phew, thats a lot of people, and a lot of random meetings, but it was an amazing time.

Our boat was the slowest piece of shit on the Adriatic, but it served valiantly. While cruising around the Croatian coast at an embarrassing slow pace we had two goals in mind: sandy beaches, since almost all beaches in Dubrovnik are rock beaches or pebble beaches, and caves to explore. We found a few really cool caves but came up empty handed in the sandy beach department. Between anchor drops we all did our best rap star impression, since all rappers have a music video on a boat. The day was unbelievable. Me, Seth, and 10 complete strangers on a boat, having an unbelievably great time. The water in the Adriatic is so clear that you can see the bottom, as well. It is so weird compared to Huntington Beach in California where you can't even see your hand in front of you. I wanted to see a shark, but the only sea life they have are sea urchins, and one of those prickly bastards stabbed my foot. I haven't figured out if they are poisonous or not. I hope they are not, but I figured I would have found out by now. What kind of animal makes themselves into a prickly ball? That is no way to make friends. Stupid urchins...

"Nose-enema"

Seth here. So I was cooking for our Villa of 7 tonight and a strange thing happened. Saltwater started to flow out of my nose. Don't worry, not into the food. Just kinda on the floor in front of me. And every 10 minutes or so for the next hour, more water. I was thinking back to what I possibly could have done to create this new nasal saltwater gland. Did I invoke some ancient water curse? Anger Poseidon? Or maybe it was this
The one on the top is the Irishmen, the second one is me (it's hard to tell what's going on because I'm on the way up...)

Apparently, jumping 30 feet vertically into the Adriatic repeatedly gives you what Sean calls a "nose enema." So I guess some water stayed up there and finally found its way out. Either that or my brain is leaking.

No matter. Today was fantastic. We jumped off things, swam, walked a few miles to the only sand beach around, and enjoyed the wonderful weather. Tomorrow we are renting a boat for 12 (our posse is growing) and are going to go island hopping and explore caves. How awesome is that?

I'm (going to be) on a boat! Sadly, T-Pain will not be in attendence.

You Can't Make This Stuff Up

Seth and I made a promise to one another at the beginning to have an adventure and travel with a loose itinerary so that we could have adventures. As I am writing this I am sitting on the balcony from our Villa in Croatia with the stars above me, their reflection dancing on the Adriatic while the gentle waves lap against the rocks beneath us. Not only is our living accomodation an unreal spectacle, perhaps the most satisfying aspect is that we have five other people from three different countries living here. We batted around the idea of whether this villa would be too much, or if these people that we have known for mere hours would come through so that we were not stuck with the bill on our own, and we ended up going with our gut and pulling the trigger.

Seth is pointing where our villa is. It's awesome.

It turns out that this was one of the best decisions we could have made. Seth and I love history, and we both love to see new things, but we were both a bit tired of museums, monuments, and important stuff. Not that those things are not cool, but we are on vacation and many of those things take coordination, planning, and walking, which can get a bit tiresome. Today we made the 10 minute walk from our villa down to the Old Town to check out the center, then mosied back up to the villa and hopped in the Adriatic for a swim. I still can not believe how we got here, how amazing this place is, and that we are sharing it with 5 complete strangers.

We have not completely abanoned our touristic intentions, though. Our good friend Rick Steve's (Seth's noble travel companion, well, actually Rick Steve's writes travel books and we have his Eastern Europe volume) gave us a brief history of Dubruvnik and it is quite interesting. Dubruvnik was attacked by the Serbian military in 1991. Not even twenty years ago! The town we are staying in was shelled by Serbs and the Croatians living in Dubruvnik took antique muskets and whatever weapons they could find and held off the Serbian National Army for nearly thrity days until the Croatian Army came and was able to push back the Serbs. Interestingly, the medieval walls built up around the old town area of Dubruvnik were used for there first time in battle during this conflict. It is crazy to think that that was so recent. I am not sure how staying in awesom villa with random awesome people in an awesome place relates to a recent war, but, hey, you can't make this shit up.

22 Hours of Travel

22 hours is a long time. If you have ever done anything for 22 hours straight you know that it is a long time. When you are switching from one cramped space to another, 22 hours stretches into a mind numbing trial of patience and wit. Budapest is not to terribly far from Dubrovnik, Croatia, but the train and bus transfers that one has to navigate takes a great deal of time.

Seth and I took two trains, both about 7-9 hours long, then we transfered to a bus which took roughly 4 hours. It was well worth it, though, as we arrived at our Villa in Dubrovnik and immediately took a dip in the Adriatic Sea. It made the numb ass, cramped legs, smelly clothes, and hunger pangs all worth it.

The trip was actually not as bad as I thought it would be either. Our first train puuled out in the afternoon and we were treated to a nice cool breeze as we stuck our heads out the window of the train like dogs in a car. The rail is the preferred method of travel for the traveling youth in Europe and I could not help but smile as I stuck my head out the window to see the Hungarian countryside as well as scores of twenty-somethings with their heads popped out of the windows, enjoying the fresh air.

On our first train we shared a cabin with some Londoners who had been to the running of the bulls a few weeks ago in Spain. Their story was just mental. One of the guys was telling us how a guy got gored right in front of him. What a shitty way to end your vacation. They didn't know the guy, and they said that people were getting trampled left and right. Seth and I talked later about how our adventures somewhat pale in comparison to such a story, but we quickly reminded ourselves that we also don't have any unnecessary holes from huge animals as souvenirs either. To each his own, though. We will be enjoying our health while we watch the sunset on the Adriatic from the balcony of our villa. It is a rough life sometimes.

Taking a Bath in Public

Budapest is a city that is apparently known for their bath houses. The city is a geothermal hot spot with a low water table which has made it a popular location for natural baths for centuries. Today, Seth and I took the plunge. We visited the Szechenyi Bath House, which has a good mix of tourists and locals. When you enter a bath house there is a whole procedure that one has to follow, so we tread lightly as Seth and I exchanged puzzled looks and the workers gave us grunts while pointing us in the right direction. Luckily the staff spoke enough English to help us along, but the bath house, being the labyrinth that it is, still managed to get us lost. The entire facility is indoors with narrow hallways and closed doors with signs on them. Since we could not read the signs we hesitated to open doors, fearing we might land ourselves in the womens locker room. This would be fine if we lived in a world where everyone looked like Phoebe Cates when they left a body of water, but the sad reality is that ninety-nine percent of the folk there were doing us all a favor by being clothed.

After several wrong turns, a few grunt-points from workers, and many, many hesitant door-openings, we found a pool. Now that we had found the pool, we had to make sure it was the right one. There is a procedure where you are to go from the hottest pool, to a cold pool, then to a tepid pool. There are also saunas that you could go into. We went into the first pool we saw, which was the tepid pool. Swing and a miss. We sat for a second, acting like we intended to be there, then got up and made our way to the "humid" sauna. This room was 130 degrees and you could not even see your hand in front of you with how much steam was in there. It was intense. It hurt to breath.

Seth and I didn't really follow procedure due to the language barrier and the fact that every time we turned a corner there was a new pool. We just ended up hanging out in each pool, eventually making our way outside where they had the fun pools. There was a tide pool that pushed you along in a circle. Grown men and children alike all giggled as the water pushed them along. The craziest room in the whole place was the hot, dry sauna. It was between 180 and 215 degrees in this room. As soon as we walked in the sweat just poured out of us. It was absolutely ridiculous how hot it was in there. When we left that sauna we jumped straight into a 55 degree pool. My body is still tingling from the shock. The baths are unbelievably relaxing and a great way to spend a lazy Sunday afternoon. Im still not sure why they call them "baths" though. After sitting in a body of water with hundreds of complete stranges for hours, soaking in each others filth I hardly felt clean. By the way, the pics are of the "Heroes Square" which is right near the bath house. I didn't feel like being a creepy tourist with a camera around my neck in the pool, so I left the camera in the locker.