Before anything, this song was played a couple times on the coach, and I fell in love. I hope that by putting it on here, it will infect others.
I’ve finally had the inspiration to finish the blog, and I hope I’ll be back to my routine of having a new one up every couple days. So at this point, we’ll just pretend I’m still on the Contiki tour.
Croatia with a similar vibe and temperature to Greece, was another destination in the trip that everyone was looking forward to. On arrival, the tents were set up, the Frisbee came out, and after dinner, wine was consumed. Our first night in Dubrovnik scared me. I opened a bottle of 11.5% Rose, not a particularly harsh bottle by any means, but enough to get most jobs done. After finishing that bottle in record time, and still feeling incredibly sober, I started to worry. At the start of the tour, a bottle would make my cheeks pink and my tummy giggly, and I’d be pretty pissed. Halfway through the tour, a bottle would be a great start to the night, and would get me in a chirpy, happy mood. I think it’s now at the point where a bottle mellows me, but not much more. It’s now like a tastier (sometimes not exactly delicious) version of water. A popular activity shared among the group is a shower beer. It kind of goes without say - you take a beer to the shower and drink it. Some of my chumps at home have heard me speak of taking a green apple into the shower and eating it. I can honestly say that a shower beer is 30 times better. The bogan Australian girl of the group introduced us to it. That again probably goes without say.
Bright and early the first morning, a guided tour took us through the ‘old town’ of Dubrovnik. I must start by saying that the Croatian people that live in the old town have to be very fit, and if they aren’t, it doesn’t take long for them to get fit. It was an impressive layout. The main three streets are on the ‘first level’. On these streets you find food, banks, myths and tales, souvenir shops and clothing. To see the cool and strange stuff, you have to climb flights upon flights of stairs. Here, one can find where all the people live, and the overgrown forests that were once a veggie patch. Dubrovnik dwellers are insanely nosey people. Each house when-ever they were built has a little hole in each wall. This little hole had a really cool name that I’ve forgotten, but it has the sole purpose for listening to your neighbours. In the old day, there were no secrets. One English chap who decided to move there for a year was making coffee one morning, only to find out that he was out of sugar. He simply said to his wife “Oh darn, we’re out of sugar, I’ll have to make a trip to the shop”. Moments later, the little old lady from next door was knocking at his door with some spare sugar. No secrets.
Basically, the old town is just a massive maze encased in massive city walls. After the guided tour, we had a couple hours free time, and we used that time to get lost in the maze and find a dying pigeon, a peg and a bar. This was no ordinary bar though. Half of the city boundary is cliff face. To get to this bar, you have to walk through a little opening in the city wall, and you walk out onto one of these massive cliff faces. Spread out on the rocks on the cliff were various little tables and chairs and that was the bar. You could even jump off the rocks into the Croatian sea and climb back up to finish your beer. You may be asking “Why is a peg worth mentioning?”. Well my friends, this peg turned into a game throughout the day. Whilst walking along, the peg would be opened and without knowing, someone would fall victim to a peg being attached to them. To be properly claimed a victim, a photo had to be taken of you with the peg attached, without you knowing. Please see exhibit A:
At 12:30, everyone made their way to the port to get on our cruise, similar to George’s boat, just not as sleazy. It was a gorgeous day and a gorgeous cruise, and since they sold beer, we got pretty bloody drunk. After cruising around for an hour the boat stopped for lunch in some port on some island, both unknown to this old fish, but I know that we were allowed to swim here, and to make use to this opportunity, we spent most of our time leaping off the boat into the water. This boat was far larger than George’s, and had a second level which made the leap so much more exciting.
For lunch in Croatia, the way to go is seafood. Dubrovnik and the surrounding islands especially are famous for their sensational seafood. I’ve had seafood before, and don’t appreciate it enough to pay the price they were asking, so I had delicious vegetarian pizza. One of the newer girls passed out before the pizza even came out. I guess that what happens when you start drinking scotch at 9 in the morning.
Jumping back on the boat full of food, everything went smoothly for the duration of the sail back to port, right up until about 20 minutes away. One joke went a little too far, and the response wasn’t exactly gorgeous. Somehow, a tension in the group had been brewing, a fact unbeknownst to me. Things went awkward on the boat for a quite some time while tempers flared, but we made it off the boat still friends and life went on.
After a massive day in the sun on the boat and slamming through the city, exhaustion was a feeling running through the campsite, but the day wasn’t over just yet. Tara and mobile chef Jodie decided that taking us for a pub crawl to see Dubrovnik by night would be a good idea, and how it was! On arrival back into the city, the chaps and myself slammed down a pizza and let the drinking commence. The first pub sucked, it was only us and some creepy old guys that just sat and watched our Contiki girls dance around. This was the shortest pub crawl known to me, as we only visited two. On arrival to the next pub, we saw glow sticks and buckets everywhere. When I say bucket, I mean like the kind you take to the beach, with a little plastic spade. In these buckets contained copious amounts of alcohol, of whatever kind you wanted. I had to have one, but instead I had about 5 with shots of every kind dispersed between. A lad from the tour discovered a thing called a tower. Similar to the bucket idea, but 3 litres worth (I think?) and is filled with glow sticks and the alcohol has to be accessed from a little tap.
At 12 o’clock, there was a scheduled blackout of the city, but no-one told us, so for a couple minutes, the bar was in complete darkness (This is what I’m told, I didn’t notice a thing because of reasons I’m sure you can all relate to). After the generator kicked in, the party went on. When everyone decided it was time to go home, we took to the streets to find a taxi. This was not a cool experience by any means. Walking through the streets of a night time and not being able to see anything was still definitely an experience though. In the distance I could see a man walking down the street side to side. It doesn’t sound creepy at all, but when he is dragging something behind of significant weight, I can’t help but to feel somewhat uncomfortable. In the distance, I could make out figures running around, going into and coming from the shadows of the walls. We made it back to the campsite alive though!
With a free day up our sleeves, I spent the day washing, talking to the parents and strolling through the old city. Before I left the campsite, there was a massive box of unclaimed alcohol that was left on the bus, and after 3 days of no-one claiming it, Jodie was about to throw it. Benjamin saw this disgrace and stopped it before she had a chance. Out of this I scored two bottles of wine and 6 beers. A fair effort I’d like to think. On arrival into the city, I found a few Contiki kids about to hike up the massive city walls. I joined their party and off we went. I’m very glad I took my camera. I haven’t too much to say concerning the walls, I think the pictures speak for themselves.
Finding some more people from Contiki, we spent the remainder of our afternoon at the cliff bar, chilling out to the max in the sun with the ocean breeze.
More to come soon as the journey through Eastern Europe continues!
Later boooyyyzzz.
I love the teardrop music. It has a calming affect. Had to play it while reading blog.
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