been there, done that

Ahoy main-landers,

Croatia was a welcome change from Spain and Italy. For a few hours. In terms of safety, Croatia was excellent. A lot of people said that they felt very safe walking around at night and not like they had to be constantly on the guard. Dubrovnik, our port, is a resort town and I got real tired, real fast of all the beaches and gift shops. Everything and anything to do here involved beaches or partying. Something like 90% of the population in the city is in tourism. Isn't that ridiculous? You have to wonder what local life and culture is like when it's all packaged so neatly for our consumption, or if there is one.

Dubrovnik is another one of those cities with an old city district that is walled. It's always so ridiculous to me that people back then thought a wall would be sufficient enough to keep people out. A wall. A wall? People can climb up, knock down walls, make a hole through walls. Really? You expect to keep your enemies out? And it is also very limited in space. Population has to grow eventually. These walls are going to be limiting.

Food was not impressive, but I do appreciate how cheap the gelato was. The scoops were way larger than in Spain and Italy. And it was only about $1. It's actually 7 kuna everywhere, but I was in a shop when it was 5 kuna (=$1), I guess because it was busy. So the next day I see that it's actually 7 kuna. I told the lady that it was 5 kuna yesterday. She went in the back, came out, and said okay. Yes! And there was also good bread. But I've always been a fan of bread.

Also, did I mention how beaches in Croatia are awful? People keep saying how they're so nice, but they're not! Far from it. They are all rocks that are painful to walk on. I don't care about acupressure, it hurts. I'm really not enjoying the salt-water. I know I dive in salt-water, but I'm diving. I'll dive anywhere. I don't want to go to a salty beach. I like freshwater.

Croatia ate my rashguard. It's tragic. I left it on the beach chair behind me. A friend and I tried to get a sailboat to rent. After a 30 minutes walking, we're on a highway type of road now. We ask someone and they tell us it's about 5 miles away. So we turn around and go to try to rent a kayak. The guy asks us if we want to die today because it's choppy. And plus he only does group kayaking tours. So then we settle on a beach to go snorkeling. We find the beach, but this beach is choppy too. We end up just splashing around and collecting sea-glass for a bit.

We left the beach around 1. I remember exactly where I left my rashguard. I can see it in my mind. It was white on the white beach chair behind me. I left it there to dry in the sun. It was stupid. So stupid. And when we left, I only checked the chairs we were sitting on. It was stupid. And we didn't go kayaking after because it was still choppy, so I didn't think about my rashguard. There were so many ways, times I could turn around to get it because we were still in the area for a while. There were so many ways I could have remembered before we left the beach. So many things I did that were stupid that resulted in Croatia eating my rashguard. I bought that one about a year ago and hadn't used it until then. And the one day, first time I decide I'll actually go to the beach, will be the only time I'll use it. I hate the beach. Now I'm going to get skin cancer and die.

falteringly attentive,
JT