Day 2 of my European Journey (8/21/11)
Our second day of our trip began with a late wake-up in Split, us abandoning our plans to go to the National Park one hour North, and a stop at the grocery store. I got lemonade, Julia got a giant water and fruit. We got a big loaf of bread and some gouda cheese for our lunch later. I also got some pecans and pistachios. We went to the local beach (the closest one since we were so tired) and relaxed all day. Since I only slept for a couple hours again the night before, I easily took some cat naps on my lounge chair.
Everyone around us seemed to be pestered by this man who was charging for beach chairs and umbrellas, but he looked over us each time... probably because we're so beautiful and he wanted us on his beach!! I keep saying beach, but we were on a slab of concrete that surrounded 75% of the bay. The bay was very shallow until about 50 yards out. The water was very warm and so BLUE, but kind of dirty too (a candy wrapper or two floated by me)! The water was chilly, but it was so hot outside that it felt amazing. It was only 11 am and already 90 degrees at least. I found myself hiding from the sun, which I can't remember ever doing before! The gouda cheese was sweaty and warm by the time we ate lunch, but tasted great on our thick loaf of bread. My walnuts were perfectly salty and crunchy too.
There were some posts from an old pier in the middle of the bay that people were jumping off of, so we swam out to investigate. Surprisingly, we couldn't touch and it was deep enough to jump or dive. I was creeped out by the columns covered in algae and mollusks, but hopped up using my "getting out of the swimming pool" muscles! The breeze felt awesome on my wet skin but I dove off getting my head wet for the first time all day. Julia jumped off another post and then I got on again, I wanted to play like a little kid. I figured, "it's my vacation, I can do what I want, whenever I want!" I cannon balled off and I loved it. We swam back in slowly chatting like ladies doing water aerobics while boys spoke to us in all different languages. We packed up because we couldn't stand the heat anymore and headed back to the hostel.
Neno (the guy that ran the hostel at night) recommended a few restaurants for us to go to and we chose his favorite one, called Fife, down near the harbor. It looked like a nice place, it was crowded, and the waiters spoke some English. We ordered the mixed grill, meatballs, and a salad. I was not satisfied... literally we got scary meat and french fries. Julia's salad was nice, and the pork (a.k.a. what I deemed pork) was good. Sausage and mince meat pellets were not appealing to me at all... the meatballs were all right, but the sauce was much better! oh yeah, we got free gnocchi, but it wasn't anything special until I put the meatball sauce on it. Generally it felt very third world and that scared me for the week we had left because I knew I couldn't survive on salads!
Back at the hostel we hung out with our traveller friends, mostly from the UK, in the common area/kitchen. They were all going out, but we were still too jet-lagged and planned to get up early to move on to Brac Island in the morning. I stayed up talking to friends from home on the internet and the group came back surprisingly early. They said it was too unbearably hot to be in a bar, drink, or even talk to people! We talked about what our plans were and I pointed to a poster of Croatia on the wall and said, "I'm going there tomorrow." Zlatni Rat Beach is on almost every advertisement for Croatian tourism and that's where Julia and I were going. Instantly that convinced Paul (from England) and Gareth (from Whales) to tag along. It would be the last day of Gareth's trip and a nice trip to the islands for Paul. To make the most of the day at the beach, we decided to take the first ferry to Brac the next day.
No comments:
Post a Comment