My first post about Dubrovnik was actually the 4th day of our trip. So let me rewind and take more of a chronological approach from this point forward.
First, let me explain something about “jet lag”. This was my first time traveling anywhere where some form of jet lag could result – although I swear those Monday mornings on the East coast are a form of jet lag after traveling from the West coast on Sunday. Anyway, before I left, people told me to take sleeping pills, eat some crazy herbal flow
er, stand on my head…yadayadayada. I did none of the above and I had no jet lag. Here’s what I did (unintentionally, but it worked), which is what I call the recipe for beating jet lag:
- Get 4 hours of sleep each of the two nights before travel
- Travel for 29 hours with two flights and an 8 hour train ride
- Sleep 3 of the 29 hours traveling
- Go to sleep at destination at 1AM
- Wake up at 9AM the next day feeling great
If you’re counting, that’s 1
1 hours of sleep in 77 prior to arriving. So the moral of the story is – get really tired and you won’t have any problem sleeping.
I arrived in Zurich feeling very tired. The first thing I noticed about Zurich was that it’s clean. Really clean. The second thing I noticed about Zurich is that everyone is fit. You’re hard pressed to find more than a couple overweight people in Zurich (I’m still haven’t figured out why considering all of the cheese and chocolate they eat). The third thing I noticed about Zurich is that it’s cold. It was July 2 – I was in some plaid shorts looking like a total goober
and freezing my arse off on the 50 degree, rainy July day. Hopping on a train in Zurich, I cruised (first class – which is worth it, I highly recommend it) through the Alps and down into Italy.
Ben, who is Romania and lived in Romania until he was about 7, had spent a couple of weeks in Romania with his mom – visiting family and friends. Seth had joined Ben in Budapest, Hungary when Ben’s mom flew home and the two of them spent 4 days in Budapest. Our plan was to meet in Venice on the night of July 2. None of us had brought a cell p
hone, so I (who am generally not an anxious person) can honestly say that I had a lot of anxiety about whether or not I’d be able to find them in Venice.
8 hours later I arrived in Venice, walked out of the train station, and saw Cotter’s big smiling face – which was a huge sigh of relief (I had had visions of sleeping on the floor at the train stations). At that point, the trip (for me at least) had begun.
“It’s Impossible”, the guy working at the hotel kept telling us in his thick Italian accent. Well, it’s not really “impossible”, I said, one of us could just sleep on the floor. Cotter and Benny had checked in to a 2 person room, thinking that one of us could just sleep on the floor or a cot or something. When the guy working the desk saw 3 of us walk in, he started telling us it was “impossible” for us to get 3 in a room. After debating with this gu
y and his manager for 15 minutes, we started to realize (through some shoddy broken English) that there was a city ordinance that did not allow more people to stay in a room that was designated for a certain number of people. Hence, “impossible”. The pissed off manager essentially “fined” us 10 Euros for taking a shower in the room and kicked us out. From that point on, anything we didn’t think we could do was coined “impossible” in our thickest Italian accent.
We grabbed some beers and started walking around looking for a room to rent. After about 30 minutes we fou
nd a room with 3 beds for 87 Euros – definitely our most expensive night of the trip. If there’s one thing we learned about Italyh the Dollar in the tank right now. – it’s expensive, especially wit Towards the end of our trip, I believe the Dollar was down to about $1.45 for 1 Euro. Painful.
I was pretty euphoric the first night in Venice. We walked around, took pictures, found a little café – had coffee…just wandered around talking to people and taking pictures.
What really epitomized our
trip, and, one of the reasons that I loved it so much was that we had a general itinerary, but we had no reservations and no concrete plan. We figured we’d just “figure it out” – and we did. So about 5 hours after I arrived, we were retiring to our 87 Euro glorified hostel room and we didn’t have a concrete plan for getting to Croatia the next day. We knew we wanted to go, but we weren’t really sure how we’d get there. Should we take the ferry from Venice to Pula? Should we take a train to Anconand take a ferry all the way to Dubrovnik? a
What we did have was a map a
nd some ferry schedules. We looked at maps, ferry schedules, car rentals, and prices and 5 minutes later, we had made a decision. In about 15 hours, we’d catch a ferry to Pula, Croatia, we’d camp for the night, rent a car the next day and take off. Done.
The next morning we had breakfast a café, walked around Venice and visited St. Mark’s Square. There were a billion pigeons in St. Mark’s Square. I individually hated every one of them. There was this kid who was laying the ground letting birds eat stuff off of him. The kid was weird – so I took a picture of him, partly because he was weird and partly because I was thinking about my sister Annie, who, (d
on’t get me wrong, I’m not a bird lover by any means) has an unnatural abhorrence for all things foul. Hey sis, this one’s for you ;)
After getting our fill of the birds, we headed off for some lunch – a Panini of course, and off to find some gelato. Although we talked to tons of people, we didn’t take a lot of pictures with people. One girl we did take a picture with was Valentina. She was sitting on the dock – writing and tanning at the same time. We wandered her way, found out she was studying English (she was Italian) – so we invited her to come to Croatia wit
h us. She said she couldn’t leave her classes so we took a picture with her and went on our way.
We headed to the port to board our ship. At 5 PM we pushed off from the dock, bound for Croatia.
er, stand on my head…yadayadayada. I did none of the above and I had no jet lag. Here’s what I did (unintentionally, but it worked), which is what I call the recipe for beating jet lag:
1 hours of sleep in 77 prior to arriving. So the moral of the story is – get really tired and you won’t have any problem sleeping.
and freezing my arse off on the 50 degree, rainy July day. Hopping on a train in 
hone, so I (who am generally not an anxious person) can honestly say that I had a lot of anxiety about whether or not I’d be able to find them in 
y and his manager for 15 minutes, we started to realize (through some shoddy broken English) that there was a city ordinance that did not allow more people to stay in a room that was designated for a certain number of people. Hence, “impossible”. The pissed off manager essentially “fined” us 10 Euros for taking a shower in the room and kicked us out. From that point on, anything we didn’t think we could do was coined “impossible” in our thickest Italian accent.
nd a room with 3 beds for 87 Euros – definitely our most expensive night of the trip. If there’s one thing we learned about 
trip, and, one of the reasons that I loved it so much was that we had a general itinerary, but we had no reservations and no concrete plan. We figured we’d just “figure it out” – and we did. So about 5 hours after I arrived, we were retiring to our 87 Euro glorified hostel room and we didn’t have a concrete plan for getting to 
nd some ferry schedules. We looked at maps, ferry schedules, car rentals, and prices and 5 minutes later, we had made a decision. In about 15 hours, we’d catch a ferry to 
on’t get me wrong, I’m not a bird lover by any means) has an unnatural abhorrence for all things foul. Hey sis, this one’s for you ;)
h us. She said she couldn’t leave her classes so we took a picture with her and went on our way.
1 comment:
the pic of your trip are fantastic. your writing's not too bad either ; )
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