Welcome to Croatia

We boarded the ship for a three hour tour (pun intended, ok…sorry, that was really bad). It’ll get better, I promise. We arrived in Pula, Croatia at about 8:30, right as the sun was setting. There was this euphoria (I know I’ve used that word in every blog, but I can’t think of any other way to describe it) all around us as we walked off the ship.

For me, I think the euphoria stemmed from the fact that I had wanted to come to Croatia for so long – and I was finally there. Also, we felt like we were exploring…we were in a small Croatian city, we didn’t know if anyone would speak English, we didn’t know where we would sleep, where we would eat, we didn’t know anything – we (well, in our minds at least) were true adventurers. We fancied ourselves up there with Columbus, Sir Edmond Hillary and Brad Washburn.

Quite a few people have asked me “Why Croatia?” For me, it’s an easy answer. I remember reading an article about 3 years ago about Croatia – I think it was in Outside Magazine. The article detailed how the country had taken huge strides to recover since the war ended in the early 90’s. I remember being enamored with the article, the passion of the people, the beauty of the country, a country returning to its feet after communism. From that point on, I gobbled up every article I could find on Croatia. I read “Balkan Ghosts” by Robert Kaplan which is a fascinating (and sobering) book. When Ben and I finally decided that we were going to Europe, I said, “I want to go to Croatia and Switzerland…besides that, I don’t care”. The culmination of all of that helped to contribute to my well-documented euphoria.

Exiting the ship, we asked a couple to take a picture of us – as we talked to them we found out they were Canadian, from Ottawa. Daniel, born in Canada and Iva – originally from Bosnia but grew up in a small town in southern Croatia and moved to Canada in her teens. We talked for a while when they, seemingly out of duty and a little nervous about the proposition, invited us to stay at their house. “We don’t have a cell…how will we find you?” Iva said, “When you get to Briste, just ask any of the locals…tell them my last name and they’ll point you to our house”. Ben, Seth and I all looked at each other at the same time. “Ok, sure” we all thought. We figured we’d never see them again.

Walking off the dock toward the city, we were immediately greeted with the other Roman Coliseum – and far better preserved than the Coliseum in Rome. The sun was setting over the Adriatic, providing a perfect setting to snap some pictures of the Coliseum. We ran across the street, gawked at the massive ancient structure, snapped some pictures in true tourist fashion. Then the sun set. “Now what?” We all looked at each other.

We had found a campsite in our Croatia book that was about ½ hour walk from the dock – but first, we headed into the city to get some Kuna. Quiz: A Kuna is: 1) A small furry animal that lives in rotting tree stumps and is prepared as a Croatian delicacy, 2) Croatian slang for “woman”, or 3) the local currency.

If you answered 3, give yourself 25 points. 1 Kuna = $.18 (although by the time anyone reads this, the Dollar will probably be worth less than the Peso). A really nice girl sitting in an odd looking booth (for what reason we still don’t know) directed us to a cool little promenade where all of the locals were hanging out. We found cafes, pizza shops, fish restaurants, Roman ruins and tons of local people.

As we were walked to find a place to eat, a lady approached as and asked (in very good English) if we need a place to stay. She was probably in her late 30’s, her husband also – both very athletic looking. Her son, probably 11, was dressed in his Adidas basketball gear. We were planning to camp, but before the guys could say no I said “we’ll take a look”. I figured, what could it hurt? I get some looks from Ben and Seth for that one. After walking to the other end of the promenade she turned into an apartment right on the strip. At first, I felt a little nervous about the building – but when I reminded myself that there was an 11 year old boy with us, my fears subsided.

We walked up four flights of old marble stairs that leaned so badly one way that we had to hold on to the railing not to fall. The room was sweltering hot, probably hadn’t been opened in several days. “50 Euros”, she said. I could tell she was a little unsure of herself. We told her thanks, but we’re going to camp.

About an hour later as we gobbled down pizza, I told the guys that I thought there was room in the lady’s price. “If we don’t stay there, no one will stay there” I remember saying. Just then the lady and her husband came walking by – “30 Euros”, I blurted our as they walked by. Her husband turned up his nose at us, thinking to himself “cheap, rich Americans”…they walked away. Shocked, I said sorry guys – I had really thought 30 Euros would do it. About 5 minutes later (and I could tell after a fairly intense discussion) the lady came back and said it’s a deal.

As we sat and finished our pizza – it really hit us – the beauty of Croatian women. As people walked up and down the promenade, we just kept looking at each and saying, “this is a joke”.

The next part of our evening was so bizarre, I don’t even know how to describe it. We were turning the key to go into our apartment and we heard this chanting and marching coming down the street. The next thing I knew, we were surrounded with people carrying candles and two fellas who were dressed up in their best “death” costumes. The candle-bearers, death-men, and hordes of people passed…we snapped some pictures and then followed the lady up to our rooms. Apparently this was part of an Israeli drama that was going on…we looked at our watch: 11PM – I asked Seth, “what day is it?” “Tuesday”, he said. Who puts on a drama at 11PM on a random Tuesday in July? We looked at each other blankly. Fair enough, I thought.

We put our stuff in the apartment and the lady said – “oh, there’s a balcony”. The lady then led us through the green scary door with the big key, up the broken scary stairs with no lights and cob webs (I thought the odds were 50/50 we would never exit the green scary door). We walked out onto an old stone balcony that overlooked the drama in the courtyard below. We were stoked to find such a cool authentic place to stay for the night. As one of the tallest buildings in the small city, I imagined this stone and brick balcony as sniper’s nest 15 years ago during the war. We watched the drama from our crow’s nest.

We smoked cigars and pipes, looked at the stars, talked for an hour or so on the balcony. We were pretty much in shock about what had transpired. Fat and happy and excited about Croatia, we retreated to our crow’s nest for the night – next stop, Plitvice.