Bye Croatia, I'll See You Again!

Sunday, July 11

Funny things I forgot to add:
-Today on the ship (13th) I was warming up before class when all of the sudden, the crew ran out and started yelling, “Man over board! Man over board!” I kind of freaked out and went to the edge to see who fell off! It ended up being a drill and I didn’t hear the announcement that was said to everyone telling them a drill was about to happen… haha. The ship took a sharp turn and headed towards the bright orange dummy floating far away. The turn was so sharp that the pool on the deck above started flowing over to the lower deck where I was standing so I ran inside and watched the waterfall over the deck haha. It was an interesting experience.
-Another thing, when we told this one guy that we were from Texas, he said he would never go there and he acted a little freaked out. I asked him why and he said because he saw the movie Texas Chainsaw Massacre. He doesn’t want to go there because he thinks the man is still alive and that Texas is scary because of that, hahaha we laughed so hard!
-We lost an hour last night, and I forgot. So, Shea and I woke up at 730 and somehow made it to our 8am class right on time! Impressive.

On the last day, we just wanted to relax with no plans and just see what happened. We walked around the Old City, shopped, looked at paintings on the streets, listened to musicians, and found a small patio café overlooking the Old Port. I had Fanta; everyone here drinks this stuff. I love orange juice and I love carbonated drinks, so Fanta is like Heaven. I had asparagus soup, which I have never had before, and it was great! Then I ordered a tuna salad; fresh tuna over fresh green lettuce leaves with capers and tomatoes, with olive oil on top… YUM! Shea and I sat there for a while just chatting and enjoying the moment we were in! Overlooking the port was beautiful, and I’m sure that it’s where the people stand to take pictures for postcards. When we were eating, I could hear kittens meowing. Underneath us, under the wooden deck, there was a cat and her little kittens! They were so young, they might have been born while we were sitting there because they all wouldn’t stop meowing and the mom cat was meowing loudly too! Haha ok maybe they were a few days old.. they were tiny!

After that, we went to the front of the Old City to buy a ticket to walk the walls. I forgot to explain what the Old City was. It is a small, cute village part with huge stone walls surrounding it. You can pay about 30 Kuna to walk around the edges of the walls on the top and see the best views of the Old Town and of Dubrovnik. the steps to get to the top were so steep and took forever to get to the top. Once we got to the top and stopped to catch our breath, the view took it away again! It was incredible. You could see everything. People walking all in the Old City, towers, Lokrum, houses, and everything in the water and everything surrounding the city. It took about an hour to walk all the way around, because we would stop every so often and take pictures and just soak up the view. It was definitely a must-do thing if you ever come to Dubrovnik! I don’t think a lot of SAS kids did this walk but they sure did miss out on the most amazing views that are straight from the postcards. I usually see postcards of places and think, “Hmm, that might be the view from a helicopter or an enhanced photo, there’s no way it’s that pretty.” But no, it’s that pretty. It is JUST like the postcards, but even better!! When we walked down the steep steps (which is harder going down that up), I saw a man in a Texas Tech shirt. I had to yell, “Go Tech!” Haha we started talking to them and they were an older couple on vacation and decided to come to Croatia for the summer! It was the first Tech shirt I’ve seen that was someone who was not on Semester at Sea.

After hanging out all day, just relaxing and wandering around in the Old City, it was time to head back to the ship to board. We went to the supermarket next to the ship in the port to spend the last of our Kuna on snacks. I bought a lot of gum, Fanta, and those amazing cookies Banks found! We were eating dinner on the deck as the ship was sailing away, and it was such a sad feeling! Everyone LOVED Croatia and it has been the best place for me by far. I miss it so much and I honestly want to come back or find another cool place to visit in Croatia. Seriously, I’m obsessed. I’m so glad this trip picked Dubrovnik, Croatia to stop in! Everyone was just standing by the rails, watching Croatia fade away, with the striking sunset on the Adriatic Sea. Like I said, it was really sad, but it was one of the most remarkable experiences ever and Dubrovnik is incredible.

Shea and I have an intercultural communications test tomorrow which should be pretty simple. Here on the ship, they don’t try and make you work really hard and stress about class, which is so nice. I’m learning useful information and enjoying it, while not having to stress so hard about deadlines and grades. In 2 days, we will be in Greece! I can’t wait!!!