Beautiful Croatia

Our first trip of the semester, Croatia! We went on a 12 hours bus ride to the beautiful city of Split. As soon as we got to our hostel Friday morning, we set off yet again on a bus up into the mountains to go white water rafting. We had a blast on the raft, singing and rowing our boat down the river. At one point we stopped to jump off a cliff. The water was ice cold but definitely worth it! As soon as I hit the water my body went completely numb. Half way through our trip down the river, rain clouds caught up with us. It was a beautiful sight. Raining yet the sun still shining bright with the mountains in the background. After the white water rafting we had lunch. I ordered the fish and literally that's what they brought out; a whole fish with the head and skin and eye ball still on it! As disgusting as it looked, it tasted amazingly fresh. When we got back to our hostel I decided to go explore a little more on my own. In Split is Diocletian's Palace which he built as a retirement home in 300 A.D. The place is still beautifully in tact. There is an above part which were the barracks for his guards and then the lower part that is underground was his palace. It is interesting how they have incorporated the palace with modern times. It is used as a market area and also has tons of shops and restaurants as well. Following my exploration, we had an organized pub crawl which was a blast.

The next day, we had to get up early in order to go on a boat ride to a few of the islands. This first island we went to we got to explore a bit and just hang out at the so called beach, which was full of rocks, not sand. Pictures can not capture how beautiful the views were nor how blue and clear the water was. Croatia has the best of both worlds. They have the mountains on one side and the sea on the other. After the first island, we set off for another one and stayed for a few hours. There were these big inflatables in the sea. There was a trampoline, a slide, a climbing contraption, and a few obstacle courses, kind of like wipeout but on water. Crazy to think we were just hanging out swimming in Croatia. A lot of the places and things we do really don't set in. I keep having to remind myself that I am "not in Kansas anymore" let alone the United States. After the boat trip, we ended up back at Split and went for dinner. After dinner we had these A-M-A-Z-ING crepes (they called them pancakes). The crepe was as big as a large pizza and you could put just about anything you wanted to on it: nutella, nuts, coconut, fruit, chocolate chips. I had a banana, hazelnut, and banana one. They fold it all up into what looks like a pizza slice. Seriously, best thing ever!

 

 

 

Just a goat chillin' in the back of a trunk, no big deal.

 

 

The next day before our 12 hour bus ride back to Florence, we stopped by Krka National Park. There, we walked around and saw the most gorgeous water falls.

That concludes the trip to Croatia and the next weekend we were off to Munich, Germany for Oktoberfest. =] Heads up to see lots of beer in the next post.