Riding sharks and rocket sandwiches

We woke early for the first ferry of the morning out of Dubrovnik to Split. We were told check-in was at 8am so we were up in good time. The lady and gentleman of the house had, it appeared, been up for hours when we sleepily fell out of our room at 6:40am. When we left they were overcome with gratitude, thanking us again and again for our visit and hugging and kissing us. I no longer regard this as anything out of the ordinary as everyone we have met here has been full of the same enthusiasm and hospitality.

Waiting for the ferry we met an American named Adriana, who had been staying with the guys we had met in Sarajevo and then again in Mostar. They finally showed up just before boarding, after having got home at 3am. There are a lot of hostels in the Balkans, hundreds of towns and infinite routes, yet we seem to keep meeting up with the same people again and again! You would think it would be weird to see someone a couple of times, but we have bumped into these guys a lot more than that already!

The journey was very long but relaxing, the sea was calm and still, and the deck was quiet. The ferry takes roughly 4 hours longer than the bus, but it's cheaper and, I imagine, prettier. Adriana left first, for Korčula, and the guys were with us until Hvar, then it was just us and the open sea for the final stretch. Split was light and warm in the evening sun so we slowly wandered to our hostel in a little backstreet just outside the palace walls, we later found to be surrounded by bakeries and shoe shops. We shared our dorm with a couple from Oregon who are due to be married in 3 weeks time, so we naturally started discussing weddings. They liked the sound of our wedding, and seemed a little disappointed that they hadn't thought of a bouncy castle. We settled into the hostel, then went for a dusk wander. The city was instantly charming, the white marble sparkling in the low sun and the swallows circling above the palace walls. John fell in love with the city immediately and has declared it to be his favourite place so far.

I woke at 5:30am the next morning, partly because of the sun streaming in through the open windows and partly due to a mini sneezing fit. I headed downstairs so as not to wake the rest of the dorm and stayed there until I decided to wake John at 8am. Off we trotted to the nearest supermarket for breakfast - delicious fresh bread and praline chocolate spread with chipmunks on the jar. We had another wander after breakfast in the sweltering sun (9am and already over 30 degrees). We had done all the stuff in the centre last night so we did all the more exciting non-touristy bits today. All the burek shops we had seen had just cheese or meat burek, no potato, spinach or pumpkin like there had been in Bosnia, so we headed in the direction of a burek shop that had been recommended to us, but to no avail. We had to settle with ice-cream. I had Kinder flavour (mmm, children) and John had Ferrero Rocher flavour. An old man at the same ice-cream stand asked what flavours we were having and I ended up having quite a long chat with him about the local ice-cream, despite him claiming he didn't even like ice-cream. We sat under some palm trees by the waterfront to eat our ice-creams and watched a scrawny ginger cat climb a palm tree.

We have found some brilliant postcards so far in Split, not just the regular tacky nudey ones, but ones with babies on, ones with old men riding sharks and our favourite, a pair of Dalmatian dogs playing chess. The underground crypt, where we found the postcards, was full of tacky souvenir shops selling an assortment of tat, but alas not one snowstorm in sight. Shocking. Disappointed by the distinct lack of snowstorms, we treated ourselves to a Croatian comic book about a fellow named Zagor who has cowboy boots and a stone hammer. Awesome.

That evening we went out with some guys from the hostel, Will who we met in Sarajevo, saw in Mostar and was on the ferry from Dubrovnik, Young John who was in our dorm and some American girls, Margaret and Hannah. We went to a bar called LVXOR in the centre of the palace. Upon arrival, literally as we were sitting down to a table, the waiter asked us what we wanted to drink. Funnily enough, we had no idea yet. The waiter was not impressed and immediately took a disliking to us. The only other waiter on duty had a stupid rat tail in his hair, so we took an instant disliking to him. We ummed and ahhed because of the huge choice and eventually decided on beers, coffee and chocolate cake. The cakes had some interesting names, and we weren't sure what we'd get when we ordered them. They had names like Triple Pleasure and Doughnut Princess, but the slices were enormous and the beer was cheap so everyone was happy. Other than the waiters, the bar was nice enough. The ceilings were painted turquoise and gold and depicted various mythological characters: Egyptian Gods, Centaurs, Griffins etc, and had huge gold chandaliers. On the walls were some very "modern" and "arty" black and white photographs, shot with a wide angle lens. Our favourite picture was of a parade of Bishops - it reminded us of Adriana from the ferry who claims to be the biggest fan of Pope John Paul II (who she affectionately refers to as PJPII). Apparently she has loads of pictures of him and collects anything to do with him. I am tempted to make and send her some PJPII PJs. I think she'd love them, and as Margaret quite rightly declared: who wouldn't like them?! Will told us that while they were staying together in a hostel in Hvar it was her main topic of conversation. He also relayed a story about another girl we had both stayed with in Mostar. I hadn't thought of mentioning her before as she was the quietest and most socially-awkward person I have ever met. On the night we were there everyone in the hostel had gone out to a local bar. John and I hadn't stayed too long as we had wanted to see the town by night, but oh how I wish we had stayed now. Despite not talking the whole night she drank like a fish and by the end of the night was completely wasted and came right out of her shell: she told the entire group about how going travelling had boosted her confidence and that there was a guy back in New Jersey who she worked with in the dairy section of a wholefood store, who she really fancied. She continued by saying that when she went back to home she would tell him how she felt about him and hopes that he'll ravage her in the dairy section of the store, amongst all the yoghurts. Try to imagine this coming from the most shy, quiet girl you can think of. It was hilarious and shocking, especially as we had actually met the girl, and would never have thought she'd have it in her. Will told us that when he was in Dubrovnik he got chatting to some people in a bar and they had asked him if he had heard the "yoghurt fetish story" and they were people who had not even been at the same hostel! The story seems to be doing the rounds amongst the Balkans 2008 crew. Eventually it will probably get back to her, after being completely distorted and hugely exaggerated. I doubt she'll even remember saying it, so she'll probably just think the girl in question is just some kind of weirdo.