The Croatian Name Game

(Photo: the small unpronouncable island town of Trstenik, but why even try to pronounce something words can't describe anyway)

CROATIA PHOTOS


Much of our time in Croatia was spent not just enjoying the beautiful scenery, but also trying our hardest to pronoune a series of words and placenames with an inconceivable amount of consonants lined up together. Here is just a sampling of the Croatian (actually known as Hrvatska in its own country) cities we came across during our week long trip to the land of pebbly beaches and somewhat friendly people:

Dubrovnik (long o as in, "what up bro")
Korčula (č makes a ch sound)
Mljet (ml ??)
Split (easy enough, but an interesting name anyway)
Trstenek (!)
Hvar

Even if our tongues were a little tired by the end of the trip, at least our bodies weren't. Our week of laziness was a wonderful break from the frantic pace we set through the Tuscan hillside, especially since I no longer had to contend with Italian drivers and instead let our aperitif sipping captain calmly cruise us around the islands of the Adriatic.

The week was memorable for many reasons. First of all, when the night of Aug. 26th rolled by it meant that Lisa and I only have one month left in Europe. We sought to overcome this depressing fact by eating more fresh on-the-bone fish and washing it down with appropriate amounts of local wine. Another landmark was that I have now filled up a one gigabite memory card full of 715 photos. I had to switch to my second card halfway through the cruise in Dubrovnik. Lastly, the fashionable skin tones now sported by Lisa and myself are officially the darkest we have ever had. If you follow the link to the photos, you can see our darkening progression throughout the week.

As you can tell from my poorly constructed blog, my memories of our Croatia are anything but linear. So instead of continuing in a confusing narrative, I'll just list my favorite memories and experiences of the week.

• Fish: there was only one type of fish that came in filet form (tuna) and that was because the tuna were too big to fit on a plate. In the town of Hvar, we saw a 260 kg tuna (over 500 pounds) that had been caught that day. The fisherman had sold the tuna to a restaurant and spent all night carving out fresh tuna filets in on the public sidewalk outside the restaurant for anyone who ordered one from this particular restaurant. They would then take a ten inch diameter slice of tuna throw it on the grill and serve it up. By the end of the night only half was gone. I wish I had a picture. All other fish came with the head and bones attached so half your meal was spent picking bones out of your mouth, which was not a bad thing as the fish was absolutely delicious everywhere we went. The only problem was that after consuming mass quatities of the fish which was roasted in garlic, butter and oil, your breath had reeking odor for the next few hours. Once again, the superb taste of the fish more than made up for this little problem.

• Mornings: Breakfast was served at 8:00 and I was usually up long before that so I could enjoy some of the morning air before the heat began scorching us around 9:30. The few mornings I got up in time to see the sun peek over distant island mountains were the best. The weather was cool, the water smooth as silk, and the light was not blinding. It was a glorious experience of mornings and made me thankful for going to bed earlier than most people on the boat the night before.

• Boats: At night we were in ports for sleeping like all boats on cruises like ours do. These boats didn't have individual slips, but rather tied up to each other so that one boat would be next to the shore and 3 or 4 others would be tied up to it. One of my favorite times of the day was walking through 4 or 5 other boats in order to get to ours. It appeased my curiousity to see the other boats, especially the ones that were more luxurious than ours. Even more exciting than all the different types of boats was the platform that our boat provided. I absolutely loved diving and jumping from the second and third floor of our boat into the warm waters of the Adriatic. The prospect of freefalling 30 feet into the water below forced me to swim in the salty water more than I would have. I hate having salt on me, but jumping from the boat was so freeing that I couldn't resist.

• Kiwis and Kangaroos: Not the bird or the fruit, but rather our friends from New Zealand and Australia. We made 4 good friends during our journey. Two were from New Zealand and two were Australians. We had a great time being lazy on deck, joking around, learning of each others backgrounds and countries, and going out to eat. One of our friends, Isobel from Australia, is meeting us for dinner tonight here in Ljubjlana (a town suggested by our New Zealand friends) and Lisa and I are already looking forward to our 2 day reunion. Another benefit of our new friends: A free place to stay when we someday visit the island nations.

• Sun, Beaches and Old Cities: self explanatory.

• Croatian People: Everyone we met in Croatia was friendly...in their own way. It seems like mumbling is a past time there though. Everytime we handed someone money for dinner, goggles, water, etc. we were always asked for exact change. And if the bill we gave them was too big, there was constant muttering in Croat, a language Lisa and I couldn't even partially understand. The Croatian people are kind. We never felt unsafe in any town or city at any time of the the day. Yet the friendliness is not the outgoing kind you find elsewhere (like Slovenia), but rather the folks helped willingly but always with a bit of a grumble I found amusing. Then again for a country that's been through as much historical hardship as it has as a former part of Yugoslavia and the old Axis power, it is quite understandable (see this article for more info).

Croatia was a great trip. It was repetitive but in a good way. Get up, enjoy the morning, lay in the sun, eat lunch, nap in the shade, swim in a secluded-ish cove, lay in the sun to dry off, come into port, walk into historic town, eat fish or pizza with wine or beer, go to sleep. Repeat.

After a week of this, though, it certainly was time to move on, which is why Lisa and I decided to go to Ljubljana, Slovenia for the next four days rather than staying in Croatia. And what a wise decision this was.

More to come on more unpronouncable names like....Ljubljana.

CROATIA PHOTOS

By the way, my cousin Alison Pace got first alternate in the Mississippi Junior Miss pageant in Meridian, MS 3 nights ago. We are all so very proud!