So Croatia was quite the adventure...
We arrived in Zagreb after quite the interesting night train experience... Tons of people coming in and out and being loud and rude and annoying. We then had about 30 minutes to kill until our 1 hour regional train to Dubrovnik. When we get off the train, something just doesn't seem right. All there was was a concrete slab where the station should be and an abandoned shack with no doors or windows. We don't know much about Croatia though, so maybe this is normal. We try to follow the hostels walking instructions, they say walk towards old town. Well, there are no signs for old town anywhere. There is a woman working outside in her garden, so I turn to her for help. She doesn't speak English, but knows German, we however do not, so there is quite the language barrier. She goes to fetch her son, who speaks English. We show him our directions to see if he can point us the right way, and his response is just, "Oh... Dubrovnik. That's 650 km south of here." WHAT. I knew something wasn't right when our ticket said Dubrava as the arriving station, but many countries have different names for their cities than we use (Munich is Munchen, Prague is Praha, etc) but I had even verified with the ticket lady when we left Munich that this ticket was indeed to Dubrovnik, and she assured me yes that's Croatian for Dubrovnik. Well obviously not!! The man looked up train and bus times for us, because there is no direct train to Dubrovnik. He offered us to the closest station that isn't a slab of concrete on the ground, and of course being two young girls we were wary of this, but we had to take a leap of faith and trust this man, because if he didn't show us where to go we would have literally died in the middle of nowhere. Plus is was only about 11am, so if he were to steal us, someone would hear us screaming, right? So we trust him, and hallelujah we did. He brought us to the station, talked to the ticket people for us, drew us a map of how to get to the bus station once we got back to Zagreb, showed us the nearest ATM and places to eat while we waited, and even called our Dubrovnik hostel to inform them of our late arrival and arrange for us to be picked up from the station instead of wandering around lost in the dark. He was truly an angel. He made sure we were all situated and then went on his way. Of course, in common Carla and Megan trend, the next bus isn't coming until 4 pm, so we did quite a bit of sitting around waiting and being frustrated. But at least we were back on track now! We arrived in Dubrovnik at 2am, our hostel owner picked us up, and we showered and headed to bed. Our hostel owner was another angel! When we woke up in the morning, he let us settle our balance owed because he didn't want us to worry about doing it at 2 in the morning the night before, then have us a city map, wrote bus routes on it, gave us food and activity suggestions, and was genuinely interested in making sure we had the best time ever! We first head down to the harbor (and I literally mean down, we had to walk 318 steps every time we came or went from the hostel) to find some lunch. We wander around but nothing really tickled our fancy, so we headed to the old town area on the bus to start our day. There is a restaurant right off the bus stop that looked really good so we decide to sit there at a table outside right on the water with a beautiful view. If you've ever watched game of thrones, our table overlooked the castle used in the show, casual. I had the absolute most amazing Prawn Risotto ever, to die for, and my first ice tea since we've been here (how have I survived??). After our delicious lunch we wander the streets of the old town, but while doing so it starts to rain, and by rain I mean DOWNPOUR. we were soaked from head to toe as was everyone else. We huddled in little stores and shopped around, met a kid who goes to UF because he recognized my sorority rain jacket, that was pretty cool. When it stopped raining and the sky cleared, we headed down to the beach suggested by our hostel owner, East West, and enjoyed soaking up some sun and beautiful blue clear water. The rocky beach was annoying but the water was so much clearer without sand making it murky. Everyone began to get the same idea as us, and soon the beach became quite crowded. The sun was still out and shining, so we decided to walk the old city walls. The views were so amazing, and we kind of followed behind a tour group so we caught bits and pieces of historic information also, concerning the war for independence. While walking the wall, I noticed a bar on a cliff, or cliff bar, which I had read was an absolute must in Dubrovnik. So we searched it out and had some wine on the cliff overlooking the ocean, and it was a great way to end the evening. We caught the bus back to the harbor, found a place to have dinner. I had what the waitress suggested, some type of sausage thing. We then headed back up to the hostel to get ready, because there is a big night club in Dubrovnik that our hostel winder said we had to go to. When we got there, we found out that it wasn't just a normal night, there was a world renowned DJ there on tour! How awesome! House music isn't my favorite, but the fact that he's so amazing made it way more fun. Megan had a super headache pretty early on so we headed home to get some sleep. The next morning, the rain had returned, so we took it really slow and took our time getting ready. When we finally left, we realized we were going to need to do another ATM withdrawal because things cost more than our research had told us, so we had to wander around to find a bank, but not without a stop for lunch first. We went to what our hostel owner called the best pizza in Dubrovnik (one of their most popular dishes, surprisingly) and it was AWESOME! The sky cleared up so much you would have never guessed it poured that morning, so after finding a bank we headed back towards old town to ride the cable car to the top of the mountain. The panoramic views were to die for, mountains and beach and old city, the red roofs, ah it was just great. We took the cable car back down, and since the weather was so nice, we decided to go back to the beach and catch some more rays. The sun had Megan quite dehydrated though, so we got out if the sun and into the shade of the old city. We bounced around the old streets, got some ice cream, watched a play in a courtyard, sat on the large stairs, and enjoyed our evening. We had dinner at a place right by the big stairs, and it was great. We split two of their popular dishes, one was a veggie casserole type thing baked with tons of cheese, and the other was called double shrimp, grilled shrimp and shrimp risotto. The risotto wasn't nearly as good as the first one I had, but good nonetheless. Megan hadn't had shrimp in Europe before, and didn't know that it comes as the whole unpeeled shrimp, her reaction when the plate came was quite funny. We worked hard for our meal, enjoyed it way too much, then decided to try walking back to our hostel and wander the streets of Dubrovnik. We made it back no problem, took us about 45 minutes, and we headed to bed because we had an early morning the next day!
We woke up super early, because we were going sea kayaking!! We had to check out of the hostel first though. The owner let us leave our bags in the room but just asked us to leave the door unlocked so they could clean, but he would keep an eye on our things, great! Our kayak adventure was so awesome!! We rode around the island and stopped along the way to get some historic information, then towards the end we stopped at a cave where they served us lunch, we snorkels, and we got to go cliff jumping! The cliff wasn't as high as the one I did in Cinque Terre last year, this one was only about 30 feet, but the water was so blue you could see clear to the bottom, which made it terrifying because it looked like you were going to hit the bottom, even though it was actually like 20 feet deep and there was no way. The time to leave came way too soon, and the tour was over. I decided I was in love with our tour guide, Renato, and that we're going to get married, so just wait it's going to happen, he was perfect. After getting some ice cream, we headed down to the old town pier where people were hanging out on the rocks and enjoying the sun and water. We hung out there until it was time for us to head back, and we decided to walk again. Well, I don't know what it was about walking it in the day time, but we managed to make a wrong turn (even though we only went straight, who knows) and get lost. Luckily we weren't far away and we found our way back. When we got to the hostel, our things were on the porch with the owner. Turns out they ended up renting the room when they didn't think they were going to, do he had to get our things out, but to make sure no one touched them he had sat there with them all day! Angel! Granted he had to be there anyway working and outside is the best place because it's beautiful, but still! He could have left them in the hallway or a closet or bot cared at all but he's a great person so he didn't. He let us use the showers even though we had already checked out, and when we packed up and went to leave, he decided our bags looked too heavy so he drove us to the station even though it was just at the bottom of the stairs! Seriously this man was great. We really lucked out with people!
We got to the station early so that we could visit the grocery store before our 10 hour bus ride and get food, because on the way down things were so crazy and we were stuck on transport and didn't get to eat for almost two days. We rode the bus through the night and arrived in Zagreb at about 6:30 am. Our train to Budapest left at 10:02 and was a straight shot, luckily. Another full day of travel but so worth it.
Croatia, you were quite the adventure but I'd do it a hundred times over! You were so beautiful and fun and amazing, I can't wait to see you again!
Budapest, we're coming for you! You've got some big shoes to fill!