Croatia--knocked out of the world cup...but still a sweet Port!

Greetings universe!

Our shallowest apologies for not having updated this lonely blog for many many days.  I just know everyone out there has been religiously refreshing their webpages….so don’t look now people but this is hot off the press!

Well I suppose you all want to hear about Croatia…so here goes.

Day 1:
We got into port late on the 14th but of course didn’t get off the boat until 15th.  Mal and I both went on a tour of the City Walls in the Old Town of Dubrovnik.  Basically, a long time ago, they built up these big walls around their city.  It was supposed to protect them from attacks but in 1991 the Serb and Montenegro armies bombed them.  It’s actually kind of crazy to think about what these people went through not 20 years ago (at the beginning of Mal’s and my lifetimes….crazy…sad…).  The walls did give us great views of Dubrovnik, the old Harbor (or as they say…’harbour’), and the “mountains” above the city.  (for visual reference…Google is your friend—“Dubrovnik City Walls”)  The actual Old Town is awesome!  The streets are all made of these huge, white marble slabs and everything is so clean.  There are a bunch of alleyways that have pizza places and shops and all that fun stuff.  After our tour we walked around the city and took it all in.  That night we found a nice little wine bar (thank you Trip Advisor) and played Scategories (only because Pictionary was in Croatian…).  But we were pretty cooked after walking around all day so we called it a *relatively early* night and headed back to the boat.

Day 2:
Ok now Mal’s turn to talk: We got up early to go on a Semester at Sea trip to visit an orphanage and hospital.  It is hard to call it an orphanage seeing as many kids do meet up with their parents, especially during the summer time.  Also the views of this orphanage were just spectacular of the old city and the island Lokrum.  Unfortunately we came on a bad time seeing as many of the kids went to the beach for the morning.  So we got a little interaction with them.  Mostly we talked to the director and saw where they live.  It was very well maintained and a nice place for the kids to stay.  We did get to walk down to the closer beach with some of the children that remained at the house, waiting for us.  Then went to the pediatric wing of the hospital and talk with the head doctor.  It is incredible that their little public hospital serves Dubrovnik’s 4.5 million residents and the surrounding islands yet it isn’t big and not many people were there!  They say they have very little extreme cases.  I really could go on about the hospital but to sum it up is going to be hard:  The head doctor was incredibly nice and informative, truly an amazing women!  All women worked in the pediatric wing, even their own chiefs!  Again not many kids but a beautiful little girl, from the States, who cracked her head open while vacationing with her parent.  Poor baby!  But overall it was a great informative, learning experience and felt blessed to give back a little bit.

Well we then decided to do a little shopping around the city after the trip since we might not have the time again.  And we did pretty well…but I can’t give away any secrets.  We cleaned up back at the ship and went out to meet up with a bunch of other SAS-ers (that’s the lingo…) at a place just off the beach to dance and hang around.  In summery: really really cool place….really really REALLY expensive!!! (don’t worry parents we didn’t spend anything!)...but still quite fun!

Day 3:
We decided to run over to an island just off the coast of Old Town called Lokrum (queue Google Images).  (whoa…boat just got shakey…we’re pushing off the dock as I type).  Anyway we caught a ferry to Lokrum and went exploring.  The island is FULL of peacocks…I mean everywhere!  It makes me miss my Peacock family ;)  It’s a really forestry place but then had tons of really sharp rocks on the edges.  We stumbled upon some cliffs that jut right out to the sea and found a spot to lay our stuff down.  We swam for a bit and jumped off some cliffs…don’t worry moms… just like 20-25 feet.  We did a little more exploring and got the ferry back to the mainland.  That night we went into town with our friends to get dinner and walked around the opening night of Croatia’s summer festival.  They even shot off fireworks just for us…ok not just for us but it was still fun.  (side note by John: Vail’s firework show wins…) [Mal: he has never been to St.L for the 4th but who is comparing ;)] But again we went in *pretty early* since we decide to schedule a scuba dive.  Sorry Mangs.

Day 4:
Mal and I had to get up early because we signed up for a spur-of-the-moment scuba dive just off the coast.  We went on a dive called “Little Africa” and went across their reef, through a canyon, in a cave and exited through a hole in the roof of the cave.  The dive was fun…different…definitely not the tropical waters we have around the states but still fun diving.  We dropped down to 30 meters and the water temperature plummeted to a chilly 10 degrees Celsius…it was freezing.  And on that note: diving in meters, liters, kilograms, and Bar is soooooo different when you’re used to the ol’ metric system.  We’ll save more of the scuba diving details for everyone who asks…we don’t want to bore our sleeping audience.  After diving we grabbed some internet and talked to Mal’s sisters, brothers-in-laws, nephews, and lonely niece.  It was nice ☺. 

And now we’re back on the ship…should be in Greece the morning of the 14th.  Then we’re off to the island of Paros for some more exploring!

As always we miss you all back in the great US of A where drinking waters is free and the public restrooms are FREE-er!  Cause they charge you for them over here…

Feel free to send us an email!  We’ll be in touch (hopefully sooner than later)!

Love always,

John and Mally

jmbooren@semesteratsea.net
mnmang@semesteratsea.net

PS – sorry we didn’t get to post pictures…Internet is a hot commodity

PSS- Oh and we are now watching the world cup on the ship… incredible it is on every room with big projection screens!!! Big party here but hopeful me-malorie- gets my speech done since I have to perform it tomorrow and john gets his paper done… will see ;)

Again thanks for reading!

Love you!

J&M