Adventure is Out There!: Where party and nature compete

July 31 2015

As much as I would have liked to sit outside and take in the beautiful view of the Adriatic Sea, I spent the better part of the 4 hour ferry ride to the island of Hvar blogging. I have been SUPER behind… doing a whole lot of nothing (aka just beaching it up and then being too tired on bus rides to write and then at hostels either the WIFI is trippy or I am having some heart to hearts with strangers I just met).

I had a nice spot on the floor by one of the ferry doors that was opened so I was getting some great breeze and just coated in sea air… sticky. Eventually, I did go up and meet with Eden who had been sitting outside the whole time. The sunset <3

SO we were arriving to Hvar andddd since it is super high season, I was only able to find one bed at a hostel that was a youth hostel and close to the center. Like I was saying before, Hvar is a beautiful main island with several smaller islands short boat rides away. Hvar is also considered one of the biggest party islands in Croatia, and everyone knows that... So, it’s Friday night and the island is booked. We tried to stop by a few hostels to see if there were any ylast minute cancelations before giving up and going to the hostel I had booked and just see how the night went. Even from the beginnning, it was pretty obvious that I was going to go back at a decent time and Eden was probably going to head to whatever night club with the rest of the population until 5/6/7AM. So he’s sleeping on the beach! Hehe

The instructions on how to find the hotsel were SOOOO specific. Read this and find this as entertaining as Eden and I did. “until you reach a small road divided by a big tree” LOL. But really if it wasn’t like this we would have never found it.

We finally get to the hostel maybe 20 minutes later and the first thing I notice: 75% of the kids there are either Australian or Canada. Really, are there any Australians left in Australia?? You guys are everywhere!!

We got in on the later side, maybe 830/9. People were already pregaming, some more than others, since there is a law in Croatia that things need to be quiet in resident areas by 2230h. I showered, but my stuff down, somehow made a huge mess of my pack within 5 minutes and realized just how much dirty clothes I have..

Eden was able to slip by to use the facilities as well --- we are really turning into some hippie travelers :O

And we are off at 1030PM sharp! The guy from the hostel working the “pub crawl” [which was just to one bar] was some Australian that I am assuming decided to stay in Hvar indefinitely, was really like a herding dog. There was a group of 40 something of us and he would run behind and then circle us and then yell in the front. I can’t imagine trying to keep such a large and mostly not sober group of people together. As soon as we got to the center though, the group diminished to less than 20. Eden and I followed suit since I was cold stone sober, and when in Hvar that’s really not an option. We go a couple of 1L beers for like 2 euros and sat by the water with some other people from the hostel to do our late pregame. AND PEOPLE WATCH. OHHH the drunks came out to play! I saw two guys being basically carried by their mates (as the Aussies say) as well as girls trying so hard to keep upright in their too high heels.

About an hour of this and beer, and no food on my part – I had literally eaten one pizza pastry the whole day. The heat really affects my appetite…. I have talked to many people doing this route with all the heat and sweating, there’s a consensus that is a great combo to lose weight! Lol, unhealthy..

We went to Kiva Bar! It’s basically a bar in an alley where you sit on some steps and just have people push to get around you and have drinks spilled on you the whole time. It was fun, I talked to a great many people and again just enjoyed the people watching. Talked to this one guy named Eli for quite a bit- guess where he was from (Australia). He’s also traveling without his significant other so it was nice to be in the same boat was someone- plus he was a good decoy. Some pictures of the night…

^everyone is so sweaty .

also I have about 30 more on my phone... for some reason my phone was the one being used for the selfies.

Also I BITCHED OUT this girl. She was being a child and dressed soooo unclassy (to put it nicely) and was spitting alcohol on some guy through a straw. It got on me once, and I, a polite American girl, asked her to please not do that because she was getting it on a lot of other people that were in the cross fire. Second time, Latina FIRE came out. “I literally just asked you to stop spitting alcohol on me. That is gross, not cute, act your age I didn’t come to Hvar to get spit on by some random girl.” She apologized profusely and avoided me the rest of the night. Check and mate.

The Kiva Bar closed at 2 AM and from there it was time to moblilize for the club: Carpe Diem! You were to take a free speed boat taxi over to the island and then it was 20 euros to get in. I was dead tired, buying pizza (second item of food I had eaten that day…) and I was almost talked into going by a guy in my dorm at my hostel and this Argentinian girl. I was literally in line, but realized I was crazy tired especially with the pizza in mah belly, and just walked away without saying a word to the two people that had spent several minutes trying to convince me to seize the day moments ago.

I started walking home with another slice of pizza in my had (it’s great they sell them to go on a piece of cardboard for like 2 euros a slice) and found my way home using the crazy specific directions.

In bed by like 330AM and I actually was the second person back in my dorm! Success!

August 1 2015

Waking up in a hostel where everyone was out MUCH later and went out MUCH harder than you was entertaining and frustrating. The people in my dorm room were all still in their clothes some in their shoes and really just looked like they threw themselves on the bed. I guess I had had enough beer that I wasn’t woken up even once when everyone else rolled in which I later found out was after 6AM.

I got out of bed at 9AM and decided to wait around the hostel because what I REALLY wanted to do was rent a boat for the day and explore all the islands around Hvar. I saw Eden passed out on a couch in the terrace- AH I wish I had taken a picture!

Anyways, I waited and waited and waited… people started waking up but most people were crazy hung over or tired (understandably!). Also MANY of the people had been there for multiple nights and had rented boats the day before. Ughhh this is why you can’t count on anyone! If I could do it again, I would have explored the city in the morning and gotten something substantial to eat or explore the beaches no the main island. By like 1230 I finally found a group that wanted to do something. Three Argentinians and an Austrian that lives in Sweden.

[Side note: I am being a huge brat about this, I realize. I will eventually come back to Hvar to really get the whole experience of clubbing until the sun rises and spending more than just one night so I can rent the boat and kind of figure out the rhythm of the island]

Eden met up later with us, but he decided to stay in Hvar another night so he was moving hostels.

OH and the WEIRDEST THING happened! I ran into Mitch and his girlfriend Natasha from Georgia Tech at the hostel in Hvar. I was SOOO confused. And I definitely should have taken a picture with them but they were supposed to come meet up at the beach later. But seriousy, what are the chances????

So I got the deets and since most the people I recruited were a bit hungover, I took on the position as a leader and, taking the hostel worker’s suggestion, led the group to where the boat taxis were waiting for the “sandy beach” of Mlini.

I felt like I was in charge of a school trip- I was being blindly followed by half asleep/drunk people. We made our first stop to find the taxi boat… second to get food… third to get beer..

And then made it to the boat [to wait some more but at least we were more than halfway there!] I was talking with this Argentinian named Faca and we agreed that there is something about the terrace at our hostel has a magnetic affect not letting people leave… maybe it’s just that it’s in the shade or there are comfortable chairs or it’s a bit from the center. It just took us SO long to leave!

I know I have been saying that everything is unreal and amazing, so I honestly should use a thesaurus to find more descriptive adjectives. So just pictures for now.

Faca got to steer the boat while this supposedly Croatian taxi driver (?) collected tickets.

And we arrived about 15 minutes later!

Spent the whole afternoon in awe of the water, swimming some, probably getting skin cancer because I refused to put on the sunscreen I had bought earlier because it irritated my skin, and speaking in Spanish!

I LOVE speaking Spanish. It is SO cool to run into people from alllll over the world (mostly from Argentina) and be able to speak in Spanish! I figured on this trip I wouldn’t have much opportunity and instead would adapt simpler English since many people traveling have English as their second language (except this isn’t really true either since I have met millions of Canadians and Australians too). It’s funny though because sometimes, even with English and Spanish being whoever I am talking to first language, I cannot understand the accent! Like some Australians, particularly one I met in Kotor, I had to ask him to repeat so many times what he was saying! He just sounded like a seal or something not ever closing his mouth when speaking so it was all like “ AHWAHAHAWHHaWHA”. Then with some people from Argentina who have a more sing song way of speaking mixed with fast mumbling--- que???

Around 5pm some of us decided to head back to check out the beach club Hula Hula (hula hoop!).

I also needed to head back to the hostel to get my stuff since my ferry for Split was leaving at 1945h. After sweating my face off and leaving my pack at the hostel Eden had booked for the night which was much closer to the port, I decided to do a quick detour to hike up the fortress so get a better view of the island. Of course straight uphill