Split, Croatia - June 24, 2008

Our Anniversary Picture

Split, Croatia -- June 24, 2006

Greetings from Split, Croatia :)

I am going to apologize in advance for any weird typing errors. Zs are very common here and take the place of the y on the keyboard -- they are actuallz switched. I still have yet to find the apostrophe...so here goes.

We have had quite an adventurous day. We slept in a little (we are really loving the sleep), enjoyed a nice breakfast, and hit the road to head to Split. It was a nice picturesque drive and we reached Split within the estimated time. Once we go to the city, however, it got more complicated...

We managed to navigate through the city and arrived in Podstrana (the seaside suburb just outside the city where our hotel is located), but then found it nearly impossible to find our hotel. We drove up and down the main road looking for Grzlaska something or the name of our hotel continually coming up drz. We turned down several eensy weensy scary looking side roads labeled with the same name as the road our villa was on only to end up doing a fifteen point turn to get out. We spoke to toothless men as well as guys who spoke no English at all and just talked verz loudlz at us in Croatian...halfway through our Odyessey my need to pee reached desperation and I resorted to seeking solace in someones garden and doing things that men do with much more ease than I. We eventually found our villa, but after a great deal of difficulty. Once we actuallz got here we fell in love with our view and our nice accommodations, but we certainlz have some interesting stories.

We spent the afternoon at Diocletians Palace, looking at really neat Roman ruins, caving and buying some beautiful suveniers, taking care of details like ferry times and bus schedules for our upcoming travel plans, and soaking in Split. It is still quite hot and the city itself seems pretty crowded -- the apartments we saw looked miserable, almost like tenaments. We have had more frustrations in Croatia, but when we succeed in completing a task we feel much more accomplished and successful... I will have to write more later -- it is later than I thought and we have a rental car to return in the morning and a ferry to a beautiful Adriatic island to catch... :)

Oh, and my rant -- Croatia hits the tourists where they can. If you ever thought Orlando tolls were bad...try a toll the equivalent of over 30 US dollars for their highway from the capital to Sibenik. Goodness. It was also over 30 US dollars to enter their National Park. Also a hard hit on the wallet.

Regardless -- we are still having a marvelous time and are very glad to be off the Euro. :)