Dalmation Vacation

So here I am on Hvar on the balcony of my sweet pansion accommodation. I called the best rated “sobe” place listed on the internet, and found it wasn’t terribly expensive. I was really excited and ended up in the dorm room with 5 other really cool people. But first, Split. I got to Split at 7 am, before anything except for a few pekarnas was open. I got to stroll along the riva, do a little shopping, and even took a walking tour (the lady selling tickets was so surprised when I spoke to her in Croatian, she thought I was a native. Don’t mind me as I brush off my shoulder a few times. Anyway, I got a 50% discount, so I couldn’t turn down the offer. Plus, I don’t know anything about Split). The catamaran took off to the island of Hvar at 2 PM so I spent the rest of the time sipping at a sok, having some amazing pasticada (posh-ti-tsah-dah) at an old Split establishment (where the locals go, according to my tour guide) and helping some completely helpless American girls find the right boat to the island. When I checked in, the owner of the place LOVED that I spoke the language. I pretty much had an in from the beginning. I got the insider tip that theres a food and wine festival tonight with free food for all who come down in the city. I came out of my room after getting settled to see a group of 6 people sitting around a picnic table with a bottle of wine, 2 2-liter bottles of Croatian beer (Karlovacko, of course) and a stack of glasses for anyone who cared to join them. I sat down and struck up a conversation (while obviously abstaining from the repeated offers for drinks). I informed my fellow hostellers of the festival, and they were pretty excited.

So here I am waiting for the others to get ready for a night on the town in the super-faddish stomping grounds of Croatian and International big wigs alike. We’ll see how it goes. (Side note: the landlady’s husband asked me if I had found a girl yet. When I told him I hadn’t, he offered a few choice swear words [or a paragraph, as those of you familiar with Croatian will probably know well, something involving mater, neki dio zenskog tijela, i Bog… classic] and said he’d find me one. I said, “Ajde!”. Kidding of course. I don’t think he was, though.)