Last weekend I took my furthest trip yet... We had a 9pm to 9am bus ride to Split, Croatia! We left late Thursday night, getting to Split on Friday, and got back to Florence Sunday night. Upon arrival we had a little while to get settled into our hostels and eat breakfast, then met up to go white water rafting! It took us another hour to get to the rafting site, which was seemingly in the middle of beautiful nowhere. My roommates for the weekend, Maddy, Shayna, Caimyn, Kate, and Becky, as well as a friend of ours, Tim, all went rafting and shared a boat with our guide, Matej (MAH-tay). We got all kinds of gear on, which made me miss the lake activities at home a bit, and were soon on our way. I don't think I could have been more excited about the experience.
(Maddy, Me, Shayna, Caimyn, Kate, Tim and Becky, all ready to go)
It was really great because there were multiple boats out due to our large group, and the company had a photographer out taking pictures of us as we went down each of the "major" rapids.
These pictures make it look a bit more epic than it actually was, to be completely honest. It was very relaxing at times actually, just paddling down the Cetina River, admiring the gorgeous weather and wonderful scenery. We did get soaked once as you can tell from the picture above, so it was more exciting at some points. Once during the ride we got out of our boats and climbed onto this little piece of land where waterfalls were running down into the river, and drank out of the waterfalls because they were of fresh spring water. It was delicious. Toward the end of the rafting we also had the opportunity to get out of our boats, climb up part of this cliff, and then jump off into the river! I was thrilled, and climbed up with two other brave members of our little crew, Shayna and Kate. We separately jumped off the ledge after waiting in line, were thrown our Crocs (so we didn't lose them in the jump) and then made the unbelievably cold swim back to our boats. It was so worth it, and I wish I had a picture to prove it happened.
We got a meal with our little excursion and I chose the fish option, which normally isn't like me, but it's Croatia, so I mean, come on. I almost couldn't do it because this entire trout (cooked, obviously) came out on my plate and was staring at me before I ate it. That is also unlike me to handle very calmly, but I managed to do so anyway.
We headed back to Split after our late lunch and learned some Croatian swear words from our guide who sat in the back of the bus with us. He gave us some suggestions for cool places to go if we had the time, as well as taught us some fascinating things about Croatia, like the pen and the neck tie were both invented there. That evening, despite our exhaustion, Caimyn and I went to an organized pub crawl, which ended up being a lot of fun.
The next day woke up early to do some shopping in the gorgeous city center because Croatia is ridiculously cheap. Crazily enough, four of us ended up missing our island boat tour, through no fault of our own, but basically ended up going shopping and exploring for the rest of the day! Even though we were very frustrated at first, I can't complain because we were reimbursed for the island tour, and we got so much cheap stuff while shopping. It was fantastic.
(Shoreline view of Split in the evening)
After taking a little break back at the hostel late afternoon, we headed out to find food as well as another round of honey shots, something apparently famous in the area. (It's basically Grappa with honey in it.) Caimyn and I had gotten some at the bar crawl Friday evening, but since Maddy and Shayna had not yet tried one, we hunted down this recommended bar and had ourselves a round of honey shots! The bartender was nice enough to take our picture too.
(Caimyn, Maddy, Me and Shayna)
On Sunday morning we got up and checked out of our hostel in Split, and drove about an hour to our final destination of the weekend which was Krka National Park. We walked down a beautiful board walk above all the streams and little springs, down into the valley area of the park, where there were absolutely incredible waterfalls. The best part about this was we had the opportunity to swim in them.
Now, it's so deceiving because you see this picture, like I had seen other pictures of students on this trip, and it looks so lovely and warm... It was most definitely not. I mean the air was great and the sun was out, but oh my goodness was the water chilly. Despite this small detail, however, we managed to fumble our way over to some rocks everyone would stand on to take some pictures, and did exactly that.
Then, because Shayna and I were the only two willing to brave the ridiculous temperatures to make this little dream of swimming IN the Croatian waterfalls come true, we decided we had to keep going.
We ended up trying two different times to swim out to a couple of prominent rocks near the base of the falls, which you can somewhat see in the first picture I have posted of the park above. The first time we tried, we had been warned about the ridiculously strong current keeping you from getting all the way there without tiring out or freezing first, and after a couple minutes it was evident we would not make it.
We got back to our rock in the picture above, where there were a couple other guys resting as well. Since there were three people already out under the water falls, we sat and contemplated whether or not we wanted to try the swim again, perhaps at a slightly different angle. We saw a few other people successfully get across and thought, "Screw it, we have to try again." This time, we actually made it across! We spent probably five minutes sitting on one of the rocks like delusional mermaids before swimming/drifting back to the water's edge. We were basically purple when we got out, and we couldn't really move our fingers or feel our toes, but, again, it was worth it.
(The picture to the left is Shayna and I out at the rock closest to the waterfalls. We snuck this picture in despite the fact that my water camera was rejecting a brand new pair of batteries.)
We spent the rest of our Kuna, which is the currency in Croatia (because they don't use the Euro, as they aren't part of the EU) then we dried off and changed to warm up. Soon it was time to continue our very long ride back to Florence, which was accompanied by almost too many movies on the bus.
We got back to Florence at about 11pm after having gone through customs at the EU border in Slovenia, and again having my passport stamped. By the time I got home I was exhausted, hungry, and rather sick with a head cold. I wasn't about to pass up on opportunities to jump off little cliffs, white water raft, and swim in waterfalls while in Croatia, so i bought a bit more Kleenex than normal and have since gotten a bit better, just to begin my adventures for this weekend, which you will have to read about soon!
Love, abbie