Sweet Sweet Croatia!

Hey Guys. Sorry its been awhile getting to Croatia was quite a feet in itself and internet cafes are on short supply. Now to play catch up:

"Bye Bye Budapest"
Our last day in Budapest was a day of walking. Our Budapest Card expired and we were too cheap to buy another metro card, so walked the city. We headed towards one of the islands smack in the middle of the Danube. They were setting up for a sports fair in on the island so it was full of vendors and food stands. We walked around the island's park a little-they have this fountain that's cued to classical music and is like a mini-Bellagio in Vegas. After that we got a bratwarst and potato wedges for lunch and watched the school children line up by the hundreds to get cotton candy. It looked like a pretty good deal most of the kids walked away with cotton candy that was at least half their size. We were going to get some but the line was WAY too long.


After the park, we crossed the bridge back to Pest and went to check out Budapest's Parliament. The building is enormous and really awesome looking, we didn't go in because it cost a lot of money and tickets for the day were sold out anyways. It was enough just to walk around it. Then it was off to the Central Market place, which we decided has the best (and cheapest) food in the city. Here's a shocker- we got desert. I got a crepe with nutella and Andrew got a "doughnut" with jam. The doughnut was more like a huge lump of fried dough rather than a O-shaped circle- but it was delightful. We also grabbed some beers and people watched, before going downstairs to get some snacks for our train ride the next day.

On the way back to the hotel, we stopped by the second largest synagogue and saw this really interesting monument for those lost in WWII. It was in the shape of a willow tree and the individual leaves had the names of Jewish people from Budapest who died in the war. A random fact is that the synagogue was restored based largely on donations from Tony Curtis and Jamie Lee Curtis...who knew?



We went back to the pool and spa at the hotel for the last time. Now guess where we ate dinner? Pizza Hut-yea I guess in Hungry Pizza Hut is like a nice place to eat. There were actual tables with candles-and they served wine! It was crap wine, but the pizza was really good. After dinner, we turned in early because our train to Zagreb departed at 6 am!

"Friendly Zagreb"
We woke up at 4:50 am, checked out of our lovely hotel and headed for the train station. Luckily the train was mostly empty so we got to spread out and sleep for most of the way. The ride was about six hours, so we got into Zagreb in the early afternoon and stored our bags in the luggage lockers. The weather in Croatia was a lot warmer than weather.com predicted and we were very warm in our jeans. The town of Zagreb was buzzing with people-most sporting red and white checkered shirts. Why? I'll get to that in a minute-there's a story involved.

First I must tell you about our first encounter with a croatian. We were at the main church of Zagreb and a man walked up to us and asked where we are from- at first we thought he was going to scam us, but it turns out he was the church historian and gave us a personal tour of the church and a not so brief history of Zagreb and Croatia. It was really interesting. We only planned to spend like 10 minutes in the church, but ended up saying for over an hour. He was really knowledgable and spoke great english. Actually I've found that people in Hungry and Croatia speak English better than people in Italy or Germany. I read in Rick Steve's that because these are smaller countries-where less people speak there language they learn more languages because they don't expect you to learn it.

So after our Croatia lesson, we headed off to find lunch at a Panini place. It was delicious! Andrew was missing his sandwiches, so this should hold him off until Italy. On the way to the Panini place, we got lost and pulled out our book to consult the map. While looking at the map a guy our age came up and asked if we needed help with anything. He was a little drunk, but not in a creepy way. We got to talking with him and found out that the checkered shirts that he, and the rest of the town, were wearing was their football teams jerseys. It turned out that a big football match was happening later in the day and if Croatia won they would qualify for the World Cup next year. He wasn't really from Zagreb, so he said he couldn't really help us but it was fun talking with him for a bit.

After refilling our stomachs with sandwiches we hiked up the hill to check out some other sites our historian friend told us about. There was this sort of make-shift church called Stone Gate, where a real church used to be, but then it was destroyed in a fire-except for this painting of Mary holding a baby Jesus. They never rebuild the church so now they have set up a shrine in this covered passage way with candles and seats.


We also went to another chruch that had a really cool tiled roof.

We then headed back to get our bags and go to the airport to catch our plane to Dubrovnik. The area in front of the train station was filled with people. In the time we were exploring Red Bull had set up a motocross jump thing and bikers were soaring across the sky.

The airport in Zagreb is smaller than long beach, but not as nice to travel with. Our plane was delayed almost 2 hours- the wonderful service of Croatian Airlines didn't inform us of this until well after our fight was too depart. It was a nightmare. We eventually got into Dubrovnik- around 12:30. Here we aren't staying in a hotel because they are pricey and outside the city walls. (Dubrovnik is a walled city on the coast at the bottom of Croatia.) Instead of a hotel we are staying in a "sobe"-it just means we are renting a studio apartment from a local. Our lady is super sweet. We are two blocks of the main street-up a lot of stairs. The bonus of hiking a lot of stairs to our place is that at the bottom is the towns best Gelato place! We've been here two days and I've gone 3 times (probably 4 by the end of the day). We still hadn't had dinner so after checking in with our host, we searched for an open restaurant (thank god it was Saturday!). We ended up getting pizza and passing out around 2 am.

"Chillin in Dubrovnik"

Since we had basically been up 22 hours the day before we figured we were allowed to sleep in till 11 or noon... Our first stop? GELATO! Well it isn't really Gelato-its like halfway between Gelato and Ice Cream. I had Orange and Lemon-I'm pretty sure Lemon is the best favor of gelato overall-and I've done the research. Andrew had lemon as well and topped it off with Mojito-made with real rum! We then happened upon a cliff-side bar, or Busa.

The view was incredible- you walked down these questionable stairs to these tables on the edge of cliff overlooking the ocean. We ordered red wine, which came in mini-bottle and were cold. The wine the other night at dinner was also red and cold-We've decided we are not fans of cold wine.

We spent the rest of the day exploring the maze like town and exited the wall to go to the fort. The fort offered great views of the city and some shelter from the tropical rain. After the rain ceased, we decided to walk the walls around the city-which were free with our chapman IDs.

The walls are 1.4 miles long and could have taken an hour-but with all the picture taking and stairs it took about 2. The sun came out right as we climbed up the first set of stairs. It was perfect.

After all that walking we decided to get another gelato and nap.

We ate dinner at this restaurant on the water and got Seafood Risotto-a typical dish of the region. I tried it-didn't hate it but not sure "seafood" like non-fish seafood is my cup of tea. But we did get a really nice bottle of White Wine.

"Swimming in the Adriatic"

Today Andrew and I purchased our bus ticket to Korcula and then headed to the beach. Well not the beach more like the side of the walled city that had steps into the ocean. We laid out on the concrete, with the locals and swam in the blue waters. The water wasn't that cold either, it was so hot that the water was really refreshing. Andrew got a little sunburned but it was really fun. Rick Steve is in town filming a new show, we haven't seen him yet...but we still have the rest of today. Well I'm off to find Gelato and then maybe some dinner. Tomorrow we are taking a 3 o'clock (pm) bus to Korcula-not sure how you take a bus to an island but we shall see! Ciao for now!