Our Travels

Sunday: Headed to the airport despite it being 9-11 which made for an uncrowded airport and thin security (surprisingly). Got chinese food for Ed and egg wrap from jamba juice for me along with the requisite snacks of Combos. Boarded on time and the plane wasn't nearly full (yay). We purposely got the end seats of a three person middle row and another asian male had the middle seat. I saw a similar row behind us with empty seats and asked if he could move there. He said yes and we got to comfortably fly on over to Frankfurt. While Ed sprawled out and caught me occasionally glancing at an attractive interracial couple sitting in front of us when he was awake, I watched Coco before Chanel (more somber than I had expected) and some other tv shows. Food on the flight wasn't terrible (pasta for Ed, chicken for me, he ate both because he was HUNGARY then proceeded to fall back asleep). Arrived in Frankfurt on time and safely (whew) with five hours to spare before our flight to Dubrovnik. Wandered around the duty free stores (which weren't any cheaper than american prices since its all euros), ate some McDs (mmm love the comfort of the unmistakable golden arches) and napped until our flight. Flight to DBV was quick and uneventful. We landed, hugged each other for finally making it (!!!), got monies from the atm and got on the Atlas bus to the city.

Monday: We got to the city and struggled with our uncooperative Nike bag before walking through the Old Square and Stradun Plaza in search of food and our ferry to the island. The Old Square is unlike anything I have ever seen (it reminded Ed of Rome with its abundant marble architecture and open air cafes and restaurants). To say its quaint is an understatement, yet somehow the city was welcoming, open, airy and gorgeous. It was washed in white marble with the charm of the ancient Romans.

We met a couple from New York (West Village) who now live in Dubrovnik who led us to our dinner spot and also informed us that the water from the fountains was safe to drink from.

We had our first dinner at Kalmanice where we ordered oysters and mussels. I didn't have any oysters since they looked funky but Ed said they were good, a bit flat and less briny than the ones he's had in the states. The mussels were just okay - many still had sand in them so we didn't eat too much. We headed to the port after dinner but alas and of course, we were at the wrong port with only 30 minutes to spare. Thankfully, the Croatian ladies at the tour stands were gracious enough to call the ferry to confirm its 8pm departure and to direct us to the cabs. We hustled on over and scurried onto the ferry. The views on the ferry were breathtaking. The sea illuminated blue even in the dark and the breeze (after an afternoon of lugging around our luggage, many thanks to Ed!) felt amazing.

We landed on Kolocep Island 30 minutes later and headed to our hotel, the only one on the island inhabited by 150. In the darkness of the night our hotel shone bright and was directly on the water. We passed by a bar and cafe with others drinking away, checked in and walked up four flights of stairs to our room (what a workout). Changed, showered, had dinner at the hotel restaurant (greek salad and spaghetti) and went to bed.

Tuesday: Woke up much to our dismay at 6am to catch the 645 ferry over to DBV.

Met Marion, our private driver for the day, who took us to Montenegro. I had no idea what to expect from our day trip except that travel articles deemed the Bay of Kotor and Budva the undiscovered beauties of the world. They were definitely right. I slept most of the way there (okay, all of the way there) while Ed chatted it up with Marion (fought in the recent war, has a daughter and son, has been to Montenegro over 20 times this past year). I missed the views of the bay while we were entering the city but Ed says they were great (as with all the views we had of the sea, the villages and the mountains). Once in Kotor we went to the old city where we stopped at a local bakery for our first breakfast. Walked around, got hungry again and had our very American bacon and eggs breakfast while wondering what Croatians eat for breakfast (apparently either beer or espresso).

After exploring the city for 2 hours, we were on our way to Budva, the beach haven. The beach at Budva was encircled by mountains and there was a dock that extended about 40 feet into the sea from which other young people were diving. The sea is stunningly blue, more beautiful than any other body of water I've ever seen (caribbean, barcelona). We spent our time sunbathing on the dock while practicing the breast stroke (yay Ed can swim now!) and jumping/diving into the sea. We made one "friend" there from the Ukraine who's starting a career in film production (which signaled that he'd be a good photographer...).

Swimming in the blazing sun made us hungry so we got pizza and salad from Mona Lisa pizzeria inside the square. We then walked along the coast of the beach (nothing to really report except that I realized I need to start stretching more to be more flexible), met Marion and headed on over to Stevi Stefan, uber exclusive resort to the rich and famous.

We could only take pictures and wonder how much one night costs (we guessed 1000) then headed on back to Dubrovnik just in time to catch the ferry back to our hotel. Once there we showered and Ed caught up on all his weekend football recaps which made us miss being able to have dinner anywhere since all restaurants closed at 10 (we wandered around the island to all 4 restaurants and were sadly turned around at each). Knowing how Ed needs to be fed to be happy, we went back to the hotel and I asked the hotel restaurant if we could order anything at all to eat (despite our acceptance earlier that we'd just eat fruit and butter biscuits for dinner). The waiter said yes and our stomachs were happily fed with a huge octopus salad and gnocchi (we tipped him nicely for his kindness). Fell asleep and thankfully had time to sleep in.

Wednesday: Slept in and woke up to head down to the beach where we swam again, this time with what looked like a camp for Croatian children. Ed worked on his swim some more (we made it out to the buoy and back with full energy) and we then went to have breakfast at the hotel restaurant. We missed the standard breakfast there and settled instead for another heaping octopus salad and a fruit platter (which ended up being three whole pieces of fruit - pear, apple and peach). There were swarms of bees here and we had to move inside to avoid them sharing our food (Ed also tactfully killed one with the skillful flick of his finger). Ed was tired and full after breakfast (the sun is incredible - there are absolutely no clouds in the sky - but it also makes us easily tired) so he chilled while I swam in the hotel's infinity-esque pool and went to grab a change of clothes from our room (chivalry is dead! jk). On to Dubrovnik for our last day in the city!

We caught the 1230 ferry on over and headed straight to the scooter rental place to rent a scooter (we'll call it motorcycle so Ed can feel more masculine) for the day (only 20 euros for the day).

Riding a motorcycle through the mountains of Europe alongside the crystal clear blue waters and feeling the breeze was an amazing thrill. I wish I could leave it at that and say it was picture perfect but it wasn't (we'll get to that in a bit). First stop was a ride past the old city to Banje beach, Dubrovnik's most popular beach, where we swam only for an hour at most. The beach was nice but small and crowded though it had great views of the city walls. We got hungry and got back on the scooter towards the old city. And this is where the wild ride begins. I got back on the scooter behind Ed and held on tight. While the breeze was cool and light and the views of the sea were, again, amazing (I need a thesaurus for amazing, spectacular, breath taking..how do critics describe these places in such varied ways?), I can't lie and say that half of me wasn't petrified. I couldn't help but think that if my mom knew what I were doing at that exact moment she'd scold me for being wreckless and she'd worry like no tomorrow. I also reminded Ed probably every five minutes that not every girl would trust him with their lives like I was doing (so he should feel lucky, haha). He assured me that he knew full well how to handle a scooter since he had ridden one often in Taiwan (later he told me this was back when he was in middle school...10 years ago) I didn't exactly fear for my life but I feared for my legs and my arms. Not that I didn't trust Ed's awesome scooter capabilities but, as my mom always says, regardless of how skilled a driver you are, you can't trust the skills of everyone else on the road. So there we were, a couple who looks like they're in college scooting around in a foreign country thousands of miles from home. We laughed and enjoyed the moment, then we hit the traffic jam on the narrow winding road entering the old city. The road was jammed with buses and vans making their way in. Ed stopped to wait behind the buses but a car stopped to let him through. He hesitated but went for it. The space between the sidewalk and large buses we had to manuever down felt like it was no more than half a foot. I wished for the Harry Potter power to magically compress our scooter. As Ed manuevered left and right in the extremely narrow space between the buses and the wall, we were both absolutely silent (save for Ed's occasional expletives when we were centimeters from hitting the wall). Ed says that in the nearly 2 years that we've known each other, this was the most silent I'd ever been. That's probably because in between thinking that I was too young to die, I was thinking more about the fact that my parents currently thought I was in Cali on a business trip. Somehow we made it in one piece and parked just outside the city gates.

We walked along the city walls in search of Buza Bar, a bar that is perched on the mountains directly on the water (and apparently one of Bill Gates' favorites). We struggled a bit to find it but thankfully saw another young guy walking through an unmarked green door. Didn't think that was it but we followed suit anyway and were met with another gasp-worthy view/moment. There was a small bar set up on the rocks of the mountain with people lounging on the rocks below it. Everyone was young and hip and guys were gracefully diving into the blue waters while the girls were sunbathing and catching up on their reading. We found a little spot and quickly made our way into the water since we were so hot from walking around.

The water was chilly but refreshing and we swam around the base of Buza, floating on our backs and enjoying the sun, breeze and lively company of the others there. This is where Ed learned to dive (yay!). After seeing all the other guys diving into the water, he wanted to replace his kungfu jump into the water with a more masculine dive.

I sat on a nearby rock in the ocean as he dived a few times and a girl offered to take a picture of us on the rock, remarking that it looked like a great photo opportunity. One of the things we appreciated in Croatia was how friendly people are, especially other young couples who recognize how special good photos are.

Its so easy to lose track of time here. It was time for dinner as our stomachs signaled with growls. We changed in an unmarked alley and made our way to the port to a restaurant recommended both by Marion and the guidebook. By this point we were starving and our mouths salivated at the ginormous seafood platter for two that arrived on our table. It had cuttlefish (Ed's favorite), mackerel, shrimp and mussels, abundant enough for a group of four or a pair of hungry two. We finished the entire thing quickly, dipping the table bread into the garlic oil sauce.

We looked over at the table next to us and their party of three hadn't even come close to finishing their platter. Full, satisfied and delirious from happiness after eating, we made our way over to the city walls to walk the 1km path above and around the city. This was a great way to round out the day though my thighs were screaming in pain as we walked up countless stairs (the lady who had a baby strapped onto her as she walked the walls was a great motivation, I hope to be like her one day). We stood high above the city, overlooking the waters and the animated city, feeling incredibly blessed. Its hard to imagine that just within these walls was a war torn city a mere 20 years ago (the remnants of the war still certainly seemed present).

Before we knew it we had completed the walk and were back on the scooter to the ferry port. With a safe return and a picture to commemorate bravery and foolishness, we were on the ferry back to our peaceful abode. Happily exhausted from all the days' activities, we both caught up on football (yes, both..) and I packed our bags while Ed fell asleep mid-typing a response to Karim.

Thursday: I have a bad habit of snoozing and unfortunately Ed's famed "internal clock" was defunct or missing this morning. So we got up at 620 on the dot and scrambled to get ready and pack everything into our bags before checking out in order to make it onto the 645 ferry. We rushed and speed walked on over to the dock. We got there at 635. If that's not an express checkout, I don't know what is. Feeling accomplished with ourselves, we got to Dubrovnik and bought our bus tickets for the 4.5 hour ride to Split (after our obligatory stop at Konzum for snacks). The ride was definitely not the most comfortable; the roads here are all winding. As we were on the bus I daydreamed of our next destination, Hvar, and thought of how cool it would be to see a celebrity. Then I daydreamt of what Jayz and Beyonce might have done just this prior weekend on their trip to Hvar, what did they wear? What kinds of swimsuits did they swim in (did they swim?)? Then it hit me. In our mad rush this morning, I had forgotten to collect our bathing suits from the balcony. I whispered to Ed that we had forgotten but he was in far too deep a sleep to hear me so I called the hotel and asked if they had found it. Luckily, they had, and they promised to send it back to New York (we'll see if we actually get it). I felt terrible that I had left Ed's only bathing suit at the hotel so I knew our first stop would be to buy swimming trunks. 4.5 hours of dozing off, people watching (Ted look alike on the bus who wouldn't stop eating these strange chips) and bus-sickness, we arrived in Split for our 2 hour layover before taking the ferry to Hvar.

First stop: drop off luggage at the counter to store for 2 hours.
Second stop: buy swim trunks from a native Croatian swim store. 50% off on a pair of styling white trunks was one of the great deals on this trip. We were happy. They are very euro and fitting.
Third stop: pizzeria for food. Mushroom and prosciutto pizza. Thin, crisp and light, it was much better than expected.
Fourth stop: konzum, again. This time for water and fruit (I've re-discovered my love for nectarines here).
Fifth stop: negotiate at a stand and buy snorkeling gear and water shoes (I'm not allowed to negotiate anymore because we only got a $2 discount with my honest haggling efforts).
Sixth stop: back to the port to Catamaran Adriana for the 1 hour ride to Hvar.

The ferry was completely packed with people standing in the aisles. This transfer was probably the most painful one even though it was only an hour and we both felt nauseous and seasick afterwards. Finally, we landed and walked to the bus station to meet Andro, the keeper of our apartment, and his yellow Hyundai car. First stop was Konzum of course to buy more water and iced tea. We looked for a yellow car but found only a cartoon looking bright one with no driver. Ed spotted a gold car and Andro walked out as we got closer. I guess gold and yellow are interchangeable here? Either way, we were driven to our apartment (thank goodness, the roads here are far too steep and hilly to walk up with our luggage). We arrived at a cute three story pastel pink apartment and walked up the three flights of stairs (ask ed to flex at the end of the trip :p) to our place. It was beautiful and spacious, complete with a living room, kitchen, bedroom and a seaview balcony -- quite possibly the most perfect place to stay on this island.

Andro presented us with a simple black and white map of the island and proceeded to mark it up with his recommendations on restaurants, bars and beaches. I felt privileged to be getting a true local’s perspective and felt privy to some sort of insider knowledge. We settled in quickly by taking a shower, putting our clothes away and hiding our passports in our pillowcases and made our way out onto the balcony with laptop, Kindle and snacks in hand. Andro said the recent days had been incredibly windy which could potentially disrupt our plans to go boating the next day, but the breeze to us felt just right. I read while Ed worked (and subsequently napped) and in that moment everything back home felt so far away. Once I saw the sun begin to set, I woke Ed up to make our way to dinner. The walk on over to Dalmatino was incredible -- the promenade was lightly sprinkled with other visitors and the sunset glimmered in the sea. We stopped for pictures but I don’t think the pictures do the sunset any justice.

Dalmatino was in a narrow alley and was very quaintly decorated -- wooden tables and chairs, ivy and trees, dim lighting. We sat outside and were presented with two shots of brandy (a traditional Croatian drink) and two little pieces of some herb/licorice. We each took one sip of the brandy and quickly made faces as our throats burned; we clearly didn’t enjoy the brandy and we left it alone (Ed wanted to throw it out under the table). It’s probably a great palate cleanser but as a couple who doesn’t particularly enjoy hard liquor (except for shots time during pregames), we weren’t feeling it, not even in romantic Croatia. The herb/licorice thing that supposedly has great cleansing benefits smelled like cheese but tasted like figs; it was the strangest thing. We ordered a salad to start and a fresh fish in tomato sauce with spaghetti.

The food was great, the service was even greater and the people watching was the best part (spotted one couple who didn’t say a single word to each other for the entire meal - were they recently engaged? No, they must be married or they’d be more giddy. Maybe they just had a fight or maybe they had an arranged marriage). After attempting to drink the traditional Croatian dessert wine (tasted like licorice, better than the brandy), we walked along the coast of the island, passing and stopping by Hotel Amfora, Adriana, Hula Hula bar, Veneranda and multiple souvenir carts. We ended the night in the middle of the square at Pizzeria Kogo, ordered espresso and tiramisu and talked the night away (among other things, we wondered how the guy next to us could stand to listen to his fiancé/wife for days on end. She was recapping all her past hook-ups in her incredibly high-pitched squeaky voice. Felt like nails on a chalkboard). On our 10 minute walk back to our apartment, we both remarked that we’re blessed that we can talk for hours without ever getting bored (sorry, can barf at us now). Back at the apartment we read and worked again on the balcony before going to sleep.

Friday: We could’ve stayed in bed forever but we knew we had a packed day ahead of us so we got ready, packed our snorkeling gear and towels and made our way over to Cane boat rentals. It’s rather mind-boggling how trustworthy the Croatians renting us the scooters and boats were. I mean, look at us. We have absolutely no experience steering a boat or anything even close to maneuvering a water-sport vehicle, and they gave us a boat to ourselves for the entire day without even asking for our driver’s license or credit card. Ten minute tutorial on how to steer the boat and we were off, map of the Paklani islands in hand -- Ed was captain, I was the navigator (playing the more important role of course). It took a few minutes to get acquainted with handling the boat but once we got past the sea of fellow boats and yachts and had a clear path ahead of us, we were well on our way. The sun was beaming down on us and we embraced and enjoyed the ride across the blue waters.

We made it to our first destination, Milna Beach, a nudist or “naturalist” beach, and parked the boat on the dock (don’t know if that’s proper boating terminology). I tied the knot using my ancient 6^th grade knowledge of tying sailor knots (Ed says it wasn’t a sailor’s knot at all but who is he to judge anyway). We walked over the rocks and set down our towels near (but not too close to) an old nude couple (not a pleasant sight at all but motivation to not ever be saggy).

We put on our snorkeling gear and swam back and forth looking for fish and other sea creatures. Even though we spotted very few fish, being able to stay underwater for a long time with the help of the snorkeling mask made me feel like a sea animal and I loved it. As we made our way back to the boat, we passed a boat named “Klara” that had three large men in speedos and three half naked women partying and sunbathing. I was pretty grossed out and stared too obviously (didn’t have sunglasses to hide my obvious stares ). The rich people here seem very different than the rich people we see in NYC (Russian moguls vs. hedge fund gurus) -- there’s a different air about them, a different gait and opulence. We then headed over to Palmiziana Beach, the nicest and only sandy beach on the Paklani Islands. We followed a group of larger boats as our guide and ended up in a beautiful inhabited cove littered with fancy yachts 4-5x the size of our tiny boat. These yachts weren't tied to the docks like the smaller motor boats but were anchored in the middle of the ocean with its patrons jumping from the yachts directly into the water. I felt like we were all little fishies. We picked a rock to lay out on at first then swam closer to the sandy shore. Ed felt uncomfortable leaving our boat near a couple who he thought looked distrustful. I laughed at him. I think he didn’t trust them because both had tattoos and dark eyes. We later saw them back in Hvar and they smiled at us; little did they know we moved our boat only because of them. So we moved the boat, hung our towels to dry on the little canopy on the boat, secured the towels with an oar and hiked across the island because the Cane lady told us to. The hike was nice but nothing special other than that we saw a ton of cacti. Got hungry so we made our way to the beach restaurant and got the nicest private spot -- it was secluded and overlooked the ocean. I felt so much like a princess -- could this all be real? The yachts, the cool breeze, the perfect sun, the crystal clear waters, the fresh fish and shrimp. It was all just right. Except then Ed fed me far too many shrimp, to the point that even though I absolutely love shrimp, I really don’t think I can stand to eat shrimp for a long long time. Seriously.

Lunch ended with Ed killing a huge fly by squishing it between two slices of bread. We left Palmiziana and parked our boat off the coast of Milna beach right by Klara. We swam as much as we could, knowing that this would be our last day in the ocean. Then we napped on top of the boat, which was probably one of the best naps I’d ever had, and finally made our way back.

Getting lazy with recaps so I’ll use very short sentences now. Made it back to the island and walked up to the fortress (Ed took his call during our exercise of walk). Took lots of pictures, saw the sunset and walked back to our apartment to change for dinner (Ed wanted to go straight to dinner but I wanted to look decent for our last night in Hvar). Dinner was fish in a white wine sauce (which ended up being creamy) and spaghetti carbonara at Gariful. We saw the mute couple from Dalmatino again and this time they actually had one interaction -- the guy bought his wife/fiancé a drink while they were waiting for a table (score!). Ed was very very sleepy after dinner so we walked around the square and sat by the ocean until it was late enough to go to Carpe Diem. Ordered drinks at Carpe Diem and sat on a lounge couch (is that the right description?) outside -- extremely comfortable. There was a very grande couple in front of us who was basically half laying down on the couch (not in an attractive way), a large party behind us playing games in a circle, the interracial couple that walked in while we were there, the group of young friends who ordered champagne and sparklers and the two guys at the bar who asked the bartenders where they could take their “ladies” that night since Carpe Diem beach was closed.

Our Travels

Tuesday, June 4, 2013

Turkey, 8 Months Later

Sunday, September 18, 2011

Croatia is Bliss