CROATIA!

Ever since I moved to Prague, everyone has told me, "OH, you HAVE to go to Croatia" so for my last week of traveling in Europe I chose, Dubrovnik, Croatia. And that's not all, my good friend Mylene would be joining me the whole week! We met in the airport and I was so excited to see her. I think I chatted her ear off because I've missed having company during my travels. We took the bus into town and found our apartment we rented. That was a brilliant idea and the apartment was very very nice. We had a full kitchen, great shower (it had music and shower heads all over with a waterfall top), and a tv! The family that owned the apartments were extremely nice. The parents could not speak English so the daughter who was roughly around my age sat down to show us Dubrovnik on a map. They were also so very kind to drive us to the grocery store.

On Monday, the sun was shinning and we both got our sunscreen and bug spray on. Mosquieto's dominate here and if you are not prepared, you will be eaten alive. I think I had a grand total of 20 bites during the trip. They loved Mylene's blood and she had plenty more! So we head to a beach by Old City. It was really hot laying on the beach so we cooled off in the water. The water was so clear and the water was warm where you can just sit and relax and cool off.

We got a beer at the beach and just began to unwind. After spending all day at the beach, we were starving. We walked around Old City to try and find a restaurant with good seafood. All the restaurants were the same price and had all the same menu. We finally gave up and chose a place where Mylene had grilled squid and I had fish fillet that was fried. Not bad.

The next day, I was VERY excited and planned, a half day kayak adventure. We woke up bright and early since it would take 45 minutes to walk to the location where the kayaks were. I was in charge of getting us there from the map they gave us. I somehow (surprise surprise) made a wrong turn and we were huffing and puffing up lots of hills really high up. It was taking an hour and we were dripping with sweat. Til finally we reached a dead end and luckily found a local who knew where we needed to go and told us to walk down the hill. WE MADE IT but we were already exhausted and it's only 9am before our real work out would begin.

The guide was a young Croatian boy who told us the other party canceled and it would only be Mylene and I! Wow a private tour :) We were given instructions of how to kayak and I was a little nervous. They were the closed kayaks and we each got our own. We were all set and I had my captain sailor hat on! He pushed us in the water and we began our journey. Since it was a bit rocky, we stayed by the city walls and kayaked to Old City. If you have ever kayaked, it is VERY tiring and a lot of work. My arms were killing me! We then headed to the island Lokrum. Not only were we tired, but swimming against the wind with water splashing in our faces. While kayaking, we saw that a man was capsized and our tour guide went to his rescue. What a hero. I kept asking, "Where is his tour guide and why did he desert him". I later found out that WAS the tour guide. He had a hole in his kayak and he didn't know about it and it filled with water so he couldn't flip it over. Our guide told us he is angry about people like that because apparently you do not need to be certified to be a guide!!!! That's crazy! Thank goodness we had a pro who was on the national kayak team and knew what he was doing.

We arrived at Lokrum and journeyed towards the rocky beach. They provided us with slippers so we protect our feet and don't slip and snorkels. We found a spot and went snorkeling. Sadly there were only sea urchins and small uncolorful fish. We had a great time though snorkeling.

We then headed back to the kayaks and were a bit weary of having to kayak all the way back as our arms were jello.

We had a sugary popsicle to give us some endurance and headed off. It was a straight shot and we had the wind helping us out. We made it back and had a wonderful time even though we were pooped.

We ate lunch on the beach and had a squid salad. I told you I felt like Shamu. We chilled on the beach all day and swam in the warm water with a view of Old City. Just beautiful as you can see in my videos and pictures.