Boots on the Loose

Ok. I get Croatia now. It is warm, welcoming, and picture perfect. It is everything you want on your holiday to the Mediterranean. Or rather, to the Adriatic.

It is so picture perfect, nothing out of the ordinary seems to really happen. Kinda like home. It is so picture perfect, I actually have a hard time writing anything about it.

But alas, we just spent nine wonderful days in Croatia. A bit of a holiday from a holiday I suppose!

Why I Write

If I can write, anyone can write.

Truly. 

I am in no way qualified to be a writer. I was a solid ‘C’ student in my high school English classes. Over twenty years ago. In university I took computer science. I didn’t even consider an English course at that level.

I barely even read books for Christ’s sake! Though I am making an effort to change that lately. That said, I do subscribe to plenty of great online inspirational writers. James Altucher, Mark Manson, and David Caan of Raptitude, to name a few.

But the who’s and how’s of my writing are mostly moot. At the end of the day, I write. I put it on the internet. And here is why.

Writing is great exercise for my brain.

Think of reading and writing as physical activities for a second. Reading is like stretching for your brain. Writing is like lifting weights.

Putting myself out there puts me out of my comfort zone.

And everyone should be putting themselves out of their comfort zone on a daily basis. Otherwise what is the point in living?

I feel I have interesting ideas to share with the world.

We all feel we have interesting things to share with the world. And many of us do. But I feel ideas aren’t just things. A thing could simply be a regurgitated opinion on an upcoming political event. An idea is something a person has sat down and thought about. For example, this list of reasons for why I write.

I like the glory.

We all like glory. Let’s be honest. I like telling people who haven’t been to Mongolia what it is like in Mongolia. I like people knowing that I have been to Mongolia. Even more when they haven’t been to Mongolia for themselves. Straight up.

The arrogance!

I want to inspire people.

Perhaps the arrogance of my last point has done nothing but annoy you. Or, maybe you thought Mongolia was a scary place before. And now you don’t. And now you want to go see it for yourself. Do it!

Writing is a “lucrative interest”.

And it makes sense to be spending your time concentrating on lucrative interests. That is, things that you enjoy and also profit from. For example, Google is paying me something because you are reading this. If I write a thousand things and a million people read it, I will have a bit more money than before.

Writing might open a door one day.

I am not sure yet if it will or not. But when someone asks me, “what is your dream job?” My first thought is always to be a travel writer. I don’t know. Maybe being a travel writer is great. Maybe it sucks. What even is a “travel writer”, anyway? Maybe I am one now. But maybe you are reading this and you are an editor for a travel magazine? Who knows!

I am diversifying my career.

They might be able to farm out my computer programming skills to people in India, or probably soon, a robot. But I doubt they will be able to farm out my communication skills to anyone. Not within my short lifetime, at least. Perhaps one day there will be no work left for computer programmers. But they will need people to write instead. I will be ready!

I actually enjoy the process.

I feel productive when I do it. And like lifting weights, my brain feels good after I am done. Why wouldn’t I do it??

Trip Update: Croatia

Jen and I get off our plane from Estonia in Dubrovnik on a warm, summer’s afternoon. We will be meeting each of our siblings later that evening and traveling with them through Croatia for the next week or so. My sister Sara, and Jen’s brother Brooke.

The airport bus drops us off on the opposite end of Dubrovnik’s old town from where we are staying. And we lug our backpacks through the middle of old town in the scorching heat. Right through where all the action is.

The old town in Dubrovnik is STUNNING. It is the closest thing I have ever seen to what a working medieval town must have looked like in its heyday. Polished marble streets, beautiful churches and buildings, water fountains, markets… All surrounded by an incredible wall protecting it from outside intruders.

As demonstrated by the “Game of Thrones” tours people are touting, it is where they film parts of the show. How they manage to find even a moment where the place isn’t crawling with tourists is beyond me. CG I guess is the easy answer.

Of course me being the weirdo I am I haven’t really watched the show anyway. Perhaps the background of every scene in the show IS filled with cruise ship tourists?

After meeting Zlatko, our airbnb host, and sampling his homemade grappa with him, Jen and I head back to town. We eventually end up finding a cool bar for a sundowner. Recommended by many. It is squeezed between Dubrovnik’s outer wall and the Adriatic Sea. Apparently Bill Gates has been there for drinks.

And as we finish the final sips of our cocktails, we see Sara and Brooke’s flight fly overhead. Right on time. we head back to our apartment with just enough time to beat them so we can offer them a warm welcome.

The following two days are filled with: walking, eating, drinking, and swimming. Two days that I would say went by way too quickly. The overall highlight being our walk atop the wall that surrounds Dubrovnik. Absolutely beautiful and a must for any visitor.

The time slot choices to walk the wall are: early morning with cooler air and ten times the people. Or mid afternoon when it is very hot, and far fewer people. We went for the latter.

Zlatko tells us we are here at the best time of year. The temperatures are much cooler, and the cruise ships aren’t yet in full swing. He says at the height of cruise ship season, there can be up to ten thousand cruise ship visitors PER DAY. Yowzers.

I am really glad he told us that. It is a bit sobering to think about how busy Dubrovnik would be at its worst. And it makes me appreciate the time we did have even more.

Next stop on the trip? An island off the coast of Croatia called Korčula. 

It is a two hour boat ride from Dubrovnik to Korčula. As we step off the boat just outside of Korčula’s old town, I immediately sense a much slower pace of life. Compared to Dubrovnik, of course. We wander our way up the hill to our next airbnb apartment.

I must say, airbnb is the way to go when traveling these parts with a group of four. Each night cost the group a total of around one hundred dollars (Canadian). So twenty five bucks a person.

I would be surprised if a person could find a dorm room bed at a hostel for as cheap as that. And we get an entire apartment.

We decide to rent a car the next day for a tour of the island. So we splash out on a little VW convertible. I think it is fair to say that convertible drivers have more fun in life than the rest of us.

Our intention is to do a bit of a winery tour. Croatia has many great wines.

Croatian wines tend to specialize in a grape type called Plavaç. Apparently it originated in these parts, and was brought to America. Which eventually became Zinfandel. But then all of Croatia’s Plavaç grapes were wiped out by a plague about a century ago. So the Plavaç of today comes from America’s Zinfandel which wasn’t hit by the plague.

Or something along those lines.

Our self guided wine tour ends up being a bit of a dud – it doesn’t seem like the concept has really got here much yet. At least not to Korçula. But we do manage to find two wineries that do samples. As well we find two great swimming beaches. And end up getting all the way to the opposite end of the island. Which is only perhaps a forty minute drive away.

On the drive home, the weather shifts to some very ominous fog which we are forced to drive through. But being the convertible troopers that we are, we resist the urge to pull over and raise the roof. And we are rewarded for our efforts by being able to say we completed the day roof free!

And unfortunately, the fog ends up being a precursor for some less-than-ideal weather that would plague us for much of our remaining time in Croatia.

We are awoken the next morning at 7 a.m. by thunderclap after thunderclap slamming down across the roof of the house. Marking the end of our beach days in Croatia. And the start of a day spent searching for breaks in the rain to hop between points of shelter.

Did you know Marko Polo was from Croatia? I didn’t. And I certainly didn’t know he was from the island of Korçula. But apparently he was. One building claims to even be where he was born. But according to the guidebooks, that fact is debatable.

In the end we will probably never know, I suppose. It was almost eight hundred years ago, after all. Back when we thought the world was flat!

The following morning is an early one, as we decide to get up in time for the 6 a.m. ferry to Split. Brooke only has one day left of his very brief seven day tour in Croatia. And is wanting some time in a third place before leaving. Understandable.

After a two and a half hour ferry ride across, we make our way to our third and final airbnb apartment in Croatia. And then quickly walk back to the main part of town for a visit to Split’s must-see attraction: Diocletian’s palace. 

Built around fifteen hundred years ago, it’s purpose was to be Diocletian’s retirement home. Diocletian being one of the Roman emperors. Apparently the concept of retiring emperors was newly introduced right around that time.

Our airbnb host tells us the cathedral at the centre of the palace is the oldest in the world. But like Marko Polo’s birthplace, I will go out on a limb and say that one is also debatable.

Today, the palace is a bit tough to even make out where it begins and ends. It is all but completely integrated into the city, with houses and shops being both inside and outside the palace walls.

But definitely worth a visit. Highlights included the ancient basement underneath it all holding everything up. As well as climbing the somewhat-sketchy staircase in the bell tower.

After an ice cream break (Croatians really seem to like their ice cream!), we hop on a local bus. It takes us out to a suburb called Salona, which is home to a set of Roman ruins.

The bad news is it can be so easy to get “ruined out” on these sorts of trips. The good news? It only takes a short amount of time away before these sites become super cool again to go visit.

Salona has all the usual fixins’ of a set of Roman ruins and doesn’t disappoint: bath house, church, basilica, amphitheatre, etc, etc. Well worth the trip out to see. It is a solid kilometre walk from end to end. And so it is nice to find out we can escape from the amphitheatre end and hop on a bus from there. Instead of walking all the way back to the entrance.

Brooke being the day’s VIP due to it being his last, he gets to choose the night’s meal. How we ever manage to decide on a place to eat, I don’t know. Every town in Croatia is filled full of beautiful patio after beautiful patio. And never a wait to be seated. Why it is so different at home, I don’t know.

We end up on the patio of a place called ‘Fife’ which was recommended by our host. The notable difference of Fife being, prices are half what they usually are, and portion sizes are excessively large. Croatia is not normally a place to find cheap food.

Just as our food arrives, the clouds roll in once more, and we are forced to move inside. Boo.

Brooke up and out early the next morning at 5 a.m., the three of us have a final couple days remaining on our own before it is our turn to do the same.

We hop on a small boat that takes us thirty kilometres east to a small town called Trogir. Trogir is another one of those World Heritage sites that shouldn’t be missed.

In the beginning we were actually considering staying in Trogir instead of Split. But as beautiful as it is, in the end, we are all glad we stayed in Split. Trogir likely would have been a fair bit too quiet to spend three days in.

We do some wandering, the girls do some shopping, we visit the main cathedral and climb its bell tower. While there is another break in the rain.

And as we start to consider that it is almost time to head back to the boat, there is a small, ubiquitous eruption from within the city. Croatia has just beat Turkey in one of the preliminary football games of this year’s Euro cup.

It is always great to be in a place where people from the victorious home team are celebrating on a sports high.

One final afternoon with Sara, we spend a few hours walking up to the top of Split’s main park. Then back to our apartment to pack. We walk her to her ferry back near where we originally disembarked our boat from Korčula.

Except she is now on her way across the Adriatic to Italy. Hugs goodbye, I feel oddly envious that she gets to go to Venice now. But that seems completely silly considering where we are, where we have come from, and where we are headed, ourselves.

Jen and I in search of one final Aperol Spritz before leaving Croatia ourselves, we head to Split’s main beach.

And find what we are looking for.

And we watch the boys play games in the water.

And then we wave at Sara’s boat as it heads into the sunset.