Zadar, Croatia

By Zadar I actually mean two islands off of Zadar. A friend of Jill’s mom has an apartment in Preko, which is a town on an island I can’t remember the name of. Silvana picked me up from the bus station and drove me back to her place. I actually got to stay in an apartment next to hers owned by a friend of hers. I had it all to myself. She lived less than a block from two different beaches. She also was the best cook ever. I wanted to stay forever.
I have another friend who was near Zadar though who I’d told I’d meet up with. Nik and I were both doing research at Riverside in California last summer. His mom is from Croatia and his family owns a house on the island Vir. On Monday I took the ferry back into Zadar and met Nik and his family. They were even more amazing than Silvana. I’d only planned on staying one night, in fact I’d only really packed for a night, and I ended up staying three. That just goes to show how kickass my backpacking skills have become. Every day on Vir was pretty much the same. You’d get up around 9 and have breakfast with the whole family (which consisted of Nik, his brother, sister, mom, dad, and grandparents). We’d sip coffee for a while before going swimming. Swim until the water got too cold, then sit on the same rock and chat until the sun got to hot. Then we’d watch whatever was on TV in English. Since there were only 4 channels that was pretty limited. Most days it consisted of Red Dwarf and Star Trek. Once the station mixed it up and showed Baywatch. Then we would have lunch and go swimming again. Finally dinner and then we would either take a walk and look for shooting stars, or chill on the balcony of the house and look for shooting stars.
I was really sad to leave. I love the whole family. His sister and I talked makeup and hair products, his brother and I played poker (I won) and Parcheesi (he won). His grandmother only spoke Croatian but she was convinced that I never had enough to eat.
After three nights I went back to the other island for a few nights before I planned on taking a ferry to Ancona in Italy. After one night Silvana got a call from out of the blue from her Nephew that he was coming to stay. He had two little girls, three and one.
I HATE CHILDREN
Really, I do. These kids were the most poorly behaved children I’ve ever seen in my life. I don’t think they ever stopped screaming or crying. From the three year old was a mantra of ‘mama, mama, mama, mama, mama’. It was never ending. I have never wanted to punch a three year old before.
After a couple of days of that I was more than ready to get away. On Sunday I took the ferry into Zadar and got on another ferry to Ancona. That night in Zadar was a big festival for the full moon. There were thousands of people. Tons of street performances and all the lights were turned off. Made ofr an interesting time with my full backpack. I took some video of that. Hopefully I’ll get to put it up.
When I got on the ferry I had to find a place to sleep. There was one couch left and I promptly claimed it. I finally fell asleep and only woke up to one of the crew shaking me. Pretty much everyone had already gotten off the ship. I had slept through it all. If there’s one thing this trip has done is make me able to sleep through things that used to keep me awake.