calling from some city...

We were up pretty late last night, but still rose early this morning. Scott got up before I did to blog on the terrace, and I work up around 9 on my own and joined him. We had to check out of our hostel by 10 am and switch to our new hostel, which was less than a 5minute walk away. Our new hostel was also very nice; we weren’t able to check in since it was only 10 am, so we dropped our bags off and headed to the beach for the whole day. The sun was shining without a cloud in the sky and it was already hot out, so I was excited for the day. 

We walked around the marina trying to find a suitable beach. Hvar doesn’t haven’t any sand beaches, and really doesn’t have a lot of pebbly beaches either. Mostly, the “beaches” are large rocks with lounge chairs on them. We went to one such spot yesterday, but Scott and I wanted something nicer since we were planning on being at the beach all day. Also, the day before Scott had kicked a sea urchin when climbing on the rocks, and it was very painful. He didn’t want to return to the rocky area because their likely would be more sea urchins there, and he already was having a lot of difficulty walking. After walking along the water for a while, we came to a large pebble beach that had some free space for people to put down towels. Scott and I staked a spot close to the water’s edge and settled down. We weren’t sure if we were allowed to be there, since there were several large luxury hotels located right on the water, and the beach might have been only for their guests. But we just went on the beach, and nobody told us to leave, so I guess it was okay. 

We stayed there for a couple hours, baking in the sun, listening to music, and reading. I had bought The Runaway Jury in the Paris airport last week and have been engrossed in that novel. Scott went swimming for a bit, and luckily did not suffer any injuries today. I went in the water briefly; as I said yesterday, I think the Adriatic has the prettiest water of all the places we’ve seen, but it also has the coldest. It was refreshing, but I got out quickly to return to the warmth of the sun’s rays. At about 1, we were hungry and decided to head back towards the marina area. We went to the supermarket and bought stuff for sandwiches. The bread was pretty terrible though, so lunch was disappointing. Since it was a long walk back to the beach we were at, we decided to go to the very small pebbly beach just off the marina, the closest beach to the hostel. We managed to find a small space of available beach to set down our towels, and we remained there for the rest of the afternoon. We both burned a little today, but I was glad because I tried to keep my sunglasses off today and now my raccoon eyes don’t look as bad. 

At 5, Scott was ready to head back so he went to check us into our new hotel, and planned to pick me up on the way back. He checked us into the room, and apparently the owner thought we were a couple- asking him “Where’s your girl?” It was pretty funny- check Scott’s blog for more details on that conversation. Anyways at 6, Scott returned and we went to the ferry office to buy our ferry tickets tomorrow. The woman at the ferry office explained that the fast ferry from Hvar town leaving at 6:30 am was already sold out, but they often have tickets available on the morning of the ferry. She suggested we arrive at 6 am tomorrow to see if there are any tickets for that ferry. If not, we would have no problem buying tickets for the 7:45 am ferry to Split from Stari Grad (another town on the island; we would have to catch the 7 am bus). Even though arriving at the ticket office at 6 am was very early, it was definitely preferable because it was faster than the later ferry from Stari Grad, and cheaper as well.

Our next stop was the supermarket, where we wanted to buy something new for dinner. We decided on steak and fried potatoes, plus we still had some leftover tortellini from the previous night. We ran into a little trouble at the supermarket because we obviously cannot read Croatian, so it was hard to figure out if what we were buying was actually steak. But we selected our food and headed back to the hostel so Scott could cook. We ran into a huge problem when we found out the oven was broken. Scott was able to cook the pasta and potatoes no problem on the stove, but we had to use this mini panini type grill to cook the steaks. We actually don’t think they were steak- we think it was pork instead. Either way, the pasta and potatoes were excellent, and the meat was pretty good as well. Given that Scott cooked the meal using only instincts, it was really, really good. The meal was also supplemented with some good Croatian rum (and Coke Zero, which is what they consider Diet Coke). It’s a sweet rum, but strong enough we both got a nice buzz after a couple drinks.

 After dinner we showered and then went into town for gelato (actually, our second gelato of the day). We walked around town again, listened for a while to the live music playing on the square, and did some shopping in the little gift shops set up along the harbor. We decided to call it a night early because we both wanted to do some blogging before bed, and needed to pack as well. Scott’s alarm was set for 5:30 am tomorrow morning, so we said our goodnights at 11:30. 

Dubrovnik, Croatia, here we come.