The Richards Family Fairytale: Split Croatia

This is how Todd helps me pack...well it's kind of help because the girls are asleep but not what I had in mind when I asked him to put them to sleep.

Sun Rise at Marco Polo Airport in Venice

Spit is part of the Dalmation Coast...you can see where the dogs name comes from with all the islands.

Waiting for the bus.

Bleeding/Flaming heart Jesus on the bus. There is religious symbolism everywhere.

Lets get up walk to a boat stop, get on a boat, catch a bus, get on a plane, fly to Croatia, take another bus, and do all that before 7:00am. We have crossed from west to east. I had surrendered my control freak self and let Todd be in charge of our departure, frankly I was convinced we were going to miss this flight and did not want to be in charge. We left our apartment around 3:10am and walked the short distance to the boat stop it was completely deserted with the exception of a few Venitian rats. We watch a huge cruise ship drift by, and I admit for the first time the idea of a room on a boat that just takes you place to place sounded glorious at that hour and in our current situation. The boat came and picked us up on time to our surprise, this is Italy after all they kind of do what they want when they want to. Case in point when we asked about the boat schedule we got 3 different answers from 3 different people. We went up the Grand Canal taking in the sites once more in the darkness. It was very reminiscent of the Pirates of the Caribean ride at Disneyland in the darkness. We then got to the Plaza de Roma where we caught a bus to the airport. The airport in Venice is pretty easy going. We made it through everything with time to spare. It’s a little old school here as you have to take a bus to the airplane on the tarmac. The flight to Croatia was interesting. We sat in the back of the plane and had tons of room as it was not a full flight….who wants to get up for a 6am flight? It was also right next to the engines so that was a little load though the girls just slept through the whole thing. As we came to land the pilot was flying as Todd and I described one of our loved relatives drives…accelerator brake accelerator brake… When we finally got close to the ground my sense of relief was buffered by the fact that I felt like we were going too fast, this was confirmed with a look back at me from Todd who gave me a shoulder shrug and odd expression confirming my susspession. We hit the ground with a thud and proceed to bounce. Then it was apparently brake time so we were slammed forward. Then we knew we’d crossed from West to East as the plane just rolled to a stop right at the airport and everyone hopped off the plane a walked across the tarmac to the terminal. Croatia uses the same alphabet as Russia and other Eastern countries with all kinds of strange characters. They also have there own money the Kuna. We got through security check point and then went to see how to get to town which was about 40 minutes away. You can take a cab but it’s expensive and with 6 of us always an issue finding one where we fit. Or you can take a bus. There was an iformation center and the lady mercifuly spoke English because I don’t even know what language they speak here let alone how to say anyting in it…even hello. So we followed her instruction, crossed the street and found the bus stop. I was a little worried when I saw what had to be a 50 year old bus drive by. The bus was fun and thankfully built in this century. It is the city bus so not super touristy. The kids all fell asleep on each other after a long discussion about the bleeding heart Jesus poster that was on the bus.

We made it to the City Centur (ya I meant to misspell this one it’s how they spell it.) And had a little walk to where our apartment is. We were kind of wondering around looking for the apartment when a man came up to us and asked “you looking for me?”….”Uh I don’t know who are you?” Then he managed to say the name of the apartment we are staying at so apparently we were looking for him. Our apartment is fine, not as fancy but we came here 2 days early with finding flights and avoiding overstaying our visa. We move in a couple days to another apartment here in Split. Split is well known as it is the home of Diocletian’s palace. So far that’s all I know but hopefully will be more enlightening in the future. It feels very Eastern, the people, the way they dress, they all have that slightly angry look about them, plus I have yet to see one smile. One of our tour books describes the attitude here as the “Croation Shrug” which means don’t know don’t care. It was funny because yesterday afternoon we went to a beach and Todd went to get the kids some snacks and while waiting he asked if they had any diet coke. The girl behind him said “Mr you're in Croatia, they don’t have diet coke here, they don’t even have Monster Energy Drinks.” She then asked him where he was from. When he told her he was from San Francisco Ca her face lit up and she exclaimed that she “loved San Francisco, Full House is my favorite show.” She then exclaimed all the things she loved about California. They basically have our cable here. All the cable shows(we don't have cable at home so this is a plus for us) are on the TV. So I think they have this awareness of our culture, at least the Hollywood version.

French "The house of Sarah"

Main drag in Split

Diocletian's palace

View from our apartment in Split there are tons of swallow birds flying every night

The next day we set out to the beach. It was going to be like 95 degrees so it seemed a good place to go. On the way there we took a detour through Diocletian's Palace which is very much a Roman City. Diocletian was the Roman Emperor for 20 years, this is where he retired. There is a sandy beach on the other side of town and we went over there. You can rent beach umbrellas and lounge chairs for 30kn that's like $2.50. So we bought some shade and lathered up in sunscreen. Even the sand was super heated. The kids would make a mad dash to the water in their bare feet. A couple of Australian guys sat down next to us and we enjoyed talking with them. They are actually staying in Paris for a month, actually quite near where we lived and they came here from Venice so they are like following us. It was nice to talk with people who speak English. We compared our experiences. We survived the beach and amazingly 4 hours in the Mediterranean sun we all had tans but no major sunburns. Thanks to my constant reapplying of sunscreen, which was tough because they were constantly either wet or covered in sand. Our first apartment here was in the old part of town. The old part of town is interesting. It reminds me a lot of Italy only with a slight eastern block flair. This is a place where East meats West. The language, people, even the food all seem to show a disconnect from a concrete system.

Today we moved into another apartment which is up the hill a bit with a spectacular view of the ocean and TONS of space. We have a balcony that is about the size of our last apartment which is really amazing. And the kids have internet again, something that we all missed for the couple days we did not have it. So we enjoyed an indoor day while we let our skin recover and stayed out of the 100 degree heat of today. It's funny because now we feel like we are on vacation.