You think I would know by now that it is ridiculous to make plans for the future. In high school, I was part of a four-year leadership program, which, at our graduation, we were each given a word engraved on a rock to represent who we are. My word was “trust” because I had “learned to trust the process”. For someone who owns a rock with the word “TRUST” engraved on it, I still have serious trust issues with The Process. Alas. Maybe you could say there’s always more to learn. But I digress.
Not two weeks after posting the blog in which I wrote “but I’m not going to stay for another year” I received an email from Fulbright asking for applications to a new program that they’re opening up in the Canary Islands. We had five days to decide if we wanted to apply and we applied on the contingency that if we were given the job, we had to take it – AKA there was no option of saying “no” if we were accepted. I don’t think there is much I hate more than having to commit fully to something that can’t or won’t be fully committed to me. However, after a few panicked phone calls to my parents and a couple messy essay drafts, I had applied. That was late February. Since then, I’ve felt completely paralyzed. I didn’t want to make travel plans and I couldn’t make summer plans. I didn’t want to buy long term food products because I wasn’t sure if I’d be able to use them all. I didn’t know how to make my month/3-month/6-month/1-year goals without knowing whether I’d have to tailor them to being in Spain or in Santa Barbara. I didn’t know how to talk to my family because even while I was traveling and having adventures one can only have if they work in the seven villages, I knew the conversation would just revert back to not having heard about next year (because of me, not them). I didn’t want to blog because I didn’t know what to say. My thoughts have been mainly fixated on the uncertain future. Now, I know you’re all saying “Jordan, you’re 23, of course your future is uncertain” but despite everything, I want to have a plan. Because the Canaries program is new, there were many bureaucratic steps that had to be taken care of, and the Spanish bureaucracy is not known for operating quickly. The more time that went by, the more tortuous it felt and the more I realized that I did not want to leave Spain at all. I hated watching the calendar tick down to June 15th and it felt like each day was going faster than the one before. I knew that each one was bringing me closer to the day I was supposed to leave this place. I realized that I’ve felt more at home in Logroño more quickly than nearly anywhere else I’ve lived and that I can’t imagine not being in this country for longer. I was even considering other ways to stay here (you can imagine my Google history, I’m sure). Then, finally, a week or so ago, I got an email around 6 o’clock congratulating me for renewing my Fulbright grant as a teaching assistant for the new program in the Canary Islands. I get to stay in Spain. I’ll live on an island (I don’t know which yet) where the weather will most likely be warm and I can run year round. The Canary Islands are actually closer to Africa than Europe, but nonetheless, I’ll get to continue my Spanish adventure. Regardless, this is my blog to do two and a half things:
4 Comments
When I made my list of countries I wanted to visit while living in Spain, Croatia (Dubrovnik and Split) was second to Amsterdam on my list. I’d gone back and forth on when and if to go and finally, after being unable to sleep due to lack of certainty (see forthcoming blog), I finally snapped and at 2:30am on a weekday night, I booked my tickets for a weekend that the villages had days off on Monday and Tuesday. I knew my friends wouldn’t have the days off, so I settled on Dubrovnik for the walls and made my solo trip to the Dalmatian Coast happen.
Anticipating my trip, the weather was looking very bleak. Well – very bleak for a coastal destination. It was supposed to rain the entire time and be in the low 60s. I couldn’t help but feel disappointed already – I’ve had pretty bad luck for weather while traveling this year. On top of that, I was having issues with both flights I’d booked and I was not 100% confident that I’d be able to get on my flights. Keeping with tradition, I boarded a late afternoon bus (after trying snails for the first time, yum!) and got to Barcelona just before midnight. I got a train to the airport, helped two young people from Norway navigate Barcelona public transportation, and then plopped down outside the check-in counter. I FaceTimed my parents for nearly an hour before realizing the airport wifi had cut out and I’d accidentally been using data and then quickly hung up to contemplate my seemingly ill-fated trip. I went in search of an outlet to charge up my phone and unfortunately only found one next to a sleeping traveler with some of the worst B.O. I’ve ever experienced. I know no one smells great while traveling and you can’t control some things, but good gosh. I held my breath and dealt with it for as long as I could (a couple hours) without sleeping until I could go check-in. Luckily, I checked-in without any issues and soon boarded my plane only to instantly fall into the oblivion of air-travel sleep until I woke up an hour and a half or so later to the announcement we’d be landing soon. Looking out the window to the Dalmatian Coast, I knew I was in for something different. The islands reminded me just a little bit of flying into the Galapagos, but the land reminded me more of Costa Rica or something else completely different. I have a list of countries I’ve visited, but I only add the country after I’ve really felt like I’ve been there. Sometimes, this takes a few days, but with Croatia, it was immediate. And, oh yeah, there wasn’t a cloud in sight. I made it to the Old Town where I was staying and in a combination of exhausted awe, I stumbled through the walls following the careful directions of my hostel. No one was at the counter of the hostel when I arrived, but the wifi password was on the board, so I settled myself on the couch with a complementary map and began to plot out my day. Eventually someone came and told me I’d be in an annex building (which I was assured was great) and checked me in, telling my my room would be ready in a few hours and that I was welcome to leave my stuff and then come back. My first order of business was food. The guy at the hostel recommended a breakfast place and then walked me there (I may have a rant blog coming about this, so let it be known here that this seemingly innocently kind gesture was not that). At breakfast, I plotted the rest of my day and filled up on food. My plan for the weekend: Saturday (arrival day) – do a fort outside the walls, explore inside the walls including the Rector’s Palace and the Franciscan Pharmacy, walk the walls (but around the time they closed so less people would be there), and, if time, go to Lokrum Island, which was just a ferry ride away. Sunday – day trip through the hostel to Bosnia and Herzegovina. Monday – day trip through the hostel to Montenegro or one to some islands off of Dubrovnik depending on the weather. Tuesday – morning exploration of the Old Town (or whatever I still needed to do) and then get to the airport for my 3pm flight. Doable I thought. Very doable. I’d just need to power through my day. And so I did. I explored Old Town Dubrovnik, found the fort outside the city walls and enjoyed the view from there. I found the Franciscan Pharmacy (out of my budget to go into) and the Rector’s Palace (closed for renovations!) and then got on a ferry to take me to nearby Lokrum Island, where I hiked further than I thought with less water and sunscreen than I should have had to get to ruins of a fort that overlooked the Old Town. I then hiked back down and marveled at more ruins as well as the peacocks that strut freely around the island. Eventually, I found myself a place among the jagged rocks to enjoy the sea. I sat there and wrote in my journal for awhile before dipping my toes in the water and going in search of the “Dead Sea” of Lokrum. I found it – it was beautiful – and was deterred from swimming by a sign about a poisonous plant that lived in the mini-lake. (Well, not quite. I actually didn’t swim because I was still carrying around most of my stuff and hadn’t known to bring my bathing suit, but alas). After nearly stepping on a half-burrowed peacock and a quick selfie with another one, I boarded the ferry in the hopes my room at the hostel would be ready and I could change before taking on the walls of the city. Luckily, my room was ready. After getting cleaned up, I hung out for a little bit as I’d been told by TripAdvisor and savvy friends that I should either hike the walls as they closed or as they opened to avoid crowds. I heard they took an hour to walk, but I assumed I’d stop and take far too many photos, so an hour and 45 minutes before they closed, I purchased my ticket for the walls everyone was talking about. They did not disappoint. I spent nearly the entire hour and forty-five minutes up there, taking in the sights of the city and of the sea and marveling at the sheer architectural feat and symbolism that the walls represented. I was completely in awe. It doesn’t hurt that I felt very much in Game of Thrones without actually being in Game of Thrones. Walking the walls was, to me, the perfect analogy of traveling alone. It was perfect, because I got to walk at my own pace, stop anywhere and everywhere I wanted, and was able to get lost in my meditative contemplations. On the other hand, there was no one to make jokes with, to chat at the more boring parts of the walls, to ask unanswerable questions about the wall etc. There was also no one to trade off taking pictures with which meant taking awkward selfies or talking to strangers. I did both (don’t worry Mom, a bunch of photos with me in them are coming your way). However, as the sun began to sink, lighting the entire city up in gold, I simply stopped and sat on the stone wall to soak up the beauty of Croatia and of being alone. After descending from the wall, I stopped at a burger place I’d heard was good. (Yes yes yes I hear you all complaining about how I’m not eating local food, but I was not ready to deal with the gluten/nightshade/dairy/etc. free thing yet.) The burger was great and the server was incredibly nice, even when I tried to ask for my burger without a bun and he had no idea what to do. We settled with “Just leave the bun on and I won’t eat it *smile*” and then him bringing the spread they usually put on the bun on the side for me and just leaving the bottom bun on, I assume because he didn’t want the meat to touch the plate, which is very kind. After dinner, the hostel was hosting a craft beer event and I thought a) a beer won’t hurt me [please note: this is me literally half an hour after negotiating the bun off of a hamburger] and b) it was a good opportunity to meet cool people. Meet cool people I did, fend off creepy hostel volunteers I did, stay up too late? I did that too. The following morning, I found that whether it was the gluten, a lack of water, too much sun or something else altogether, something had happened, and I was definitely not well enough to go outside, let alone go on the day trip to Bosnia-Herzegovina I had set up. Luckily, the people who organized the day trip allowed me to go the following day without any extra fees. But that’s how I lost a day in Croatia. My lost day showed me another big drawback of traveling alone. Being too sick to leave my hostel in Croatia was so lonely. On top of that, my phone had decided to stop working in the ways you want a phone to work, especially while abroad. No calling, no data, nothing except photos and wifi. (Update: I’m back in Spain now and it’s still not quite working properly, woohoo). Anyway, I’d been sick the Wednesday before leaving for Croatia and it was so crappy on Sunday that I looked up flights back to Spain for that day or Monday morning. I soon realized that was dumb, that I would feel better, and worst-case scenario, there was probably a hospital nearby. I resolved to have a sip of water mixed with a hydration dissolvable I’d luckily brought with me (thanks Mom!) and a bite of banana every hour. Every hour turned into every half hour turned into every couple minutes until both the water and banana were gone. By then I was at least well enough to go to a grocery store to find something else palatable. Though I’d basically slept all day Sunday, I went to bed early hoping I’d feel 100% for Monday’s day trip. On Monday, I did, in fact, feel better. If not 100%, at least well enough to go on the day trip. I picked up more bananas from the grocery store and brought along my trusty apples with almond butter – knowing I could at least eat those things. Upon getting on the bus, I realized once again exactly how lucky I am to be a native English speaker. Obviously, I’ve noticed this in past travels, but it really struck me this time. We had to hand our guide our passports, so she could make sure we could all cross the Croatian/Bosnian border and the stack of passports was brightly colored with different nations. There were people from the Czech Republic, from Mexico, from Brazil, and from a handful of English speaking countries. She began talking and I couldn’t stop thinking about how I hadn’t even asked if the tour would be in English, I’d just assumed it would be. I never – or hardly ever – have to think about if I’ll understand the tour I’m taking. As we began our trip, I listened (in English) and learned about the Dalmatian coast – about history, politics, agriculture, exports, and anecdotes. I learned that Bosnia-Herzegovina actually cuts right through Croatia in order to touch the Adriatic Sea. That means that if you travel in bus from Dubrovnik to any other part of Croatia, you have to bring your passport. Woah! After an hour or so of driving, we reached the border of Croatia. Croatia is part of the EU, so it was a big border, with serious security and a well-built building to pass through. It didn’t take long, and we were told we’d get our passports back after the second border (the one into Bosnia-Herzegovina). Literally seconds later, we rolled to a stop in front of a small trailer with a puppy-looking German-shepherd laying belly up in the sun. I guess that’s the difference between an EU border and a non-EU border… Soon enough my passport was back in my hand with a fresh new stamp adorning the pages. Question – why does every border control put the stamps on the same page?? Spread them out for goodness sake. Anyway, not far after the border, we made our first stop in Ravnov (really just a pit-stop) and then continued on our way to Pocitelj. As we approached Pocitelj, we were told that their strawberries were delicious. Even though it was a quick stop, a couple of my new hostel friends and I scurried to the top of the hill to get a view from the fortress over the river and of the mosque. It was well worth it, and I was even able to get back down in order to buy a little container of fresh-as-heck strawberries for 1 euro. I’m from California and those were the best strawberries I’ve ever had. Half an hour later, we arrived to our main destination of the day: Mostar. Mostar is famous for a couple reasons. Primarily, there’s a stunning bridge that was originally built in the 1500s, but was rebuilt in the early 2000s after it was destroyed in the war. Unfortunately, because the city had always been filled with people of all religions, it made the war particularly brutal there. Our Mostar tour guide doesn’t have records of her first grade, second grade, or third grade because she had to stay in her basement for those three years to avoid the snipers. In 1993, the bridge was bombed, a blow to morale and to any sense of unity. The bridge was rebuilt by 2004 and it has again become famous for the men who choose to jump off of it into the freezing river beneath to prove their manhood. The tradition is less about impressing women now, and it’s equally terrifying to watch (at least if you don’t like heights/edges) as it is fascinating. In Mostar, we followed our Bosnian tour guide around for an hour hearing about the city and the country where unemployment is 44%. Bosnia-Herzegovina is easily one of the most beautiful – if not THE most beautiful – countries I have ever been to and it was beyond heartbreaking to think about the atrocities committed there. I stood in front of bombed out buildings while our guide commented on the former Yugoslavia and the complications with the current government. The stark contrast between the beauty of the country and the horror of the war was jarring. After the tour, we were free to explore the city as we wished, which for me and my hostel buddies meant getting cheap food with a stunning view of the bridge, finding (and enjoying) Bosnian coffee, searching for souvenirs for our respective collections, and going down to the river to feel how cold it was. The time went all too quickly and before long, we were back on the bus to Dubrovnik. I was wired from the thick Bosnian coffee, so I listened to podcasts and tried to commit the passing landscapes to memory. Back in Dubrovnik on my last evening and the following morning, I wandered around Old Town some more while doing some spectacular people watching before finally saying goodbye to one of my new favorite countries, where, despite the forecast, it did not rain a drop and I was woefully wrongly prepared. I’ve actually got a conspiracy theory going that the Croatian government convinced the weather people to lie to detract tourists. Regardless, I truly hope I get to come back some day and spend even more time on the Dalmatian Coast. Between meeting and spending time with rad new people, being sick, and choosing exactly what I wanted to do and when I wanted to do it, this trip showed me the very best and worst of solo travel. |
AuthorWelcome to the blog portion of my blog Archives
November 2018
Categories |