Huzzah! I survived the terrifying ferry trip and made it off the Croatian Islands! Crazy enough, even though half the people on my ferry were having a horrible time, my anti-nausea pill performed so well that as we reached the port of Dubrovnik, I couldn’t help but crave a burger. I searched for some burger places, but none seemed very good. Then I found a little corner shop with great reviews for burek, a Croatian puff pastry filled with meat or cheese that really seemed it would fulfill my craving.

There were none in the window when we approached, but I asked, and there was some behind the counter. The worker had to use an electric turkey carving knife to cut through the thick pastry, and the piece he gave me was HUGE! And for only three euros!! What a deal!

It sure did hit the spot, though I had to save half for later. This thing was massive.

We made our way from the port to the Old Town, and I was a little surprised when, out of all the hostels and all the rooms and all the beds in Dubrovnik, Maikel happened to be in the bunk bed directly above me…. Lol.

I was socially exhausted by this point and really needed some alone time, so I ventured off by myself. Honestly, my outlook was not great. The rain was miserable, my left shoe was soaked through, and I basically decided to spend the day trying to stay out of the rain.

I got an affogato to cheer me up, which helped a lot.

And then I bought an adorable owl umbrella, which also helped a lot.

In much better spirits, I wandered the streets of the Old Town, aka King’s Landing, for anyone who watches Game of Thrones!

There were several cute little art shops, and yes, I bought some art.

I also made my way to the library, and it had a cute little art exhibit in the front room.

There weren’t really any cozy places to sit, so I ventured back outside in search of a café.

I found one that had cheesecake. Score!

When I was in the cafe, the rain stopped, finally, so I was free to wander unencumbered around the churches, stairs, and streets.

I’d signed up for a free walking tour at six pm because I knew I’d have a hard time motivating myself to be outside otherwise. It was a great tour, led by a young man born and raised in Dubrovnik. The star of the tour, though, was this older English man who was very interested in the history of the city and the country. He asked about five questions ever time we stopped, and his adorable wife started elbowing him in the side and covering his mouth toward the end, haha.

I ended up chit chatting with the wife, an Israeli lady who is currently living in California. I also chatted a lot with an Indian boy who was living in Germany.

This nasty spot on the wall is made by sweaty bodies trying to complete an age-old challenge: stand on the small platform, take off your shirt, put it back on, and then get off. Yuck!

This clock tower had a lunar clock, which I thought was really cool. The gold portion represents the shadow on the moon, so the dark grey crescent is how much of the moon will be visible that night. Neat!

We learned a lot about Croatia, the war of the dissolution of Yugoslavia in the nineties, and the long, long history of Dubrovnik.

Dubrovnik itself is over a thousand years old, and the walls of the city are hundreds of years old. The city has been under many different rules, including that of the Byzantine Emperor, the Venetians, and Napoleon.

It was a fun tour! I’m glad I went. We ended at the port, where I stayed to watch the sunset.

I stumbled upon some gelato on my way back to my hostel, and I ordered a scoop of pumpkin chocolate. She gave me two giant scoops, maybe because it was the end of the night, and these immediately began melting on me as if it was a hundred degrees outside! Mind you, it was more like 65! Not sure what was going on! I think it just wasn’t that cold to start with? I ran back to grab a cup to put it in. In grabbing the top cup from a stack, the next cup came with it and then tumbled over to one of the vats of ice cream. It was so awkward, but both of the worker ladies were facing away! I retreated quickly, haha. They would have probably been very confused to see it there when they came back to the counter.

There was a piano singer playing at the restaurant across the street, so I stayed to listen for a while. He was a hoot, and the patrons were loving him.

The American girl I’d met in Hvar several days before who went to DIS also just so happened to still be in Dubrovnik and to be staying in my same dorm room. So strange, these coincidences! I thought I’d spotted her when I first arrived, and then we ran into each other at an art shop later on and caught up a bit. To be in the same room, though, was so serendipitous! Her name was Laura, and she was from the east coast.

I had considered doing a day tour the following day because Dubrovnik was so small and rainy, but I couldn’t decide if it was worth it. When I learned Laura was doing a tour to Mostar, a nearby city in the country of Bosnia and Herzegovina, I decided to join her.

We had to be at our meeting point outside the old town at 6:30am. Yikes! I was very, very tired, let me tell you. The streets were empty inside the walls.

I think we chose the wrong side of the bus, because we went north along the coast, so the left side was getting all the nice views.

I also made the mistake of buying a million snacks at the grocery store the night before so I wouldn’t go hungry on the tour. We ended up making so many stops and having so much good food available, though, haha.

Our first stop was at a little coastal rest area, where I got a small chocolate cappuccino, a chocolate crescent, and a hot dog pastry.

Croatia officially joined the EU on January 1st of this year and switched to Euros, but before that, they used Croatian Kuna. All of the price lists in the country list both euros and kunas just so Croatians can get used to the conversion. Since Bosnia and Herzegovina isn’t part of the EU or the Schengen Region, we had to go through a border crossing on our trip, and every one of our 40-something passports had to be scanned and stamped. Took about forty minutes.

I was so tired from being up late the night before, blogging and trip planning and generally procrastinating on bed time. I’d even snapped at Maikel, who excitedly shout-whispered, “You’re awake?!” when he and Laura came back to our room and I stumbled out of bed to go to the bathroom. Laura later told me that after I left the room with an angry, “No,” he looked at her in confusion. He didn’t understand. I was clearly awake. Laura explained that no, she’s clearly sleeping. He argued that because I was up and walking around, I was clearly awake. Laura tried to explain that I literally stumbled out of bed to pee and was very much not awake and in the mood for a happy conversation. This apparently made no sense to him, and he finished the conversation with an exasperated, “I’m never traveling with women again!” Lololololol.

That’s all to say, I had a lot of awkward dozing on this long bus ride. I tried so hard to keep my mouth closed, but I kept waking up and needing to close it again. Lol. Probably wasn’t very pretty.

We hit several spots of rain while we drove, but by the time we reached the first town of Pocitelj, it was mostly just overcast.

Bosnia and Herzegovina is mostly Muslim and has lots of Balkan and Turkish influences, which was seen in the beautiful shops.

Laura and I were obsessed with this little kitten we found who sat kneading the table so sweetly, and she loved when Laura gave her pets!

There were two fortresses in this town, but we only had half an hour here, so there wasn’t enough time to do everything. I would have loved a full hour here!

Laura and I both wanted to see one of the mosques, and we were so glad to visit. It was so cozy. We had to remove our shoes before entering to keep the carpet soft and clean for prayer.

After our visit, I walked up toward one of the fortresses to get a view of the city and the mosque. I’ve never seen these tall, super skinny towers before, but this seems to be the typical mosque tower! This would not be the last we’d see today! Reminds me of the Cinderella castle.

I bought some dried figs and pomegranate juice from a little stand and settled in for more bus time. I also snacked on these little bread chips from the grocery store which were 10/10.

Bosnia and Herzegovina apparently has a law that you cannot be a tour guide if you are not licensed in the country, so our guide had to give us all of our info before we left the bus. I had read online that the scars of the Yugoslav war were still very much present in the city of Mostar, so I asked quickly about this as we waited for everyone to get off the bus.

Without saying anything, our guide, Tonya, pointed at this building right in front of us, riddled with bullet holes.

So sad. Croatia has had a lot of help from the EU rebuilding infrastructure recently, but Bosnia and Herzegovina either doesn’t have the funds or the resources to patch up these scars that were made over twenty years ago.

Tourism is starting to ramp up in Mostar, which was obvious along the river. The water was a beautiful green color, and the people were flocking to the famous tall bridge, Stari Most.

Stari Most was originally built in 1567, but it was destroyed by shelling during the war in 1993. Reconstruction was completed and the bridge reopened in 2004.

Normally, locals will collect money from passersby as motivation to jump off the bridge! At 78 feet up, that’s no small feat! We didn’t see anybody jump, though, because the water under the bridge was much higher and moving much quicker than usual. It really did not look safe at all to jump or even swim in the river.

I visited a mosque in across the water that had a tower you could climb, and my view from the top was so lovely! Look at that green color!

Though the weather was fine when I entered the mosque, the second I exited the top of the tower, rain and wind spattered my face with a vengeance! I hid on the far side of the tower, and it all subsided in a matter of minutes.

I actually got stuck up there for a while because a group of about six Asian ladies came out of the tower door and then stood right in front of it to take pictures, trapping the rest of us in the tiny space. We asked them to walk around in a circle so we could exit and they could come back around to the same spot, but they refused. Quite frustrating! And I felt bad because Laura was waiting down below.

When I finally made it out of the tower, Laura and I found a spot for lunch. The man working there was very grumpy, but the food was delicious! I tried asking if we needed to come inside to order, to which the grumpy man replied, “Okay.” I said, “So we do need to come inside, or will you come outside?” He responded, “O-Kay.” I asked, “So we do need to come inside, because my friend is outside.” He then said, “OKAY!” Absolutely no idea what he was okaying, hahahaha. So awkward. I went out to tell Laura we needed to go in, and he followed me out to order. So confusing!

We had Cevapi (the C is pronounced more like a J or SH), which is a very typical dish consisting of an open bread pocket and several sausages with a side of chopped onions. We paired this with some famous Bosnian coffee.

The meal was so delicious and filling! The coffee was super strong. We were told not to stir it because the coffee grounds are still inside the little carafe, so you have to let the grounds settle and then pour carefully into the little cup.

For dessert, I had some hurmasica, which was very close in taste and texture to the Indian sweets rasmalai or gulab jamun. Kind of like a gritty fried cheese that is soaked in sugar water. I’m not describing it very well, haha, but I’m a big fan!

After lunch, we wandered into a museum and another mosque. At one o’clock, the mosque we were next to erupted in sound as the call to prayer began. A beautiful male singing voice was projected from a speaker at the top of the tower, and I’m pretty sure it was live! During breaks in the sound, we could hear similar songs coming from other mosques in the city. A nun (or Muslim equivalent?) came outside to ask if we had questions. She told us this call to prayer happens five times a day, and then she said she had to get back to the prayer.

We walked along the water for a while, where we saw several flooded cafes. Did I mention it’s been raining a lot on this trip???

We really wanted a view of the bridge from below, and we found the perfect spot!

There were more ruins and clearly inhabited buildings with major scars of war nearby. Some of the other tours I’d looked at said they met up with a Bosnian tour guide in the city so they could talk more about the history and point these types of things out. I wish we could have had that opportunity! Instead, I’ll just have to wonder.

We had one more walk through town, Laura and I giddy at our shopping spoils. (I got a gorgeous, gorgeous painting on a small panel of thick wood, and Laura got a beautiful decorative hanging lamp.)

Our next stop was at the Kravice Waterfalls, which are nicknamed the Niagara Falls of Bosnia and Herzegovina. I think that was way more true when we visited than it normally is! The amount of water in this place was crazy! We were quite wet with the spray!

Some of those trees were hanging on for dear life, and I wondered if they are always two feet under water, or if this was unusual.

I really got a kick out of this “lovely” café at the base of the falls which was flooded to within two feet of the roof! The tables and chairs were tied together and floating, but the most hilarious find was a full sized fridge that was floating on its side in six feet of water!

Since that was clearly a dead end, I walked back up the hill and around the other side for a different view of the falls and of the flooded cafe.

Pretty funny!

That was our last meaningful stop of the tour, so it was time to pile back onto the buses. It’s about a three hour drive plus border crossing times, so it’s a long journey! It didn’t help that three other buses arrived at the border just before us, so this time the crossing took about an hour and twenty minutes. Oof.

We took a different way home than we did in the morning, and the right side of the bus was nice to be on this time! We passed the largest agriculture valley in Croatia, and it was gorgeous. Not sure if it was flooded or meant to be this way, though!

Our last rest stop was at a newly constructed bridge, paid for by the EU. Croatia’s really making out like a bandit with that EU membership!

I found a swing set here and was very, very happy with my view!

We got some more lovely coastal views along the way home, and we saw several oyster farms anchored in the sea.

Now, I don’t know if it was just because I was absolutely exhausted, but I started having a feeling on the return trip. Laura was napping, and I was feeling sick with tiredness after two days of little sleep. I’d gone to bed around midnight and woken around six am two days in a row. But basically, I started wondering how much a plane ticket would cost to go home.

Like, home home.

Like now.

I knew it was dangerous to even take a peek at flight prices, because when I start shopping for flights, I often end up buying the ticket.

But I peeked.

And it honestly wasn’t that bad.

There was a flight I could take in two days that would take me home for a little over six hundred dollars.

Now don’t get me wrong. That’s a lot of money. That’s almost a month of my rent. But I wasn’t even to the halfway point of my trip, and the thought of continuing on for that much more time and THEN SOME was honestly kind of terrifying. Also, if I cut three weeks out of my trip, I would definitely end up saving money in the end. I’m stingy at home, but I indulge when I travel!

Once I looked at those tickets, my mind just started reeling. I couldn’t stop calculating, weighing the pros and cons, trying to figure out what was worth what.

I knew I was tired from not sleeping well for a couple days, but it was more than that. It was really just that I’d done so much already, been to so many places, been so social, been sick, been rained on, and I was running out of energy that could not be replenished by “taking it easy” for a couple of days.

That night in the hostel, I made some soup with a packet of soup mix and leftover gnocchi and paired it with some blueberry Somersby cider. I spent about an hour or two chatting with other people eating and sipping beverages in the kitchen, and when they asked about my trip, I was honest. I told them I had three weeks left but had just looked at flights to go home sooner.

They were confused, for sure! And I would have been in the past! I know several people who have cut trips short for homesickness or tiredness or loneliness, and I’ve always thought they were stupid or crazy or both. I never thought I’d find myself in their position. Only one Canadian girl, who had been traveling for four weeks, understood me. She was going home the following day and nodded in complete agreement. “I was tired after three weeks,” she said.

And don’t be confused! I’m not homesick! I’m not dying to leap into the arms of my boyfriend! (Though yeah, that sounds great.) I’m just tired of being here. Does that make sense??? I don’t know. That’s just what I’m feeling.

The thought of doing another three weeks of this is truly kind of unfathomable.

After chatting about it with the hostel peeps and Laura, I decided to sleep on it.

In the morning, I set my alarm early so I could walk the walls of the town. When it went off though, I knew there was no way I was getting out of bed yet. And thank goodness, because a bit later, I could hear the rain start in the distance and then grow closer and closer until it was violently attacking our window! Would not want to be outside in that.

I considered going back to sleep, but then Maikel started FARTING IN MY FACE, audibly, from the bunk above me. If you’re reading this, dude, what the heck?!

That was all the motivation I needed to get the heck out of there. I packed everything up, had some breakfast, checked out, and then made my way outside.

Luckily the rain had passed by this time, but I decided I didn’t have time to walk the walls before my flight, and the entrance ticket was forty dollars. Part of my travel stress has been the money I’m spending, so I opted for a free hike up the side of the nearby hill to get a view from above.

Mission accomplished! It started raining on my return trip, and I found Peter Dinklage!

Hahaha. I think the town is so cute with all of the brightly colored umbrellas. I also learned to walk directly in the center of the streets rather than on the sidewalks. (There are no cars allowed in old town, so it’s all pedestrian anyway.) The center of the street is sloped to allow the rain to run off the cobblestones, so there were much fewer puddles this way!

I visited the historic pharmacy, which is the second oldest pharmacy in the world, over 700 years old. There were some ancient brews in there, for sure!

This was also the entrance to a monastery and museum, but I didn’t want to pay the entrance fee, so I just stood at the entrance and listened to the rain coming through the courtyard. I literally stood there while several girls paid their entrance fees. But then, the ticket man hollered to me, “You can go, girl!” I was confused. Was this not the area you had to pay for? He shooed me in, so I shrugged and entered.

It was definitely the area you had to pay for, haha. Not sure why he let me go!

I grabbed my bags from the hostel, picked up one last burek for the road, and it was off to the airport with Laura, who was also headed to Zagreb. Seriously, the coincidences of this trip have been so mind boggling to me!

I got some great views on the bus ride along the coast.

And then it was time for my flight! Will update soon about whether I decide to come home or not. Send good thoughts!

Najbolje želje,
-Lizzy-wa