Day 22 and 23 - Mostar and Split

Sorry I was unable to update last night. I was sharing a room with someone who left before I had a chance to ask if I could use her computer. I'll try to remember the best I can.

We took a city tour at 9am. We walked around the Austro-Hungarian empire area, but a lot of it had been destroyed in the conflict, and some of it rebuilt. It's a little weird. Trees grow in really weird places here. In Trieste, there were trees growing on a bridge. There are trees growing on the tops of walls, on upper stories of buildings, on tops of boulders. It's really strange.

Anyway, we then walked to the old bridge, Stari Most. It was built in the 1500s, survived German bombing in WWII, was destroyed in the 92-94 conflict, was rebuilt in 2006 and is now a UNESCO heritage site. It's smaller than expected. The river is narrow through the city, though it gets wider outside of the city. It rushes super fast and loudly, and the color of the whole river is a bright blue green. It's not very clear, so I wouldn't swim in it, but it sure is pretty to look at!

After, we walked down the souvenir street. I finally had a chance to buy some souvenirs from Bosnia. It is a really pretty town.

We then headed out to Split, the 2nd largest Croatian city. It was just over 3 hours. The scenery is so drastic here. One second will be a snowy forest, and just 20 minutes later it'll be rocky and dry.

Split is the tourist city. There were a lot of cruise ships in the harbor, and everyone spoke English. We are done learning, so we didn't have any classes here. We just had free time! Yay! We went to dinner in another sketchy-entrance, lovely-dinner place. We had to walk through a narrow alleyway where two walls meet to find this little courtyard and a cute restaurant inside. It was delicious and relatively cheap. The receptionist recommended it, otherwise we never would have found it.

After, Meichen went back to the hotel, and LaVana and I walked around shopping. It was our last night in Croatia, so I wanted to spend all of my kuna. I bought some unmentionables, but it was Saturday night, so most shops closed early. So, we got up early to walk around, and found an old palace, where Mass was being held, but no souvenir shops. I still had 80 kuna (15 dollars), so I bought some food for the long bus trip back to Piran.

Then at a road stop, I bought some more souvenirs, this time the alcoholic kind. I bought some fancy bottles of slivovic (plum brandy) to bring back. After, we just spent a lot of time on either freeways, or windy mountain roads or windy coastal roads. Very few of us felt well at the end of the trip. We went from a few hundred feet, to a mile and a half, to sea level all in a day. Also, we went through a 7km long tunnel. It was pretty cool. No one held their breath. Paddy advised us not to do so, as he did not want any dead bodies on the bus.

Anyway, back in Piran for a few more days to give presentations and wrap up the class, and then back to the US! I'm not sure I want to, but I can't afford to stay. Damn. If only I had a few hundred dollars to spend another week somewhere!