We eventually did and he found us quickly. He knew a friend that lived in Zagreb who was with her friend. Frenchy had been busy all day tracking down a car for us to rent to take down south. He did a great job and found one the "Hot Wheels" that the European know as actual cars. I always look for the spot below steering wheel for you to put your feet down to push the car. So we all piled in to pick up some stuff from the store and head to the apartment he had rented for us. We all drank, danced and tuckered out pretty early because none of us had eaten dinner. The next day we got our selves together and hit the road for the Plitzvice Lakes National Park. Laura's friend had told her about them, and once I had seen them on the internet immediately decided that was a must stop on our way to split. We found a nice little apartment there. This is the best and most recommended form of accommodation in Croatia. You can get a 2br-3br apartment for $50-90/night. The place we were at was very quaint. It was this old house that looked like an old farm house but the interior was brand new with a new range, tv, leather couch and big jacuzzi in the bathroom. We went to the store and checked out the entrance to the park, but you have to pay to get in so we went back to the apt to eat some dinner and watch a move. It's funny, the tv had about 500 channels but the only ones that had any english were cnn international which you can only watch for about 30 min before the loop runs out, and MTV Germany. So it was nice for us to get our Jersey Shore fix. We crashed early and got ready for a big hiking day.
We rose and had croissants for breakfast and headed out to the lakes. You have to pay about $20 entrance to the parks but then all the trams and ferries are included which makes it more worth while. They have a bunch of different 'programs' or routes, ranging from short, 2-3 hours to walking the entire park which take about 8 hours. We decided to do track 3 which sees the whole thing but uses one ferry and takes a tram back. This park is one of the most majestic places ever and we saw it on an overcast and foggy day. We could only imagine what it would be like with nice weather. Basically you can see to the bottom of every lake with no sunlight so with any it must be jaw-dropping. The main park is made of about 18 lakes all connected by varying sizes of waterfalls. I mean it is really something that I shouldn't even bother trying to explain in words. The pictures barely do it justice. If any of you ever go to Central Europe and have any interest in Nature's beauty, this is a must see! We spent the day there and then headed back to the car to get on the road to Split. We got on the road, and the drive alone was beautiful. Another fun conversion is to look down on the spedometer and see 140-160.
We got down to Split in good time and we had to find a place to stay for the night. We drove around for a while and eventually tracked down a restaurant that had internet that let us use it for purchase of a round of beers. We ended up getting some food. One of the translation snafu's I've seen was on their menu however. One of the pizzas offered a topping of 'small pox' hahahahah. I feel like someone could make a lot of money by just going around restaurants and offering a quick, accurate translation for their English menus. But alas, I think they just don't give a shit. Anyway, the internet there kinda sucked but I eventually found a great place that was the same as most single hotel rooms and 2br apartments, that had 3 full bedrooms and 2 bathrooms, which is quite a luxury. So we ventured off to find the place. I made the reservation online and followed the directions to the check-in location. When I got there, it was about 11pm at this point but the site said check in went until midnight, I rang the bell and which was answered by barely old, barely dressed Croat. We struggled through our language barrier and I eventually became sure this was the right place. His wife got out of bed and greeted me as well. They were both very nice and she showed me the way to our place. Apparently the daughter and boyfriend live there when no one is renting it, so there was a crazy scramble for them to get the place clean. We continually reitereated that we were very easy going and they could take their time. They seemed to understand but continued to work at a feverish pace. We went to get our stuff find parking. We eventually got back and they were basically finished. We decided we liked the place and hate 11am checkouts so we negotiated over 30% off for the second night. We took a while to settle in and finally got our stuff together and we were all in the mood to go out and party. When we finally got ready, around 12am, the boyfriend of the daughter was still there and we asked him what was still open. He said not much. This was the truth. Keep in mind this was the day before a three day weekend for them, because the next day was their independence day, which we later found out no one cares about other than the shortened work day. We walked around and quickly found out how great of a location we had picked for our apartment. We were literally 2 min walk from the Riva, which is the marina in Croatian.
This is an amazing plaza strip right on the water full of outdoor seating for cafes and restaurants. Although there are many pockets of a pretty nasty sulfurlike smell. But you get kind of used to it. So we walked towards what we thought was the more 'centar' of the town. We didn't see much. We finally bumped into some locals that told us to go to Ohara a club that was open til 4. We were tired but basically committed at this point. Our first round of directions were pretty crappy and we ended up walking in a big circle for about 20min and then found some beligerant Croats sitting and drinking in front of a gas station. We got directions that were similar to the original ones, but we didn't really trust them. We then got better directions and followed those. They still weren't great but we eventually got down to the water and could hear/see it so we just walked down that direction. We eventually got there but it was about 2am by this point. Ohara, like so many other places in Europe was playing 80's music. This is another very funny thing to me. Apparently Europe didn't get the message that the 80's were kind of a joke, and although we play 80's music and have 80's nights, they serve more as a small halloween. We look at the decade as more of a farce, but damn do they take it seriously. One of the other things I find so interesting, and a bit frustrating, is the fact that basically everywhere you go, especially in Europe, you find at least some American resentment, yet all of their music, and most pop culture comes directly from us. So to me it's kind of like, "make up your minds" do you love us or hate us. Regardless, Ohara was a pretty cool place and there were some friendly people there. We stuck around for a bit but all of us were pretty beat from a long day and decided to walk back to the apartment.
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