Croatia

The trip to Croatia from Bratislava is long. Very long. It’s not so long that it takes more then one day, but that one day is a long day, very long. The road we chose took us through Hungary, Bosnia & Herzegovina and then into Croatia. After severl hours of uneventful driving we made it into Lovište.

This is my second summer in Croatia so I knew more or less what to expect upon arivial. What you should expect on arivial to Lovište is a small bumpy one-lane but somehow two-way street that we live at the end of. We unloaded everything from the cars into our apartments which I will now try to describe to you.

There is a small but invieting looking brown metal fence in front of the house. Once you open the gate you step up on step onto a slightly rough stone walkway, the stones the big ones, not the little pebbles that always stick to your barefeet when you run accros them, they are all held together with poured cement. The stones are colored as if they once could have been cream but then had samd poured in and mixed in. On either side of the walkway is a magnicifigant garden, on the left is a small knee level wall made out of the same stuff as the walkway. The left side is also seperated with several concrete walls going from left to right seperating the garden into sections, in each section is a tree, in one a lemon tree, in another a tree I don’t think I have ever seen before and I am sure I don’t know the name of, in the last a short, but stout and impressive palm tree. On the right of the walkway the are none of the little knee-high cocrete walls everything grows free, there are many plants there but none that I can identify. There is also a grill used for frying fish on those wonderful occasions when we do fry fish.

Me with Korcula in the background.

After you come to the end of the walkway there is one building that is sperated into an upstairs and downstairs. Downstairs lives the Popoviches, from whom we rent our living space, which is funnily enough not the upstairs one. The Varys live in the apartment above the Popoviches. If you were to walk past the metal staircase leading up to the Varys apartment you would come to a small patio behind the Popoviches building, above the patio is a structure for grapes to grow on, but the structure also has some green cloth draped all the way over it, the cloth takes the edge away from the sun and makes the light have a pleasent almost green glow. In the patio is a picnic table and benches as well as plants in three of the four corners.

We live in a small four-room house which was half underground so it would stay cooler. Me and my brother were to sleep in the kitchen on fold out beds, which were actually suprisingly comfratble. My parents slept in the bedroom across the hall, in the hall was a very small bathroom with only a tiolet and sink. The fourth and final room was the bath room (I mean the real one, with the shower and all that deal) which was only accseseble through my parents bed room.  

Lovište is a almost magical place, as in the days just sort of bleed together, the mornings the afternoons and then before you even realize its midnight and you have to go to sleep so you'll have energy for the next day. Having said this you can understand why it would be exceptionaly hard for me to write everything in chronological order so I'm sure you'll forgive me for only going into the major events as we were there for quite a while.

One of the nicest things about our slice of Croatia was the proximity to the water, our houses were maybe 30 feet from the water. When we woke up we went swimming, after we ate we went swimming, before we went to bed we went swimming, there were also many times in between that we swimming. We also went snorkeling, (we saw many crabs and fish and things of that sort) I tried windsurfing, I learned that although windsurfing may look fairly easy it is not easy, not at all. By the time I was done trying my hands were blistered and bleeding from pulling the sail out of the water but by the end of the trip I was actually able to go a few feet without falling so it was worth it. And of course as there always are when the right ingrediants are present; raft battles. 


While in Croatia most people do two things all day, of those two things I have already told you about one, swimming. The second is relaxing, just chilling, or kicking it with your friends and family. Just lying near the water, reading a book, listening to the water and feeling the wind. Now this is really very enjoyable to do but I'm not sure how interested you would be to here about me sitting on a beach and not doing anything so I'll spare you. 

Croatia.

Some Korculan roofs.

Lovište is a fishing village, almost all of the year round inhabitants are fishermen. Even some of the summer inhabitants are fishermen. Atien Popovich is a man who spends his summers in Lovište with his family and is aslo a fisherman (he is also the man we rented our houses from). One day while strolling through town we saw Atien fixing his fishing nets with his fishing partner. We went over to say hi. We started talking and at some point my brother Marko asked if he could go fishing with Atien, being very generous Atien agreed to take me and my brother. We were to wake up the next day around four and be out fishing with Atien and his partner by five. Somehow we managed this feat and by five we were in thier fishing boat. We rode through wind and waves for about an hour until a white bottle was spoted floating on the water we drove by it slowly until Atien snatched it out of the water fast as lightining. He pulled the heavy net out of the water till all of it was on the boat. This was repeated several times untill all the nets they had layed two days before we inside the boat. We started on the way back. I noticed there were more and more boats on the water, and one in particular almoost seemed to be coming right at us, but Atien and his partner had done this before, I was sure they knew what they were doing, but when we were about ten feet from the other boat and they were screaming at us to turn and everyone started cursing and shouting I realized they somehow hadn't noticed the impending boat, which was not by any means small, it was a massive and lumbering thing, the kind of thing that would take quite a while to turn, which presented us quite a problem in our current predicement. Luckily we did escape unscathed with about an inch to spare which was very exciting but at the same time nerve racking. 

Just chilling, you know.

As I probably said and you might know, this was not my first year in Croatia I was there two years ago. While there two years ago me and Simon made some friends while playing basketball mainly two boys named Peter and Stephan who we remembered very well and very much hoped to meet. Dario (Atiens son) invited us one day to play soccer up on the field we agreed of course and went with him and while playing we saw Peter and Stephan. After we meet we concluded to meet again later and play basketball. Peter is in the top ten basketball players in Croatia (I think second or somewhere around there) so whoever played against him was brutaly crushed. Soon we noticed the light slipping away and our shots growing harder and harder due to the visablity. After this we met every night to play basketball. 

On the beach.

Every night after playing basketball we would meet at cafe Bolero, where some of us would have ice cream and others would have vodka but all had a good time. This continued far into the night, we would go out in the late afternoon and (only sometimes) stumble home in the dark at midnight or one in the morning. But this is ok, Lovište is a safe place there are no police which is of little consequense as there is no crime. Also there is no doctor which can present a problem if one is required for an emergancy medical situation. And there is no school. Don't worry though all the kids go to school. The nearest school is on a nearby by island town called Korčula, in which Marko Polo was born. Being so close and all we had to visit Korčula so thats what I'll tell you about next.

I'm on a boat.

Korčula is, as I said an island and driving to an Island is not a task easily done so we took a boat. The  ferry perticular we took offered and extraordinary view of the sea, of vineyards and of lots of nice cliffs and such so it actually was quite exciting. One of things one would notice as one comes into Korčula are the walls. The walls seem to sprout out the the white waves constantly crashing on them almost like a huge, white tree.

Yes. We are siting on a banana.

Yes. The banana is being pulled by a motor boat.

Korculas history.

The roads of Korčula are not paved as we have here or where ever you are (most likely) but they are cobbled roads that are very beutiful and a pleasure simply to walk on. The building look old and historic, which is of course because they are old and historic. There are many new resturants, bars and stalls selling none of which are old and historic and few of which sell things that are old or historic but with one major exception. The "Marco Polo Shop" is not in itself anyhow old or historic but it is made out to look very old and is all about history as that is what Marco Polo himself is part of. Last time I was in Croatia I bought my little brother Marko a shirt from the Marco Polo Store that said "Marco Polo". We visited Marco Polos house which is now a muesam. This was all very interesting to do but I have a feeling no matter how I write it, it won't be interesting to read so because of this I'm not going to write it.

Best ice cream in the world.

More Korcula.

We walked all through Korčula and explored the town all the while marvouling at old churches and belltowers and such. Not long after we discovered we had worked up quite the appititie, so being near to so many wonderful resturants we decided to go to one. The meal was amazing of course and everything was delicious. Soon we had seen all we came to see and it was time to go back. The way back was the same as the way there is I feel little need to describe it it detail but they way on the way back all of us the Suchys and the Varys sat on the front of the boat to feel the salt spray even more. We returned to Lovište and that was the end of our excorusion to Korčula.

Sometimes in Lovište there are special events such as "Den Lovište" which means "Day of Lovište" and every so often there are putdoor parities or diocos with lights, DJs, and a mobile bar. The last time I was in Lovište they had thier celebration of "Den Lovište" which I remember very fondly. One day while walking back from the store at which we had bought donuts for breakfast we noticed a poster promoting a tequilla party nailed to a tree. Being curoius we came closer and examined it and realized that we would be in Lovište during the party. Since we were in Lovište and the party was in Lovište, of course we were going to the party. 


Partys in Lovište aren't the same as partys in other places. Parties in Lovište are an event the whole village attends, they are outside near the boats and water. A stage is erected seats and tables are put into place as well as a moblie bar. The had some impressive light effects as well as a color changing screen placed behind it. In between the bar and stage with chiars and tables to either side was a large open space left for dancing. As darkness desended upon Lovište and the appointed hour arrived we started our advance towards the party. Almost immediatley we (at this time Simon and me) met some people we knew. 


Familes started coming, being this as it is the familes started dancing. Our familes came, (Simons and mine) so of course we had to go dance with them a little which we extremly relucantly we persuaded into. Now I have to give you some history. There was once a mailman in Lovište, this mailman was an interesting guy, he really, really liked to party. Last time when I was in Lovište at Den Lovište he got exceptionaly drunk and started dancing a way that only a drunk mailman can dance. After he finished dancing he figured it being a party and all he might as well do something crazy. He got into the biggest nearby fishing boat and found the emergancy flairs. Taking two of these he stood on the tallest point of the bow with one lit flare in each hand, then him as well as everyone else started chearing. As the postman was drunk he didn't stay on the boat for very long soon he toppled off the boat, flairs and all. If you're so drunk it's not easy to walk then I would not advise swimming. This was the postmans predicament, he could not swim, which if you are in the water is a vry, very big problem. Some of the postmans slightly less drunk friends jumped into the water and rescued him, much to the amusment of all the spectators. We were told not long before our coming that the postman stole all the post offices money then ran to America where he currently is working on a fishing boat. The postman is a very colorful charcter in Lovište so two men got thier flares out got on their boats and amped up the party with a tribute to the postman. 


Since it was a tequilla party many people were drinking, not only tequilla but everything you can think of. Two of my Lovištian friends ended up shirtless in the street tumbling around singing "Guns n Roses" songs. I met many new people some of whom were tourists and others who were residents. I met one girl from Germany with whom I became good friends. The party went almsot all night Simon and I returned late at night.


The next day after we woke we met with our friends from the night before, we were impressed with the carnige left over from the night before. Bruno (who was singing "Guns n Roses" the night before) had broken the motorcylce he had made himself in his garage, it layed in the middle of the street along with many plastic cups and empty bottles. I found my german friend and we spent the rest of the day together on a bench by the sea. 


The next few days were slow, with just realxing and before we knew it our time in Croatia was over. We endured the same brutal drive back to Bratislava and that brought a close to this chapter of our time in Europe.