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Published: August 8th 2007
Zdravo Everyone!!
Okay, I was supposed to update this blog a couple of days ago but as this blog will reveal not everything goes according to plan.
Since i last wrote i spent about a week at my Aunt's house. This consisted of relaxing after my Spain trip, organising my next trip and preparing for my job interview.
On Friday the 27th i headed into London for my job interview. I'd pictured a panel interview as being similar to a high court judges panel with a group of about 7 or 8 stern faced people although probably not wearing the wigs. I headed in for my job interview in the morning and arrived well before i needed to. Anyway i arrived a the interview and went through to the interview area where there were three friendly looking women sitting in a semi circle with a chair not far from them. There was only a tiny table and not a great long bench which was kinda false advertising by calling it a panel interview. Anyway i'd been told to put aside 1 hour for the interview but i was out in 15 minutes, which made me nervous cause i wasn't sure if
that was a good sign or not. So anyway i travelled back to Colchester and got a call not long after i arrived telling me that i'd got the job! (which i imagine that you had probably figured it out from the title of the blog). So that starts in July and will hopefully stop me from running out of money.
I think it was the previous day, the 26th, that Me and Mum visited my Granny in hospital. She hadn't been doing very well the previous couple of days however she appeared to recognise me and seemed happy that i was there, but it was still sad.
The 28th of April was the day before my Mum was returning to Australia and so the evening we went to a Thai restaurant in the centre of Colchester. The food was really nice (although we were a bit nervous about how easy it was to change our reservation as it isn't often a good sign when a restaurant is quiet on a Sat night). We ate some great curries, some of them had really nice prawns and then headed home.
The next day was when my Mum was leaving so we
started off by visiting Granny in hospital. She was much better than the previous time that i had seen her and was able to talk and have conversations and had perked up considerably. After lunch me, Mum and Barbara headed for my Nana's place for a quick visit before Mum flew out. We didn't arrive until about 4pm and had to leave at 5pm so it was a short visit but it was great to see Nana again. After we left there we dropped Mum at Heathrow airport (although the parking was miles from the actual terminal and involved a really large detour just to get in). After that me and Barbara headed for the car. Warning - the next section of the blog is the Nightmare referred to in the title of this blog. So anyway me and Barbara were pretty tired as we had been in the car for about 3 hours until this point and had a lot that day so we weren't looking forward to the same on the way home. However when driving along the M11 we thought that we had come off at the wrong exit and we confused about where to drive. So
we went back onto the M11 (big mistake!!). What we later worked out is that we had come off at the correct exit and should have driven from there. In fact the section of the M11 we had driven onto was one of the longest sections of motorway without a turnoff. So 16 miles later we were able to turn around and head back the way we had come for another 16 miles. A traffic jam at some roadworks further delayed us and by the time we got back we were tired and in desperate need of a break. Warning again - do not keep reading if you like to think that i am actually not a complete and utter moron. You see I thought i had a flight booked for the 3rd of May (today!) but i needed to know what time i was flying out so i went to check the time and it turned out that i was flying out on the 30th of April (the next day!!!). Of course this reallz threw me and I'm not sure i would have pulled it off had Barbara not remained calm and helped me think of everything i needed
to do. Actually whilst it was far from ideal, and i felt like a proper idiot, I was able to get everything more or less sorted. That is except for my new job who were sending me forms to sign that meant they could sort out a police check. So hopefully Barbara is going to be able to send them out to me and my mistake won't have been too costly (otherwise my next post might be titled "Unemployed again!".
So i was pretty shock up the next day and very stressed and it wasn't until i got on the plane that i was able to relax and get excited about my new destination. I was heading for Zadar, along the coast of Croatia! I arrived at 8pm that night without any map and terrible directions to the hostel and so was very relieved to discover two people heading to the same hostel. They were James from the US and James from the UK. We travelled as a group to the hostel and arrived about 9pm. Me and UK James were in the same room and went to a nearby bar for a couple of drinks and also had a
A Church in Zadar
Zadar hasn't taken off as a tourist destination yet so it was free to enter all the old buildings - but none of them had been restored and even particularly cared for.quick look around time. I got to bed about 1am and then got up for about 9am to check out of the hostel. I then walked around Zadar, occasionally getting very lost, and spent quite a bit of time exploring the centre of town which had a very beautiful waterfront boulevard. The people were all really friendly, which was great because my Croatian is even worse than my Spanish. It'll be a while until I'm able to put photos up but i think that'll be an easier way of showing how beautiful the town was. Whilst there i climbed the bell tower which had spectacular views from the top. However i got a touch of vertigo whenever i looked back at where i was climbing because the staircase just wound around the edge and had no levels that would mean if you fell you wouldn't fall the whole way down. So after a great day in Zadar i decided not to spend the night again and went back to the hostel to book my hostel in Split. And here commences the Amazing Race portion of the blog. You see May 1 is Labour day in Croatia so there were less
buses from the hostel to town (which was quite far). In fact they arrived every hour. And the hostel i booked in Split required that you arrive before 8pm as that was when reception closed, and Split was a three hour bus ride from town! It was 3.38pm when i booked the hostel, and bolted out just missing the 3.40 bus to the bus station. I knew i couldn't wait until 4.40 to catch the bus as i would be too late to arrive in Split and so i started to walk. After having walked all day i was exhausted, so the 50 minute walk with my large backpack was far from fun. And i couldn't stop as i had no idea when the next bus would leave for Split. Dead, i arrived at the bus station and collapsed onto the 4.45 bus to Split. It was an amazing bus trip, with great views and we seemed to be making good time. That is until we started travelling parallel to Split and suddenly i was running out of time. I tried calling the hostel on my mobile (no credit) and finally when the bus crawled into Split it was already
8.15. I hurried in the vague direction before a really nice local guy asked me if i was looking for the Split Hostel and then guided me there. Exhausted i was hoping that the reception would still be open. They were and i avoided elimination from the race.
The hostel was in the old part of Split and was run by an Aussie girl (in fact nearly the entire hostel was Aussie and half the businesses are run by Aussies!). A Canadian guy (Danny) that i had met in Seville was there as was an US guy i had briefly met in Granada. The entire hostel headed to a local pub to watch the soccer (Liverpool vs. Chelsea) and ate some amazing take away pizzas. Liverpool won, and then i got an early night.
The next day i explored all of Split. This included climbing their bell tower which gave me more vertigo (and has convinced me of the genius of the Hitchcock camera techniques in Vertigo). I also climbed the nearby mountain for fantastic views of Split. When i add photos i will add more detail to this section. The square near my hostel also had a stage set
up which had traditional dancing and singing going all day. The dancing was all very impressive, especially one dance which seemed to involve a lot of partner swapping and stomping of feet. That night i met up with an Aussie guy (Gus) and a French-Canadian girl (Claudia) who were travelling together, as well as another Aussie girl (Danelle) and a few other people including the Canadian guy I had met in Seville. He was all over Danelle who had absolutely no interest in him but couldn't get away from him. We went for a few drinks at the local pub and then on to a club that was in a parking garage. It was lots of fun and I got to dance again (its been a while - Claudia even said that i was a good dancer!!). They started by planning American music (a lot of Beyonce) and then a cover band came on who sang a lot of crowd pleasing Croatian songs that we of course didn't know. I made it back about 3am and then slept in to awake to a rainy and miserable day (today).
I went with Gus, Claudia, and two people from the UK (Ellie
and Nathan) to a breakfast place called The Black cat for a great (and big) English breakfast complete with most of the artery clogging essential ingredients! It rained all day so i spent the whole day with those four people. We took forever to eat our breakfast because it was still raining outside. Then went via the train station for Nath and Ellie to book their trip to Zagreb the next day and then via the bus station for Gus and Claudia to get their bus to Dubrovnik. Then we went to an Internet cafe where i organised some stuff and then Nath, Ellie and I went to the market which was suprisingly still going despite the continual rain. Nath bought a fake G & B watch (which said G & F on it) and we walked on to look at more stalls. After about 5-10 minutes something flew past in front of me - part of the strap to the watch. Ellie and I could not stop laughing and Nath took it back to get a refund. They "repaired" it and basically told him to not touch it. Then the three of us headed to a statue of somebody
(i really can't remember who) were you are supposed to touch his toe for good luck. So many people had touched the toe that it had been polished to a gold colour. The five of us reunited and headed off for coffee at a cafe although all of us except Claudia ended up ordering hot chocolate instead. It was really thick hot chocolate and it felt like we were eating a meal rather than drinking something. After that me and Gus headed back to the internet cafe, him to book flights and i wanted to write this. And now we are all heading off to see Spiderman 3 (with Croatian subtitles).
Alex
PS. New entry in hilariously bad video clips - check out Beyonce's "Freekum dress". When Beyonce puts on her "intellectual glasses" to give women a lecture about the importance of wearing their "Freekum dress", it cracks me up every time.
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Anthony the Drunk
non-member comment
hey there buddy!
It's nice to know that organised Al can also be disorganised too! Oh, by the way, you didn't mention what the job is for...