Arrival in Split at Al's Hostel

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We arrive around 7am and I am famished. I avoid the herd of people trying to get me to stay at their place and make my way to a little café where I end up meeting a couple of 19yr old local girls who had been giggling on my bus. Later on I go looking for Al’s Place and it takes well over an hour of stopping various people and following them aimlessly. Eventually I find it and manage to get a bed. Al’s a friendly Brit who seems a bit unprofessional but invites me to join a dinner later on with a small travel group that is in town.

I go for a walk around the old town and its really pretty. Basically it’s a crumbling old Roman fortress with shops and cafes tucked in everywhere. I end up hitting a beach eventually where I ask a couple of American girls to watch my stuff while I go for a swim. Then I walk back and have a terrific chicken sandwich in the middle of the fresh fruit market. I return to the hostel around 6pm and end up meeting an overly friendly Brit named Saki, a couple of Aussi girls, an Aussi-Croatian tour guide and a reporter of sports for the BBC. I throw down some wine and catch a beer at near by square until dinnertime. The dinner is at some authentic Croatian place where i eat veal and potatoes and talk mainly with the chubby British girl next to me. The Aussi are quibbling about prices the entire time and it seems so cheap and petty. I also chatted a bit with some simple Kiwi farmers who are vegetarians. Eventually we finish up and I join the Aussi girls and the tour guide to the bars and clubs on the beach. We pick out one stylish club and have a few drinks while it packs up with a lot of stylish looking people. It seemed nearly impossible to talk to anyone there so we called it quits and made a b-line for our hostel where we quickly all fell asleep.

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