Zagreb and Zadar

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After recovering with pancakes in our hostel in Bratislava, we began our journey to Croatia. As we settled in to our 11 hour journey, Kat starts looking at dates in her journal and realises an epic oversight. We thought we had our inter-rail ticket for 4 weeks, when really we had them for a month- that's 4 days we didn't realise we had, and hadn't budgeted for. And there we were rushing down to Split before our inter-rail ticket ran out... could've stayed longer in Slovakia or something couldn't we! We found this news hilarious, and decided a few extra days in the Croatian sun was not a hardship.

We got to the hostel seconds before our room was about to be given away- it was the longest journey, we were 6 1/2 hours late! In the morning we slept in VERY late, and then wandered the few metres over the road to the park for some quality sunbathing. We found the most idyllic spot, by a willow tree and some flowers. Our tranquility was disturbed however by a fellow traveller. Over an hour he worked his way closer to our spot, and finally plucked the courage to approach us (bearing in mind we were in our bikinis) then proceeded to lecture us on our travel style. Apparently we're not as open-minded as him because we stay in hostels and don't hitch-hike, and he made us feel so guilty about going clubbing- we're so mainstream... But at least he could reassure Jenna about the music industry- "it's so easy to get into, and if you don't you can go to festivals anyway, just selling jewellery". Haha sure...

On the way home we couldn't the alluring smells coming from the chocolate factory right next to our hostel, and bought wafers- we did lines of little wafers, feeling so bad-ass. Feeling the guilty that we hadn't actually seen the city yet and were leaving the next day, we went out for dinner in town. We made the standard eating out mistake: you start off being too picky about price, and get drawn to the cheaper looking places, and then get so famished from all the walking around you'll eat anything, but still go for the shit looking place, and pay a large amount for shit food. What was a hunt for salad and nice wine, became a horrible cheese 'vegetable lasagne' nightmare, and over-priced beer. (Kat made a brilliant analogy about this scenario and men, you can work it out...) We were determined to drink wine, so we went to a bar and had the cheapest and most disgusting wine we've ever tasted; we had to pluck up the courage to drink it, and gulp it down whilst the other person laughed at the disdainful wincing face.

In the morning we found our little 2 carriage train to Zadar, with one connection at Knin to make. Obviuosly we missed the connection, and found ourselves in the arse end of Croatia with some fellow travellers. The last train to Zadar had either already left or never arrived, they seemed to have lost it.... After a kerfuffle over taxi or bus, taxi or bus, we got on a 70s bus with brown carpet seats, and sped off at alarming speeds with the door wide-open! The two English boys who were with us then got out some cheese, bread and olives and we had a very civilised snack on the death-bus, followed by a even more civilised game of eye-spy. They reminded us of this:

We finally got to Zadar where Mira our hostel owner picked us up (she was so lovely) and drove us to the flat, where we had dinner and went to bed.

The next day we put in some hours sun bathing, and that's about it! In the evening we decided we would see the town and have a night out. At the bus stop we met a couple of French boys and a French girl, who we ended getting a taxi with into town. After a few drinks, they started telling us how we must hear the sea... Kat was like "uhh yeh we've heard it, we heard it today!" but they kept insisting, and confused us further by talking about flutes! We went to investigate; it was a long walk, and the entire way there Pierre sang every Lonely Island song he knew ("last night I saw a film, as I recall it was an 'orror film", so funny in a French accent"). The mysterious sounds of the flute waves was actually a giant sea-organ, it was a series of hollow tubes that made noises as the waves went in and out. It was a very beautiful sound. We then went on to a RnB club full of trendy people, so we downed some tequila shots and lowered the tone with our cheese-tastic dance moves. We cracked out the q-tip, miming throwing the imaginary ball about the group, reversing the car, and then Kat came out with a stormer- you mime reversing the car, but oh wait you're in gear and you shoot forwards! Its now a classic.

We lost Pierre, and found him slumped in the corner so we decided go home, via the chippy. We found a palm tree leaf, which Kat found incredible. She kept asking whether she could take it home, whilst sweeping the floor with it. Jenna then started fanning Kat with it, and a horrendous photograph was taken of Kat holding it as a penis and Jenna stroking the end.... Top night.

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