I'm in Croatia

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Hello again sports fans. Sorry that I haven't written in quite some time, but I have reached my destination (and been here for a while). That means that I have to go to classes and such, and frankly there is not too much to do that would be worth blogging about daily, so I'll roll it into one big one. Basically my daily routine is wake up for 4 hours of class, grab lunch + nap, hit the beach for a few hours, dinner, rinse, repeat. While my mom would love to read about daily beaching, its not frankly all that exciting, but I will tell you a bit about it.

When I think about the beach back home, I think of 2 things: sand and surf... Croatia lacks both. There are rocks everywhere, not sand (I'll post some pics at some point), and there is no surf, the water is perfectly calm at all times. We all bought rafts and just have a giant floating armarda out there, because you can float around like you are in a pool. There are also no fish in the Ocean... apparently they overfished it to the extreme.... you can't get cheap fish here either because they aren't from here. The other problem with the beach here though is that for some reason, the swimsuit companies have convinced all the male European travelers that the smaller your swimsuit is the better... I suppose this marketing strategy worked well for the females, but my god is it appauling for the males. There are also several nude beaches here were large old men show off their goods... not very appealing and I've stopped looking at the natural beauty of the areas I know to be nude.

Alright, onto the food. They have 2 types of food here, pizza and pasta. Everyone has nearly the exact same menu... not exactly what I would call a rich variety. You can get seafood at some places, but since there are no fish, it is very expensive (around 300 or so kuna, which is over $60). Most people dream about places they like to visit, a girlfriend or something similar, but everyone on the trip has been having dreams about their favorite foods that they can get when they head back home.... quick hint mom, Italian beef wouldn't be a bad call. That being said though, the pizza and pasta can be very good, just no variety even in the way different places make it.

Lets hit up the topic of weather now... I have come to the general conclusion that Croatian people simply do not like variety, becuase it has been 90 and hot every day but the last 2 where they are hitting a cold front and it is down to 78 or so... I'm much more comfortable, but everyone else is complaining. When I get back, I'll definately be sitting on the back porch and watching a thunderstorm for a while. I have felt 3 raindrops, but I think they were just a joke, because there has been no rain (although its in the forecast for Sunday).

OK, covered the food and the weather, I don't really need to tell you that class is pretty boring... the hotel is fairly nice, and thank God airconditioned (although they don't always work). We are in the town of Mlini which is down the road from Dubrovnik. In Dubrovnik is the place that I am going to tonight, which is called Old Town. Now, this may be redundant, but they call it Old Town because it is really old. It is actually the town that is inside the city walls that were built way back in the day and is considered a UNESCO heritage site, so its protected. They have a lot of restaurants and shops and the like there, and a bus runs up that way when we aren't fortunate enough to find another method. Kind of a neat place, with a little Irish pub that I've taken a shine to.... they show a ton of sports, which is great.

Alright, so lets get to the exciting stuff, shall we? I'll start off with our first weekend trip, which was to Mostar, Bosnia and Madjagorge (which I may not be able to spell correctly). Madjagorge is the last sight where Mary appeared and is quite the pilgrimage site for Catholics. We took a good sized group out to see the site, and it was quite amazing. The kids saw the image on top of a mountain basically, and we all hiked up the mountain to go and see it. We also went inside the local church that is connected with the site (but it is about a mile from the vision place). Since we were going inside a church, I of course dressed like I was going to church, which at minimum means that I have on long dress pants, a button up shirt, and nice shoes. It was rather... I don't even know if HOT!!! can quite describe it... that day and I was slightly uncomfortable, especially walking up a mountain, but I endured. I took a video of the way down just to give an idea of what it is like. I discovered that I don't have the right cable for my camera to my computer, so I will have to figure something out when I get home on that and update it then. Bad part was that walking up a mountain wrecked my dress shoes, but they were in need of a replacement anyway. Not many in the group were Catholic (I think just 3 of our 15) but everyone was quite amazed at the site. The largest reason for this was the devotion that people showed coming to the site. There were large groups of fairly elderly people who were climbing up this mountain to see the site. They carried a chair and cane with them up the mountain and rested often, but they were 100% determined to see it. Some had a book and were saying different prayers on the way up (in all kinds of languages... but the Hail Mary is unmistakable in any language). We stayed at the actual site for a bit and I tested my old Catholic knees on the rock. It wasn't great, about as bad as those old St. Ambrose kneelers.

It was really nice to see that, and Mostar was a very neat Bosnian city. The damage from the war was very prevalent there. There were a lot of holes in buildings, and people were still living in them. A lot of senseless damage, because many of these buildings were simply homes and had no more value than to demoralize the population. They have a 'peace bridge' there that people jump off of into the river which is about 70 feet below... the sound when they hit the water is pretty terrible, but it draws a crowd. I saw my first true "Bazarre", which is a massive shopping zone full of.... crap? Everything was dirt cheap but clearly very cheaply made... I bought nothing, but several people were loading up on $2 earrings.

Another weekend trip was an island cruise. There are just loads of islands off the coast of Croatia, and we went on this little cruise where we saw several and stopped off at a few. It was pretty neat, and one actually had sand on it (it was very nice, wish we were staying on that one). Nearly our entire Croatia crew came to that one (about 40 people total... 20 or so from IU, 15 from other schools, and 5 Croatian kids). We had a lot of fun and got to know a lot of the kids from the other schools a lot better.

Yet another weekend adventure was a sea kayaking trip that was organized by a new friend of mine from the West Coast. We kayaked around the old town and around an island. My shoulder was screaming at me for the next 3 days, but it was definately worth it. The island was a nature preserve that we stopped on. You are not allowed to sleep on the island, and no smoking either. There is a ton of wildlife just roaming around, but the most prominent one that wasn't afraid of us were wild peacocks. They were everywhere on the island and would eat out of your hand. It was pretty neat, and I think they had even more elaborate tail feathers than the ones at the zoos... unfortunately I have no pictures because I thought we'd be in a kayak the whole time, but I'll try and see if anyone got some. It was a very good experience though, and fairly rewarded to say I kayaked around an island.

For the most part, that is about it. We did visit the local court and spoke with some judges this week, but thats probably not too interesting for non-law students.

There has been a slight change in plans and Josh and I will be headed to Berlin now after the trip instead of to Lucerne... no biggie, I actually prefer Berlin, but we did it because it would result in much less travel (And saving some $, apparently Berlin is dirt cheap). The program has been nice here, I've gotten to know a lot of new people from other schools and I've gotten to know a lot of people from ours a lot better... and its all about those connections, right? 13 days left until I kiss the ground at O'Hare... enjoy the brickyard this weekend to those of your going or watching... I think we may watch it on the internet here on Sunday night... not a big Nascar fan, but its hard for me to turn up Indiana on TV. Looking forward to getting back home and seeing everyone again. Be safe and enjoy the end of the summer.

Ryan

PS: I noticed someone named Richard whose email I didn't recognize was in the subscriber list... Hi Richard!

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