I have a little more time to write today. The rates are much better here at this internet cafe than they have been elsewhere, so I will fill you all in a bit.

I left on Monday morning and took two flights to finally land in Split, Croatia. The flight into Croatia was pretty amazing. There are something like 1,000 islands here and the water is extraordinarily clear. You can see all this from the air. So much so, in fact, that it looks like you are going to land on the water. We were flying low (in a prop plane) over the water and the next thing I knew, we were landing. I was surprised to feel land under me since I oculd only see water. Odd. But cool.

Upon arriving, I had to quickly take a bus to the train station to meet the friend I am traveling with…Kanye. I thought the bus would just take a few moments, but it took close to an hour. I got to the port area with only 9 minutes left to meet her. We had decided we would meet by 5:00 and if I wasn’t there by then, she would leave me directions to the hostel in an email. I really REALLY didn’t want that to happen. I searched and searched in circles and finally found the place to buy tickets and Hallelujah! Kanye was there.

We stayed in a lady’s house and it was pretty nice…especially for the price. We spent the next day checking out the Diocletian Palace and swimming at a cove. It had been raining off and on all morning, so we were unsure of whether or not we should head to the cove, but I really wanted to see it. Good thing, too. It never rained again and we had beautiful, sunny weather the whole time.

The third day we traveled from Split to Dubrovnik, and as I mentioned before, the bus ride was a bit miserable. Plus we were just tired in general. But we gathered our wits, had our hostel owner pick us up, put down our stuff and headed to the Old City, which I described to you the other day. Words don’t really do it justice, though. You will just have to come see it. That afternoon we were exhausted and so we slept a long, LONG time. I spent part of the night chilling on our balcony and reading.

There is almost no bad place here. The houses all look like villas with grape vines growing EVERYWHERE. Where there are no grapevines, there is flowering bougainvillea. There is always a view of the ocean or lush hillsides. It really is amazing. I cannot even describe it.

Today I woke up ealry and headed to the beach near our hostel. It was quiet and peaceful in the early morning–just me and the old folks there. I snorkeled all over the place. In fact, I have snorkeled so much that I am even a little bit sore. But I refuse to stop. I am loving it way too much. It is not as great as Hawaii snorkeling, but the underwater plants are so different here that it is fun to look at them. After a long snorkel and a snooze on the rocks, I headed to a cafe. They have cafes with patio swings, so you can swing and sip tea and read a book all at the same time. How fantastic is that? So that is exactly what I did…until it was time to go. I headed back up to the hostel (wait til you see the pictures of how many steep, steep steps we climbed each time we came and went!!!), took a shower, and headed to the bus station.

Now this is odd. We came to the island of Korcula today….by bus. Do you see the oddity there? An island….BY BUS?? But that is exactly what we did. We took a bus on a windy, windy road—but I think it was the most beautiful drive I have ever been on–and then the bus got on a ferry. A bus on a ferry, people!!!! and now we are here. This place is even more amazing than the other places, and I did not think that was possible. There is just no way to describe it. Everything is the white stone-tile I was telling you about before, only it is a lush island. Amazing really!!

We were going to try to see a sword dance tonight, but they only do that on Mondays and Thursdays. Bummer. But they are setting up for some kind of a concert so we might check that out instead. And tomorrow we will have all morning to snorkel and snooze before heading out. Tomorrow night we head back to Split to catch the night train to Prague.

I will be so sad to leave this place. This is perhaps the best place I have ever visited. I even thought about just scrapping the other plans and staying here. You know…the other plans…the ones that include me coming home and going back to work? You know, those? Yeah, I am thinking of scrapping those plans and just staying here. Do you think Mark will mind????Hmmm….