Croatia's hidden beauty

Hello all! This post comes a little delayed, I already am left out of Croatia and I am currently sitting at the Johanneshof in Germany but I have been so busy with the arrival of my parents that I simply forgot all about updating my blog. This post will be short but full of wonderful photos from one of the most beautiful places on earth, Plitvice lakes. It was me and a few of my friends in our last days in Croatia that decided we had to go. We all had been trying to get there but finally we all made time and left to go. Lucky for us many friends went when it was blistering hot and unbearable, we somehow went on the one day that the weather was overcast and nice and cool. It was the perfect day to go hiking in such a scenery. The abundance of wildlife is staggering, the fish crowded the shoreline and were many different species, the dominant one being trout. It was so sad you could not fish, I would have thrown in a hook and came out with dinner there were so many. 

Now the lakes are a chain of lakes that are connected by a series of waterfalls. The water is so blue it is almost unnatural, in the following photos you will see them, and I know they might look photoshoped but I promise that it is only edited for brightness not color. It is one of the places that people say you should see before you die and I would have to agree. It was like walking through a fairy tale. It was like a spell was cast over the entire area and the more you wondered around the younger you became because of the wonder that seemed to fill you. You grew more curious as you walked down the different paths to explore caves, waterfalls, and other natural wonders. You saw old people braving steep steps just for the opportunity to be amazed by the beauty of this place. 

The trout were so many, I wish we were allowed to fish!

I know it would be impossible to explain the feeling or the beauty of this place. So I will only write quickly about how poetic the entire experience is. I say poetic because one of my friends from France was talking about the butterflies attacking people and said it was poetic in which I simply said was a bit sissy. So for the rest of the time we joked about how poetic everything was. I just want to remember this when I grow old because it was very funny. I will update soon with my fairwell to Croatia and my comming to Germany.

How Poetic!

Bologna- My Trip To KΣ Birthplace

 So since before I arrived nearly six months ago, I wanted to get to Bologna Italy. It is the birthplace of one of the most important things in my life, something that has changed me to my core, it is where my Fraternity, Kappa Sigma, was founded.

With only a month left in Europe and having spent the last six months in Croatia, I have been feeling that my window of opportunity to visit my "Graceland" and every attempt to get there seemed to be doomed to fall apart. I could feel a shadow looming over this venture and I was going mad with trying to make the trip worked. Luckily for me I have met some wonderful people here. One friend, Nurra, and me have found similar spirits on one another and part of that spirit is spontaneity. So only two days before we decided to drive the seven hours to Bologna for only a few hours before having to return to pick someone up from and airport and heading back the seven hours trip to Zagreb.

So we got to the car rental place at around 8 in the morning. I was clearly not use to being up this early since... well since the day I woke up to get on the plane here. Not to mention I could barely sleep from finally getting to go to the one place I wanted to go to for so long. We got the car and we made sure the car we got was automatic, see in Europe everyone drive manual instead and I was not comfortable driving a manual car on the tiny streets of Europe. It was so nice to be behind the wheel of a car, it is funny how you miss the little things sometimes. So at 8:30 we headed out for Italy. But first we had to stop at Nura's boyfriends three hours away to drop off a package.

The first landmark we saw in Italy.

Once we got onto the road and headed out I realized we had no maps no gps (which in the states is just my regular phone) or anything to tell us where to go. I knew how to get to Nura's bf place because there was signs there but after that we were getting to Italy blind. This bothered me but not Nura, who just went with the flow. So three hours later we drop off the package and right before we leave I realized we could check the map, this turned out to be the smartest choice ever. Because for the rest of the trip down the Italian highway we were usually confused if we were on the right road, and that is with having written down the directions! The roads in Italy were not only lacking signage but are straight as an arrow. We would easily go 15-20 miles without an exit, gas station, or anything, that is including turns in the road. Not to mention the Italians drive CRAZY fast. For anyone one planning to do a road trip in Italy, be ready for small roads and fast speeds, my foot had the pedal all the way to the floor the entire time, that is roughly 110 mph. We had a small car but we were often passed by faster cars, the funny thing is the speed limit was supposed to be around 70 mph. But after many wrong turns and 7 hours of driving, we arrive in Bologna.

Bologna at first seemed underwhelming, it looked just like a modern city with no distinct culture or anything, for all I knew we could be in any country. So I was kinda let down as we parked the car and went searching for some landmarks that are important to KΣ. As we walked closer to the heart of the city my original feelings quickly melted into sheer joy as every step brought us into a world of the past. We first passed a huge old cathedral, from then on all the buildings had coat of arms of the people who paid for them, intricate carvings depicting family emblems. I finally felt like I was in Italy. Yet after driving so far I just wanted to sit down and have a cup of coffee. We could see huge landmarks and national jewels all around us, and here we are standing where millions of people and thousands of years have passed enjoying an espresso in the shade of these monuments. Yet we did pay for this luxury, we paid for one cup of coffee what we  would pay for an entire meal in Croatia. The funny thing is, that was just a regular price for coffee in Italy, Croatia is so wonderful to have many of the same beauty yet not leave you walking away from a meal nearly broke.

As we discovered the city I saw people drinking from a small fountain out in the open. I thought it was incredibly bizarre that drinking water was just coming out in the middle of the city. So I just had to have a sip! Then we walked around and saw some of the oldest schools in the world. Bologna is known as the city of letters and for good reason, the worlds first university was built here. One classroom was made completely of wood. it was amazing, on the ceiling you have nearly life sized wood figurines attached. It was one of the most impressive pieces of craftsmanship I have ever seen, if the had money to make rooms like this in the past, what on earth do our universities spend their money on now! Even the hallways were spectacular!

Over thousands of coat of arms decorated nearly every inch of the hallways, even the ceilings in the staircase had them, the years it would take to paint each coat of arm must have been ages! I wonder if each one represented a graduate from that school, in that case, I would love that tradition to make a comeback! But since most of the tours were in Italian or you had to pay for them and we were just sneaking about there was no sure fire way to know.

The coat of arms that hung all over the walls

After lurking through the city and exploring much of the city I finally saw what I came to see. Their are two towers in the city that are known. They say the towers are where the richest resided in the city. This is a city that held the place of popes, granted they were some of the worst popes in history. Now being a fraternity man and this being basically our holy ground I could not help but get a little stereotypical. I brought a paddle with me and a koozie from my fraternity and drank a beer in front of the monument. Then as I walked around the base of the smaller tower and noticed that the stones that made the tower were crumbling. So I walked around and without causing further damage collected the small rocks as gifts to my brothers back at the house. It was amazing, I was in pure bliss the entire time I was there! I am so lucky to have Nura along for this journey because she was so helpful in making this dream a reality. It was a wonderful three hours, it felt like we had just got there when we had to leave. 

We then left and drove back. After a few hours on the road we stopped only miles from the famous city of Venice at the airport. We picked up her sister (again after getting slightly lost on the confusing roads) and were on the last leg home. It was an amazing journey and we pulled in early in the morning and returned the car. The next day I woke up and it felt like just a dream, I was halfway through brushing my teeth the next morning before I remembered where I was the day before. But it is something that I will never forget. It is a time in my life where in less than a day I travel off to another country for 14 hours just to see a city in three hours. I hope I never lose that part of me, I hope I never find myself one day without out the will of adventure I posses now in my youth.  

My trip to the Coast - Dubrovnik

Hello to everyone still reading my blog, I know there are a bunch of you and I do appreciate it! Just thought I should let you know! But I forgot to mention something in my last blog that I feel I really need to write because I do not want to forget it! Last blog I ended up sleeping outside for a night, I was in an island paradise and I only lasted a few hours before giving up and going back home because it was so miserable. I have a total new respect for homeless people and aware of the hardship of sleeping outside. So when I go back to the states I am going to be less focused on my clubs and do more volunteering to help out, people shouldn't have to try and live like that. I just wanted to write that down so I don't forget!

But let me tell you about this coastal town called Dubrovnik! It is in the south of Croatia and is really a wonderful place. We drove all along the coast to get there and went through the mountains of Croatia and was able to see the country side. It was really breath taking, I was unaware of how much natural wonders Croatia had hidden. So we arrived at our hotel/apartment and it was crazy beautiful, we rented three massive rooms and it sat over the little cove and had its own pool. It looked onto the mountains and onto the actual walled city of Dubrovnik. We spent the rest of the first day just swimming and lounging in the sunlight because we wanted to see the big city tomorrow.

The next day our group split up, all the guys decided to take a boat and arrive in Dubrovnik by the water, the girls took a bus, I do not know what the ladies were thinking by saving a few bucks because it was amazing! As we were approaching the port a huge cruise ship was also coming in to anchor and it was very impressive. Furthermore there was one remarkably beautiful woman on the ferry that complemented the scene perfectly. She was so breath taking I could not but help to take a photo of her. I swear it was like she was posing, yet she had no idea. Once arriving on the docks we started walking around the city. If you watch Game of Thrones then you have seen Dubrovnik many times, it is Kings Landing! So having just watched the series I had many Deja Vu moments! The whole city is truly like stepping into the past. All the stone work is done by hand and you can see the chisel marks on the walls. Yet the cobble stone roads look as smooth as glass from all the tourism. That was one huge down side to this trip, it was not even tourist season and the amount of people already visiting was suffocation. I can only imagine walking the small winding streets in the height of tourism season. 

The boys on the Boat!

The view as we pulled into the Harbor

We met up with the ladies and started exploring the city. There were many small nooks and winding ally ways that opened up into larger and hidden areas untainted by the tourism. It was fun sniffing out these places but they were far and few between. As we explored we stopped at a city market where the girls shopped and talked to all the stands. The stand owners were handing out candied fruits and selling nic-naks. It was very quaint and had a small town feel. The one thing I will add about Europe is they are in no shortage of churches. Even in this compact city they had a church on almost every corner, each with its own special history and story. After we saw about all there was to see in the city we decided it was time to head to the beach. We spent the rest of the after noon sitting in the sun and tanning, some of us who do not have the luxury of tan skin or olive skinned burned. I was very red when leaving the beach but I knew it was only a slight burn and sure enough the following days I was looking tan and good! I forgot to mention, that one the way to the beach I bumped into a fellow Kappa Sigma from California. I was wearing my Greek letters and one of his friends saw me and called me over. They were their on vacation and were leaving the next day but it is amazing how small the world is! It was really awesome, and made me miss my brothers back home even more. It was nice to talk to someone who does understand Greek life, especially someone from my own fraternity!

Auror taking a smoke break, she would
kill me if she knew this was online :)

Candid shot of Juliette when we stopped
for frozen cocktails 

We then headed home and took a swim in the pool as we watched from afar the sun setting on the city. I can not explain the feeling of how invigorating it is to be experiencing all these experiences. All those stories of far off lands and places, it is a strange feeling when you are the one who makes a split decision to go to the beach or on some crazy adventure to some place with people you barely know. I felt like a piece of stale bread before coming here, I was always worn down and just stuck in the same place living day to day, each day only a slight variation of the day before. Now each day is like jumping from one story book to another, the landscape ever changing, the characters an ever shifting group of students all connected in their wonder as they travel around. I only have little less than two months left and although my desire to see my friends gets worse everyday, I can not help but to feel that my adventure is closing and I will soon be back to the same old grind. But enough of that! The same old grind is worth it with friends like Logan McG, Mikie, Dre, Rainy and all the other kids at school, it may not be Europe but we do make life fun!

Our last day again was spent lounging on the sea side,but at night we went to a local restaurant to try some of the local affairs. Being on the sea naturally it was sea food, so me and Micheal decided to split the sample platter. BEST IDEA EVER! It was full of some of the most tastiest seafood I have eaten since living in Hawaii. The fish were swimming not even hours before we ordered and the muscles, shrimp, and calamari was all perfect. It was a wonderful meal, one of those meals where the food was great, the wine flowed, and the only thing better was being surrounded by new friends and laughing long into the night. 

Watching the crazy weather as the air
went from super warm to darn right chilly

Now this is where I would have ended the story had the trip back not been full of crazy events. As we were driving back to Zagreb we ran into a small problems, the highway was closed. Apparently a late snow storm was only a few miles from this 80 degree (that is Fahrenheit)  weather. The highway was closed due to the wind being so strong it would push cars of the road. So what did we do, well we found out besides the highway there is only one small road through the mountains back to Zagreb. Now when I say through the mountains I do not mean big roads and guard rails the whole way. No these roads must have one time been the paths that were worn and carved into the side of the rock from the first travelers coming across them. We were often mere feet from a steep drop that if it was possible to survive an accident you would look like meat after a grinder. Now to top it all off Michael is one lead footed crazy nut job. He was on his phone the ENTIRE time while driving, not just text mind you, he checked facebook, checked the route. All the while huge semi trucks passed us in the other direction. If I had known it was going to be that nerve wracking I would have put a piece of coal between my butt cheeks because by the time it was over I would have had a diamond.

Thank you all for taking the time to read this! I know a lot of people dear to me actually read this and it means a lot that you guys care enough about me to take the time to see what I am doing! Love you guys!

P.S. I love getting comments... just saying....

This face says it all... What a crazy and fun trip!

How I learned to always make sure you have a place to sleep!

Last weekend I did my first trip to the coast of Croatia. I visited a small coast city called Pula. You can see it on the map to the right. It was a interesting trip to say the least. Me and my friend Joao decided to take the bus and arrived at around 6-7 pm. By the time we arrived our other friends were already there and have been partying on the beach the whole day. We were really surprised at the location of the hostel! It was right one the water of the Adriatic Sea. We also were not in a small hotel but we had our own camp ground that we all stayed it. It was a really nice hostel and it was super cheap. I wish we had hostels in the USA! I would travel everywhere! 

Some water from the Sea that I put in a
whiskey bottle

The beach was a white stone beach with many small cliffs and crags that jutted out into the water. As the sun slowly fell into the Adriatic Sea we moved to one of the small cliffs and brought down some wood from the surroundings. As the 15 or so of us sat around I proceeded to build a small fire. here is where I noticed a small cultural difference. I having been raised around tons of bonfires and have been making them since I can remember I watched as my European friends worried that we wouldn't be able to get the fire started without any paper or fuel.

 After asking if I could take the lead I borrowed an empty pack of cigarettes from a one of the French and used only half of the box to get a small fire started. After a few minutes we had a nice sized fire located next to the water. Honestly I felt like I was in a Levi Jean commercial, here we were from all around the world, laughing and drinking around a fire sitting on the edge of a magnificent sea. It was a surreal moment and I will always cherish this of my friends here. 

As a reminder to myself as I get older I want to just remind myself that after we put the fire out we explored the surrounding hotels. As we explored the surrounding hotels remember that we swam in the hotel pool, that we took a cushion, that Joao fell asleep and we put bottles all over him until he woke up. But most importantly that it took over 5 of the French guys on my back and legs to tackle me to the ground! We were just walking around and they all tried to tackle me and it wasn't until 5 of them had wrapped themselves onto me did I falter, and it was after a fight! It was  a great night!

The next day we woke up and went into the city of Pula. Pula is a small city on the coast. It felt like I was in Italy rather than Croatia, they had small streets that lead off into a hundred different ways from the main street. The roads were made of cobble stone and were shiny from years of wear from the all the tourist that come to visit this city. We explored the city and soon came to the first landmark that we visited, the colosseum. It was built by the Romans and it was very impressive. To see the walls and arches of the massive stone that was somehow hoisted into the air and stacked in such a way that they have proven the test of time and still are as strong today as they were years ago. We could see the entire colosseum from the outside and and to think of what type of events were held here that drew such a large crowd was very impressive. 

A small fountain that depicts
 the city of Pula. 

In front of a super old church in Pula

We continued through the city and saw a few more things such as churches and the old fort that looked over  the city. But after walking in the hot sun and the stones we walked over cooking us from underneath we thought it time to hit the beach again! This time we went to a national park on one large peninsula. We found a small area that did not have to many people and spent the next five hours enjoying the sun. The water was still freezing and we could only swim for a short time before giving up and coming back to the beach to lay in the sun. The water was crystal clear, I know many people say that but I have never sen water so clear in all my days. I could see fish from the shore swimming lazily through the chilly sea. It was really a paradise and i was sad to watch the sun go down and end the day.

That night we then went to a small city called Ravine. We arrived around 8pm and thought we could find a hotel to stay in for the night. So we took in a dinner because the stores were closing then set out to find a hotel. I don't know if there was a convention or if there was just a flux in tourist but there wasn't a place that could take us. We were like Mary and Joseph walking from inn to inn looking for a place to sleep. Sadly after walking through the city and even trying a place that the cheapest room was over 100 Euro a night, no place had a spare room. So we set out to find a place to sleep. We collected a slew of pictures of different places we tried to sleep. But we settled on sleeping near the church on top of a hill, hindsight being on top of a hill near the sea means cold breezes all night. So we all cuddled up and slept for a few hours. At 4 in the morning we all woke up and I was frozen to the bone, we all were not prepared for sleeping outside and I already had a cold that started. Me and Joao decided that going to the bus station and getting the first one home was the best plan. So we got to the station and crawled into the back of the bus and spread ourselves on the back seats. We both slept for eight hours, waking only when the bus stopped. At the end of our trip when we were back in Zagreb the entire front of the bus was full but no one wanted to anywhere near the back and the men sleeping spread across the back seats like dead bodies.

I spent the next day wrapped in blankets sitting in the sun until I was warm. It was an awesome experience and I would not take it back for the world! It was an amazing weekend with amazing people. I love every day here and I am always learning new thinks about the world and myself.