As I write this we are currently at a restaurant in Bosnia! Country number 14 for Bella! This is our first restaurant meal in a couple of weeks, so it’s extra exciting. We came here for the wifi, but decided to eat while we drink and use free internet! 🙂 We both ended up with a seafood risotto.**I was going to add a bunch of pictures to this post, but it will have to wait as the internet here isn’t supporting the uploading of photos!

We have been in Croatia for about 10 days now. Honestly, we are having a little bit of trouble adjusting to relaxing. I know that sounds silly, but during our first few months on the road we had places to be, people to meet, van stuff to take care of, and one of our main objectives was BASE jumping, so that took up quite a bit of time. We also were pretty active with lots of hiking and other activities involving movement. So, it is a bit of an adjustment for us to hunker down and… do nothing. I never need to multitask so that’s a huge change from being a teacher and normal life. Sometimes my big task for the day is tweezing my eyebrows! Needless to say, we are in a pristine place, driving down a scenic coastal highway, enjoying each other’s company (for the most part), and we keep asking the question, “What do you want to do?” And, we keep answering, “I don’t really know!” The beaches we’ve been to are gorgeous, but after a few days of chilling out in the sun we get a little antsy. It’s easy to feel lazy and get down on ourselves while forgetting this was all part of the reason we chose to embark on this odyssey. We are still working on being totally unbounded – it’s a challenge of the mind at this point.

That being said, we do love our time here so far in Croatia. The bright blue waters of the Adriatic Sea have me in a constant state of “oooohhhs!” and “aaaahhhhhs!” The water is warmer than the mountain lakes I swim in in Sweden, Switzerland, and Italy and so incredibly clear! We’ve even done a little bit of touristing in a few cities such as Pula, Zadar, and Split. We’re not good at cities. They’re crowded, they’re usually quite dirty, and we’re just not good tourists – we don’t buy enough things and we don’t eat overpriced food. So, when we do venture into the city, it’s usually a pretty quick stroll while snapping some pictures.

Last Tuesday, September 20th, we arrived at a new friend’s place in Croatia. He is the property owner below a high bridge popular for BASE jumping. He’s worked with jumpers and local authorities to keep the bridge legal to jump, as long as certain rules are followed. We went to dinner with him and a new group of jumpers who were taking a course. Darijan was extremely welcoming and accommodating. We parked at his house for the next 2 nights. The next day we made a jump off the bridge. It was fun, but seemed so incredibly low, especially after all the big mountain jumps we’ve been doing – which makes it scarier for me! We decided to head out to start exploring more of the country on Thursday.

From the bridge, we headed south to a coastal town called, Pula. Dustin worked on his CV for a possible job opportunity at a cafe, while I strolled around the coastal town with Bella dog. It was a neat, old down which used to be occupied by the Romans. Here you can find the 6th largest colosseum in the world which was constructed in the first century. I think colosseums look best from ariel photos, but I love the look of the arches throughout.

After leaving Pula, we found an amazing private camping site along the water. This has been our favorite sleeping spot so far in Croatia!

On Saturday we found a neat private spot in the forest. Sometimes while searching for sleeping spots we need to investigate creepy looking dirt roads. This one actually had a cemetery about 1 km in, then it turned into a rocky mess which would not be passable from either direction, so we knew we’d be fine. Sunday we had a little beach action, then ended up at our forest spot again for the night.

Monday we found ourselves at another private beach with a nice little parking spot. As I said earlier, the water here has me in a constant state of wonder and joy just looking at it, so when I get to jump in and swim around I’m extra happy!

I’m bitter about the campsite we ended up at on Tuesday, but I’m going to save the details of that for a late

r post. On Wednesday we found ourselves on a peninsula with part of it being blocked off by a giant wall. I need to do some research to find out who this wall was trying to keep in or out, but it was fun to climb on!

Thursday we found ourselves walking around Split. We (mostly myself) were excited to see a couple of Game of Thrones filming spots. It’s tough to tell, but we may have seen the place where Khaleesi put her dragons down in the dungeon. I tried convincing Dustin to get his dragon onsie and get down there, but he wasn’t too keen on the idea! Yes, we brought his dragon onsie with us overseas.

 

 

We left Split and headed down the coast where we ran into our first van troubles. The van started making a different louder clicking noise earlier in the day. When we left Split, it sounded better, then after a stop at a grocery store it sounded worse. After a loud, “CLANK, CLANK!”, it sounded better, but the power steering was gone, the AC was gone, as well as a few other things. We pulled over in a small lot next to a gas station to investigate. It was definitely a belt, and once Dustin was under the car pulling stuff out it was one of the pullies too. I asked the gas station attendant if they knew of a nearby mechanic, to which they pointed me across the street and up a hill to a building we could see. This all started at 2:00. The mechanic had parts ordered and delivered by 5, and was done working on it at 7:30. After a few hours of hanging at the beach, a couple of beers, and a 3 hundred Euros, we were on our way!

We’re still making our way south towards Dubrovnik. Bosnia has a little coastal piece of land that we’re driving through. We’re sleeping here tonight, and we may stay here a few days. It’s extremely cheap, and wild camping is allowed! I don’t know when I’ll get good enough internet to post again, but hopefully it won’t be too long. I’m trying to set a new goal to try to post every 5 days or less. Thanks for reading!