Croatia: Day 28 and 29

Dubrovnik! It's the most visited place in Croatia and It also holds the record for the worlds biggest suicide record. As you can imagine the tourists are everywhere! And the pigeons are everywhere. I don't think I've ever seen so many pigeons that attack tourists fir their food like in Dubrovnik! Oh and the cats! They are everywhere! They look like stray cats, but they could belong to the houses that are jumbled into the mix of cafe's and restaurants.
Dubrovnik is definetely a unique place that you would not find in America! It's so old and very nice. It's more of a city then the other places wehave been on our ISV adventure tour. Which is kinda a positive and negative for me. There are way too many tourists, but there's more to do. We had two days here and i swear we have done miles of walking.
As our month long trip is coming to an end all I can do is think back to all of the great memories that I have collected over the past month. The first two weeks are filled with memories of wonderful kids and families that are still struggling with post war issues and just need a little bit of assistance to start a new life. While volunteering and providing a positive influence for the kids in Gvozd, I learned so much about the world and had a ton of fun while I was at it! I miss the kids and all of the memories that I have of Gvozd!
The second two weeks have been a blast also. Our leader, Borris, has been great! And the entire ISV group has been amazing. I don't think we could have asked for a better group! We have definetely explored Croatia and had alot of fun while doing it. We went hydrospeeding, paragliding, biking, caving, kayaking, rock climbing and touring around some wonderful cities throughout Croatia!
I got to spend my 19th birthday is Croatia on a boat at the coast! This entire month has been amazingly awesome! It's going to be hard to beat!
All I can think of at this moment is how tired I am going to be tommorow after all of the traveling that we are going to be doing. It's going to be a very very long day!

Croatia:Day 27

Today is known as the day of b'day celebration. It's June 23 and I really had no clue that the ISV group knew about my birthday. I mean, I knew people had been coming up to me the past couple of days asking if I was ready for my b'day. But, I just wondered how they'd found out about it. So when I woke up today and everyone was wishing me happy b'day I was still wondering how everybody knew. Then, at dinner they suprised me with a cake and I thought that that was going to be the suprise b'day present. But, boy was I wrong. After dinner they told me that I was going out with them and I had to get dressed up. Even though I was a little reluctant, I got ready and we went into town about 9. I still had no clue what was going on or where we were going. They took me to some sort of laser club that Borris had rented out for the night and paid for all of my drinks. And they had planned all of this without me knowing about it on a small boat where you can hear everything that's going on.
Afterwards they told me that there had been several close calls where they had almost ruined the suprise. And several times when I had walked in when they were planning it and they had to suddenly change subject. At one point Rick almost blurted it out without thinking, and apparently Borros was behind my back signalling for him to shut up.
Needless to say, it was a great 19th b'day spent in Croatia at some lazer bar.

Croatia: Day 26

Today we started sailing at 5am from Omis to Korcula. The huge storm apparently decided to let us pass, but we had to skip the island of Hvar. :(. It was a 5 hour sail to Korcula, so we all got to sleep in untill around noon. The one time that I woke up and actually made it to the window to look out, the rocking was so bad that I couldn't even stand up. It was looking like we were going down! But I just put my ear phones back in, turned on my iPod and went back to sleep.
When we got to Omis we had lunch on the boat and then we went out to explore Korcula. It is a neat little town. Marco Polo apparently lived here and everything is devoted to him here. We got to see his house and explore the churches and musuems that were named after him. Ummm...there are alot of souvenier shops and cafe's and bars just like at all of the other towns. It's definetely European. I got some candy from one of those old fashioned candy stands! That was def the highlight of my day!
I think tonight is going to be sn early bedtime night. Tommorow I have been told that I am staying out late:).

Croatia: Day 25

Well...today was rather dull and relaxing. The people that were soppused to go canyoning couldn't because of the rain. I have never seen so much rain on the coast in my life. It literally rained straight through the night last night and half way through today. And I guess I shouldn't refer to it as simply rain, it was pouring. So today we all had a free day which was a little boring considering Omis only has one street to explore. So we preety much walked up and down the sane street atleast 10 times today. Oh and one interesting thing that I got was a hot dog and fries. I was totally expecting a hot dog with French fries on the side. But, nope! They brought out a foot long hogi bun with two weenies on it and fries stuffed on top of the weenies with ketchup drizzled over. It was interesting, but it wasn't unedible!
After lunch there was really nothing to do. So I just took a nap and just woke up. We have dinner on the boat at 7 and then we have a free night...which will also be interesting.
Since the people didn't get to canton today, they are going at 7 am in the morning:/. As soon as they get back, around 2, we are leaving and the captain is going to try and make it to our next destination. But apparently there's another huge storm coming in and he doesn't expect us to make it there. So we might end up anchored on some random shore:). Fun times!

Croatia Day 24

Today we left Split and it's busy streets to sail to Omis and explore what it's streets had to offer. It was a two hour sail to Omis and it was really nice. It was 9 in the morning, so we all laid out on the top deck and read our books while we were sailing. The wind was amazing. And the sea sickness was alot better once you got sailing. When we arrived in Omis we went exploring for a little while. It is a very small town, but it's kinda cool and very European looking. They have tons of souveneir shops with really cheap stuff, which I am fairly sure is from China:/. But it's cool anyways. The souveneirs aren't great, but they will work!
After lunch, which was provided by the cook on our boat (I'm do tired of the traditional meal of bread and cheese and fricken soup), we went rock climbing. The rock climbing was about the end of my adventures here, it was really difficult(and I was on the easiest route).
After Rock climbing we went back down the one street that Omis has and ate pizza, which is the only thing we could find that looked half way familiar and appatizing.

Croatia: Day 23

Today is known as the day of major sea sickness. We started out this morning with unpacking our tents and kayaking down the river to where our ISV bus picked us up. Oh yea and this whole time I forgot to mention our nice little ISV bus driver Zoron, who drove us everywhere! So, we got on the bus and Zoron drove us about two hours to Split. Then in split we said our goodbyes to Zoron since we would no longer be needing his bus:(. And we said hello to our new driver, or sailor, who's name I don't exactly remember at the moment, and got all of our stuff onto a nice wooden yatch that we will call home for the next week. Now comes the part of the major sea sickness. We sat down at a little table on the boat to have our safety briefing and eat lunch. I don't think I have ever felt si sick in my life. I could literally feel myself turning white and spinning. I couldn't eat the lunch, had to get off the boat and sit on a bench and wait for the others to finish eating. Thank goodness I wasn't the only kne feeling that way so I had company on my bench.
After lunch we went exploring the ancient town of Split and saw it's beautiful beach and it's cool little street shops. We got to walk in a 17,000 year old castle and roam through the little stores and ice cream shops that were in it. Slodeled ( ice cream) is now my favorite thing in Croatia. It is sold around every corner and it's only 5 Kuna, which is like not even $1. I think I've had three scoops today. But whatever it's vacation and they sure don't have Slodeled at home. Then we had a small fast food type dinner and came back to the boat to relax a little. We played cards on the deck, which was really nice. I had to make myself sit back and think that I am in Croatia on the top of a boat overlooking all of Split and the beautiful beaches and mountains. It is truly do beautiful here!
My sea sickness is getting a little better. I still feel my head rocking bavk and forth and I am still a bit nausous, but it's getting better and tommorow once we start sailing it should be all good:)

Croatia: Day 22

It's Day 22 and we are camping tonight. We spent the entire day kayaking which was an adventure, but a calm and relaxing one! We preety much had to paddle the kayak all the way down. There were a few small rapids and one 5 foot waterfall that we went down! It was fun. It is 5 and we are at our campsite and all set up. The tents are tiny and we are soppused to fit 2 people in it. Well, atleast it's only one night. Tommorow we wake up at 7 and get back in the kayaked by 9. Then we paddle about one hour to our bus and then we drive about two hours to our yatch! Then we spend the the next week on the boat.
We still have a few more adventures left. But I guess I can say I've almost survived this adventure tour. The only thing that I'm worried about is canyoning and rock climbing! Those should be adventurous!