Friday 16th October & Saturday 17th

This is the first time that ive done 2 days in 1 post, but the Friday when we got back to Split wasnt super interesting.
We arrived in the afternoon and then all went out for dinner at this Italian resturant.

I had a really yummy lasagna (I don’t think I’ve eaten this much lasagna in a month haha) One of the guys on our Sail Croatia trip lost a game of ‘chances’ so he had to go and get a tattoo done. He got ‘Hakuna Matata’ on his wrists which actually turned out looking quite cool. Plus I love the lion king haha.

We all went out to a cocktail bar afterwards and had some yarns and some drinks but as lots of people had flights to catch in the morning it ended up kind of being an early night for a few of us.

The next morning we had to be off the boat by 8.30am.
I’d already packed some of my stuff the night before so when I woke up I had a shower and packed the last of my things into my already overflowing bag 😑
I’d organized to stay in Split for the next 2 nights at an Air B’n’B
If you’ve never used Air B’n’b before I highly recommend it (especially if you’re travelling as a couple)
It’s a website for people around the world to list their home, holiday house or apartment for people to stay in. So if you go onto their website, you can scroll through and find somewhere pretty much anywhere in the world to stay.
I Googled it and it has over 1,500,000 listings in 34,000 cities and 190 countries.

If you look on Airbnb there’s some awesome places that people rent out. Like homes underground, penthouse apartments and cool caravans.
You can either opt to have the whole place to yourself (some people own apartments or holiday homes) or you can share the house with the owners which is always a good way to meet people.

I got a studio apartment to myself in the center of Split. I organised to meet up with one of the owners at 9.30am so I had some time to kill. When I left the boat, I went to a cafe and had a croissant for breakfast and waited in the shelter while it absolutely poured down with rain.

When the owner Jure came and met me, the weather had cleared up and the sun was out yay! 🌞
He carried my heavy backpack for me all the way to the apartment which was nice of him. Along the way, he told me a little bit about the city and places to see. He worked at a restaurant just around the corner from where I was staying so I knew of somewhere to eat.

The apartment was up 4 flights of stairs so I was happy he was carrying my bag haha. I swear Croatia just doesn’t use elevators anywhere! They’re very behind with a lot of things.
The apartment was exactly what it looked like in the pictures. It was so cute! And so close to the local shops and restaurants.

When Jure left me, I went for a walk to Diocletians Palace which is an ancient palace built by the Roman emperor Diocletian. It’s right in the center of Split and even though it’s referred to as a “palace” because of its intended use as the retirement residence of Diocletian, the term can be misleading as the structure is massive and more resembles a large fortress: about half of it was for Diocletian’s personal use, and the rest housed the military garrison.

There’s lots of places to eat in the palace, along with souvenir shops and places to buy bags and jewelry etc.
I stopped and listened to this really good Capella group which was nice and took lots of pictures.

I also went and bought a new SD card for my phone because I’d run out of room from all the pictures I’ve been taking lately!

Eventually after my exploring, I went to the local grocery store and bought an apple and a yogurt. Along with a couple of ciders and some corn chips with salsa haha.
The next 2 days I’d planned at the apartment just to chill out and relax a bit so that’s exactly what I did.
I ate my corn chips and watched some Orange Is The New Black on my tablet. I read some of my book and then got ready to head out and watch the rugby.

In New Zealand, Rugby is obviously a big deal because we’re so great at it and all. 😜
That night they were playing France in the quarter finals and seeing as I thought it was a big deal, I assumed some bar in Croatia would be playing it live on TV.
I got changed and headed out to the local sports bar but they were only playing Football (soccer) that night.
Turns out every bar was only playing football!
I’d seen a sign at a restaurant saying “rugby live tonight” so I went there and they were closed!! 😳
I was so annoyed.

So I went back to the apartment and tried about 10 different live streaming sites to try and watch it online but none of them worked.
Eventually, I ended up Skyping my friend Ben from Contiki who lives in Australia and was watching it on his TV. He set up the Skype on his iPad facing the TV so I could watch it. I only got to watch the last 40 minutes but it was better than nothing and it was such a good game!
We won against France

I ended up going to sleep about 2am after I’d Skyped Ben for like 3 bloody hours and had eaten my apple and yogurt. (Probably my first healthy thing I’d had all month)
🍎🍎