Today I tried not to panic when I overslept and woke at 9:40. Libby talked me off the FOMO (Fear of Missing Out) ledge and we made our way to a lovely outdoor restaurant a short walk from our apt where we enjoyed a very nice breakfast of strukli and omlet and cappuccino and people-watching which was fantastic.
We have observed that the men here can be very sharply dressed, but also do a whole lotta living in track suites and sweat pants. The women are super stylish, sporting mostly black, white, and grays. The shoes are distinctive and the glasses are all HUGE! While back in Dubrovnik, I had to replace my broken sunglasses, but all the options were comically gigantic, and I wondered to myself if locals were trying to make the tourists look like idiots.
It turns out all the locals wear sunglasses that are gigantic. They do not look like idiots. The also wear fabulous shoes. Which look brand new at all times. It was very impressive.
I learned how to say ‘thank you” in Croatian. It’s hvala (pronounced ha-valla) before coming here. Often when we enter various places, we are greeted. I can’t understand what they say, so today I asked our server, “How do you say “hello” in Croation?”
While he did speak english, he seemed to struggle with the question and thought for a long time before saying with a shrug of his shoulders “hey!”
So, I suspect that what I’m actually hearing when I’m greeted by locals is a form of “good morning” or “good evening”.
After breakfast we wandered Split Old City. We both felt that we’d like Split more than Dubrovnik after our brief overview the night before, and that was true, but we also had new factors – sunny skies and lots of tourists who spewed out into the city from a cruise ship in the port.
One of the places Libby spotted during our wanderings last night was Froggyland! It was closed and, at a glance, we thought for sure it was some kind of cover for a questionable establishment, but it became clear upon closer inspection that this was not the case.
This place was an exhibit of taxidermied frogs posing in various scenes. Ferenc Mere, an “unparalleled taxidermy artist”, according to the website and yeah, I think we can say it’s true, made the collection in the period between 1910 and 1920. It was seriously the weirdest and most fascinating thing we saw in our travels this week. A circus of frogs, a classroom scene of frogs, frogs in the park, frogs playing olympic sports, frogs at the dentist. It was hilarious! We couldn’t take photos so you’ll have to click HERE to believe me.
We caught an Uber for a ride to dinner. For the ride back, we got into a conversation with the driver about his country. He told us what many people have told us, “Croatia is very safety” I asked him if it was safe even before the war in the ’90s and confirmed that yes it was. You can walk down the street at all hours with no concerns, he told us.
So after he dropped us off, I did just that…
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BEAN'S BABBLETORIUM 