Croatian Blizzards

Here I am in Croatia. The past weekend was indubitably one of the strangest on record. My friends Danika and Julia plus two others rented a car and drove from Pula to Split….most of the length of the country. First of, we are in Croatia at a truly bizarre time of year. Everyone we talk to is utterly perplexed at our presence here…and when we say we’re with a study abroad program based in Geneva that doesn’t really clarify the issue. Croatia IS gorgeous but this time of year the weather is highly unpredictable – sometimes you get those postcard blue-sky days but often it’s grey and rainy. And since no tourists are here this time of year none of the

touristy things are open really. I love it.

View of Split from above

I’m enjoying getting a flavor of Eastern Europe. The longer I spend in Europe the more I see the stark Eastern/Western European divide. The European narrative from the Western perspective essentially leaves out the countries and cultures east of Austria. I have heard numerous Europeans have speak of how proud they are of the fact that Europe hasn’t seen a war since World War Two and the increased multilateral diplomacy that came in the aftermath of that devastation. Then they may pause and say, “Well, that’s not counting the Balkans, but that’s different”. Or they don’t even acknowledge/remember the Balkans. In contrast, Eastern Europeans don’t seem to have the luxury to forget Western Europe when they speak of Europe. Typical socioeconomic dynamics.Friday we drive from Pula to Split and got stuck in a blizzard on the main highway (which just opened 3-4 years ago). We were SO lucky to have my friend Danika there who drives stick shift really well and is from Vermont so is used to snow. It was so bizarre. I never thought I’d be driving through a Croatian blizzard. But that’s what happened. We didn’t have the firmest directions to our hostel in Split because I google-mapped it but you can only get so far with little meandering streets and Old Town squares built before there were cars…. So when we got there we bumbled around for a bit and found some friendly cops who helped us along. They entered our address into their GPS and everything… unfortunately the Hostel was called “Hostel Split: Booze and Snooze”. Not what we planned to do but…still a slightly awkward place to talk about with a cop. He laughed at us though so that was nice.

Split is nuts. Croatia is nuts. So much beauty and culture. We saw some thousand year old ruins, wandered up an got fantastic views of the city and drink Croatian coffee… wandered gorgeous markets in a beautiful coastal city. What? How did I get this lucky? It poured for a bit but then cleared up again for a splendid sunset.

We left fairly early on Sunday morning because we wanted to see Plitz Vich National Park – beautiful waterfalls and lakes – in the middle of the country. For a Croatian it’s probably not “on the way” to Pula…. but to us it seemed just dandy. If we thought we were in a blizzard before we were in for an education. When we eventually got to the park there was about 1-2 feet of powder snow in the parking lot and absolutely no one there. The info hut was, however, inexplicably well staffed. We got a little confused and took a path on a stairway/bridge over the road that was in three feet of snow… so dumb, so hilarious. We got to the other side of road and realized we could have just, you know, walked across the road that gets a car every fifteen minutes or so. All the staff in the inexplicably well-staffed info hut laughed quite unabashedly at us and told us we were free to look at the viewpoint but they weren’t going to charge us because we couldn’t see anything. UMMM false. Danika and I romped around in the snow and saw winter beauty crazier than I could have imagined. Words don’t do justice. The photo below is in color, not black and white....

The NEXT blizzard was even more bizarre and extreme. Danika is unbelievable, seriously. SO MUCH DRIVING. We sat still on the Croatian highway for three hours in a blizzard because some stupid cars blocked the highway. Croatian drivers were pretty unnecessarily rude. A lot of cutting each other off and honking when there are no lanes and no one is moving fast than 10 km/hour anyway…. Luckily Danika doesn’t have road rage and she DOES have common sense and a desire to stay alive and in one piece so we let the cars pass and hang out ten feet in front of us. With plenty of car games and stories we made it back…. at 12:30 after having left at 8:45. Danika is a TANK!

Today I walked along the Croatian coast with the waves CRASHING and blinding sunlight. SUPER windy and a little cold – so beautiful. Quite an impressive storm. I love oceans.

LOVE to you all!