I am here! I am enjoying the lovely internet services at the Dubrovnik Internet Centar, which lets me abuse the internet for just 5kn (less than 1USD) an hour. So much better than 50p for 7 minutes.
Dubrovnik is gorgeous. So much has happened in the last 24 hours I'm not sure where to begin.
My flight over contained exactly 3 people under 30, maybe two most between 30 and 45, and the rest well over 60 and all holding UK passports. They were all dressed in resort-wear. We ran out of white wine on the flight, which was kinda funny, too.
I arrived to an empty airport and promptly said no to several taxi drivers and one guy offering accomodation. My ATM card worked without a hitch (even less nuisance than in UK!), after which I hopped onto the Croatia Air shuttle to the main bus station. I had the entire charter bus to myself to gawk at the scenery.
It was already dark when I arrived, but flying in you could still see the white islands with green forest tops standing out like odd-shaped pastries in the water. We drove up into the cliffs overlooking the city and WOW. Not only is there a castle, but it's large enough with a surrounding city that I could only resort to expletives when describing it. My mouth was open the whole time.
We curved around the cliffs and descended into the area we had just overlooked, passing the waters of the Adriatic. Hello Carnival Cruiselines, hello water. Driving over I couldn't help but think that every time I've seen enough cool things, I run into something like this, where I can't really say anything but wow, man is really freakin' cool. This whole city is so beautiful, built on the sea... It would be stupid to try and describe it any more at this point. I apologize for the lack of photos; I'll have to find an internet café with USB access or just wait until I get back.
So, I got to the bus station and refused a few more rides and a few more accomodations offerings. The hostel I had arranged to stay at had a shuttle service from the bus station, and had instructed me to call once I reached the station. It took me a while and a friendly Croatian student to figure out how to use the phones (buy card, insert right side up, dial with 0), only to find out the mobile had been turned off. Great.
A woman offering private accomodation approached me and I politely repeated I had a place; I showed her where on a big map and the instructions I had been given. She urged me to call again and took me to the phone inside the bus station. I called again and showed her the phone was not being answered. She didn't seem to understand, and it was then that a group of three other private accomodations owners stepped in.
I was a bit intimidated, but I explained what had happened. Two had cell phones and passed the phone number around, calling at different times to verify the phone was off. We discussed my options while they each went on a tirade about how wrong it was for him to leave me at the station.
My next thought, of course, was to take a taxi to the hostel, but I was reminded that the service I had booked with ran several locations, and since the office was closed, there was no way to know which one to go to. I eventually arranged to stay with one of the other owners, the one who had been first to call my original accomodations.
I'm not sure if the three had expected me to be more upset, or what, but they continued on their tirades, making me feel a lot better about the situation, even though I was still a bit disengaged, being in a new place and all. After about a half hour, one of the guys got through (they were still calling intermittently). He began speaking very excitedly in Croatian, became very upset, and then hung up on the guy. My three new friends began speaking in Croatian, seeming in disbelief, now yelling. They let me in on the results; when asked if he was going to pick me up, he replied, "It's not my problem."
I ended up getting accomodations after all, although I was a bit nervous about doing something so "on the fly", but I suppose that's what I came for. We gave a ride to someone else at the station on the way to the apartment; he was Japanese from Japan and we actually had a pretty intense talk about travel and being Japanese. I'll save that for another time.
I made it to Apartmani Burum, which is miles above the standards of your average UK hostel. The woman who runs it was very sweet to me, and was also very upset for me. I can imagine it's much like me going on a tirade about bad customer service or bad coffee -- it's upsetting to see people in the same industry giving it a bad name.
So, I'm here in one piece, and enjoying myself again. After some Ghana-like rain this morning (sun in Manchester, rain in Dubrovnik!), I set out again and found this place, which is definitely a comfort. My priorities today were (1) to check my bank account to make sure the original hostel didn't charge my account, and (2) to get in touch with my folks and peeps back home, to let them know I got here safe.
I was so bound and determined after last night that I forgot I should go and see some Dubrovnik as well!
I thought to myself, after all that happened, I'm having my adventures after all!
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