The End of Croatia... and beginning of Estonia!

After I left Korcula, I headed to Dubrovnik. I had met some really cool people from Norway and some girls from Canada, and we all enjoyed a close to perfect ferry ride, with a gorgeous sunset, nice meal and lots of laughs! I don't think I've laughed that hard in a long time. I didn't know where I was going to stay when I got to Durbrovnik, but thankfully there are always people right outside of the bus/ferry that are offering accommodation, and since it was already 10pm at night, I figured that would be my best option. The view from the apartment was amazing, I could see all of Dubrovnik and the Old Town, and it was only a 10-12 min walk down to get there.
As you know, I'm traveling solo at the moment, but meeting people has been easier than I thought. I walked around Old Town a bit, exploring a little, looking at the architecture, etc., and after I got bored, I went back to all the places I had heard tons of people gathering. Of course Dubrovnik is a tourist area, so hundreds of college students were traveling around. I went to this place called Sky Bar, met some more travelers, the music sucked (all techno- no words) so I left and headed to a more local setting. There I met some Brazilians, Spanish, Americans and well, I guess that's not "local" but the setting felt more local- annnd the Spanish guy was living there. So I hung out with them until about 2am when we went dancing. Fortunately the Spanish guy and I started talking about music or something and I mentioned I sing, so at the dance club, he introduced me to some members of a jazz band that plays every night in Dubrovnik. They told me to come out the next night and I could sing with them. I didn't really think anything of it, but I headed to the jazz bar the following night, and just as they had promised, brought me up there for the final song and we sang, "I love you baby." It was a pretty interesting experience since I had never even heard their version, I didn't know all the words and on top of it, I had never practiced with them before. Got to love being spontaneous! Lillie and Grant (two more American's I had met at the dance club the night before and had hung out with all day) were there to support! I also was told by two people sitting near us that they would be my "supportive parents" for the evening! I love great people.
The following day I got coffee with one of the jazz band members to talk about music and whatnot, and just so happened to run into the Canadian girls from Korcula again and we all spent the day exploring a little until it was time for me to catch my bus to Plitvica Lakes. If you haven't already, look it up. It's absolutely amazing! It wasn't until the long bus ride from Dubrovnik to Split that I really got to see the country side of Croatia. I knew the coast was beautiful, but the entirety of Croatia is covered in beautiful green mountains even cruising along the coast. I had a stopover in Split and then ventured to Plitvica. Unfortunately I didn't arrive there until 3:30ish am, and although the driver knew I didn't speak Croatian, he continued to have an entire conversation in Croatian, which I later found out he was asking me where I needed to get off the bus. A camp ground I said, was thankfully dropped off right in front. By the time I had finished with a nice hot shower and pitching my tent, it was already getting light outside and I only had 2.5 hours before I had to get back up for a long day of hiking around the lakes. It was worth every bit of it though. It was probably one of the most beautiful places I have seen and it wasn't until being there did I realize I think I could actually live in Croatia. Before I had seen it only as a travel country, but when I found out that there is massive amounts of snow in the winter with resorts all around and the beauty and the lakes and the coast in the summer, it is an all around great settling country.
I had loved Croatia up until the time I was supposed to leave for Zagreb to catch my flight to Riga. As the story goes, the hotel I had kept my backpack at all day was so night to let me stay in their lobby until my 3:35am bus came the next morning and even got the night guard to take me to the bus station (which was actually a shack on the side of the road). I left about 30 min ahead of the scheduled bus arrival, just to make sure I didn't miss it. It was about 3am at this time, I was cold and have literally NO warm clothes, so I wrapped up in my sleeping back and laid against my pack on the bench. I had heard a few cars go by.. but nothing special. All of a sudden I hear a different sound, more like a huge vehicle, something like a bus. But I look at my watch- it was only 3:10am.. it couldn’t be my bus I thought to myself. 25 min early- "No Way, Not Once, Not Never." Little did I know.. it was a bus and it was my bus. As it came around the corner I jumped up frantically knowing that I couldn’t miss this bus to Zagreb. It gets closer and I leap forward, with the sleeping back cocooning me trying to get the bus to stop waving my hands in the air as I hop like I’m in a potato sack race... well I lost. I think I actually fell at one point trying to get the sleeping back from around me, picked up all my things and started running towards the sign on the back of the bus that says Zagreb. I hear the engine slow down, and I see two people exit the bus. I yell “Do you speak English!? Is that the bus to Zagreb,” to get a very unfortunate reply.. “Yes, it is.” As the bus pulls away and I’m halfway out of breathe, I can’t believe this is happening, still running towards the bus hoping by some chance it will stop. As you guessed, it didn’t, and I was left stranded there figuring out how in the world I was going to get to Zagreb by the time my flight left later that morning. The two girls walked on and did their thing and I’m contemplating all of my options. I decide to wait until 3:40am just to make sure that there wasn’t another but, and when nothing came I started walking back towards the hotel with my flashlight, trying to flag down the one or two only cars that would came by at 3:00 something am by frantically waving my hands in the air and moving my flashlight around.. hitchhiking in the middle of the night doesn’t really work too well... and my plan for walking until daylight didn’t seem like a good option either, so I headed back to the hotel where earlier I had met another really nice traveler from Mexico who had offered me the extra bed in his room to take a nap if I needed it. Thankfully when I knocked on his door when I made it back to the hotel, he gladly left me crash on the extra bed until the next morning. I got up in enough time to call the airlines to figure out how I could change/cancel/ refund my tickets, and after 3 hours of about 15 phone calls I finally was able to add an additional $100 to change my flight.
I headed off to Zagreb, knowing that was the better option. At least I would be in the city I was leaving from this time, although I had to prolong it another two days for the new flight. The first night I was just so tired after only 6 hours of sleep in the two previous nights, I didn’t find a couchsurfer in time, so I took a bed in a hostel, chilled out and slept. I did pretty much the same thing yesterday, but thankfully one of the people I had asked to couchsurf with, replied saying I could stay there last night. So after meeting Marko, who is an awesome guy, new to couchsurfing but all the same very supportive of the couchsurfing community, we went to a grocery store and got some food to make dinner. I actually suggested doing this. I was so tired of eating out, so I offered my excellent cooking skills. HA. Anyone who knows me knows I don’t cook. I hate to cook and I’m not very good at it. But surprisingly, my sautéed vegetables, spices, meat with tomato sauce and rice turned out to be very good. Don’t expect this often, but I was longing for a home cooked meal. The last time I had something similar was when Grant, Lillie and I cooked some pasta and made salad in Dubrovnik.
After dinner, I played with Marko’s brother’s new IPAD. It was the first time I had seen one in person, and it was pretty cool, but seemed more like an oversized IPOD with a few more applications and still no webcam. I figured it’s because they will have some “new” feature to add to the next generation one.
After my shower, we went to meet with Marko’s sister and her friend in the center. I was already exhausted, but tried to keep awake and enjoy what was my “4th of July” night. We went to a Zagreb couchsurfing party after we left the bar, which was a regular house party in a small space and mixing that will our tiredness, we didn’t stay too long. Once again, I only got about 3.5 hours of sleep, and Marko woke up early to take me to the bus station to make sure I got to the airport early enough. I had about an hour to wait to board, so I thought taking a nap would be a good idea. Wrong! BAD, BAD idea.
I woke up to my IPOD playing, “You can’t always get what you want,” as I looked at my watch. It was 8:32! Shit! I run to the boarding gate which was a mere 10 steps max away from where I was sitting. Instead of getting hell for being the last person, they all smiled and said, “It happens,” and called an entire bus just to take me to the plane. They had seen me sleeping there and probably found it more funny than anything else. I knew then if I didn't make it on the plane, it just wasn't meant to be for me to go to Estonia.
I made it though, and while I was waiting about 25 min for my baggage to arrive in Riga, I went to see if the girls were there! As I waited for the sliding doors to open fully, I see the girls there waiting for me on the other side! They start screaming and my eyes light up and a smile comes immediately on my face! I was so happy at that moment to be with friends and people who I care about again. The last 2 weeks I had really missed that.
Yesterday was 4th of July. I never knew 4th of July in Estonia could be so amazing. I knew at that moment it was all relative to the people I was with. It always is and always will be.
It was amazing to see the sun still sitting on the edge of the sea at 1am while I was admiring the beautiful colors, swimming in the Baltic. We celebrated American style with a BBQ and watermelon, music and friends. It was the best 4th away ever.
We woke up around 12pm, ate a wonderful brunch and headed to the beach for the afternoon. Everything you hope for on vacation with friends. But it got even better when Andy arrived tonight! We made him a sign, a welcome drink and sang him songs. Right now I'm enjoying some African music and the company of wonderful friends. Couldn't ask for anything more at the moment, except for 1 thing. ;)

Until next times my friends :)