Semester at Sea | Dubrovnik + Montenegro, Croatia

Croatia is a beautiful, inspiring country; the country is younger than many of us on the Voyage and has been plagued by war for decades. Walking through the streets of Dubrovnik you would never know the horror that has gone on there. The streets in Old Town are all perfectly refurbished – no holes, scratches, or even a single piece of garbage anywhere. For a country that has had so many changes of control it’s striking how much pride the Croatians have in their country. One of my fellow SAS’ers mentioned in post-port reflection that they asked a local young woman about her perception of America to which the young woman replied something to the extent of Americans aren’t perfect either but at least they aren’t in constant war, killing each other. I thought what she said was ironic considering the shooting in Oregon that happened just a few days later, but I also know enough to deduce that gun crime and all-out civil war are two very different things and we are lucky the United States has not been invaded regularly like Croatia has. I’ll get off my soapbox now, but I just wanted to tell you all how impactful this country and its history were (are) on my perspective.

Because Croatia was such a last minute diversion from Istanbul we didn’t have any idea what to do while we were there. Our fantastic field office team managed to pull off a whole list of filed programs super last minute so Nathan and I signed up to do the Montenegro overnight trip with our friend Pat and decided otherwise we were just going to enjoy the sun! And enjoy the sun we did. 🙂

We LOVED Croatia. The people are marvelous, the landscape is picture-perfect everywhere you look, and the crystal clear ocean made for a great sanctuary when we just needed a day to relax. (It was a good change for us from Italy; that whole scamming thing just left us with a bad taste in our mouths). Because the water was so enticing we decided to spend our first day in the ocean. Our friends Kaitlin and Taylor met us after breakfast and off we went to find a beach! As we walked we chatted about how excited we were to get in the water and soak up the sun and a local lady we had followed for quite some time must have heard our conversation because pretty soon she opened a random gate near the fence that lines the street and said “Well, are you coming?” If you didn’t know that gate was there, you wouldn’t know. It just looked like another panel in the fence! We looked at each other and decided why not, so down we went (150 steps the lady told us) to a stunning hidden gem of a swimming area. The lady kindly directed us to a spot a little higher up where we could clearly see a few guys jumping off of the cliffs so we headed up to check it out! The view rivals anything else I’ve seen in my life: the water was the perfect shade of turquoise and so clear that you could see the bottom and coupled with the natural landscape around us and the vast ocean in front of us it just might be an unbeatable sight.

We weren’t necessarily supposed to jump off the cliffs, but we watched the three Australian guys that were on the rocks with us do it enough times that we felt like it was pretty safe. And so all of us went! Nathan first, then Kait, Taylor, and I was last. It was quite far down – at least 25 feet – and about halfway through you wondered why you hadn’t hit the water yet. 😉 But it was one of the most exhilarating experiences of my life and the water was the perfect temperature so after we jumped off a few times we swam around and took oh-so many pictures!

This is my beautiful friend Taylor!

And Kaitlin . . . isn’t she just the cutest?! (Yes, I know. Another friend named Kaitlin?! I just can’t shake them!)

Our second day in Dubrovnik was spent exploring the aquarium/marine research area for a journal for Marine Biology and wandering around Old Town. We took a cable car up to the tippy top of the city with Taylor, Anna, and Natalie and got to see the entire city from the hill. Also, who knew Croatia had mountains?! While we were up there we overheard some locals saying that just over the mountains is where Croatia was heavily bombed from. To stand in that proximity to one of the most dangerous locations in the city was crazy. And I think it’s so fitting that there is a giant cross up there to commemorate the many hard fought battles this country has experienced.

Our next two days in Croatia were spent in Montenegro! We toured two different cities Kotor and Budva and visited many churches. You could definitely tell that Montenegro has taken a harder hit through the wars than Dubrovnik. There were lots of homeless people, stray animals, and the cities were much dirtier. It was rather humbling to visit those places and realize the impact of war. The architecture in Montenegro is very ornate and classical and many of the buildings used to be palaces, but are now apartments for normal people. How cool would it be to say you lived in a palace?

My portrait photographer came out big time when we were in Croatia. There were just so many great people everywhere and little moments that I thought deserved capturing. 🙂 From the little girl chasing the birds in the park to the old men playing cards (topless) at the beach to the couples snuggling by the water to the local artists and everything in between – these are some of my favorite portraits of the trip.

This is my personal favorite portrait from Croatia. This little boy was running around with a little toy gun when his mom and brother ducked into the church he is standing in front of. The little boy stopped, picked a wedgie, contemplated whether or not he should go into the church with his gun. I was laughing so hard I am honestly surprised I got a shot at all! He reminds me of a few other little boys I know. 😉

I promise to blog about Greece as soon as possible when we get to Barcelona! I also hope to write a few more posts about life on the ship because those days are important to remember too. 🙂