Croatia- The safest country full of sea beauty

I know it has been a while but internet can be hard to come by.. It has been a while since I have been in Croatia but I will do my best to give a little summary of my trip.

We were told to wake up early for pulling into Croatia because there was going to be a special tradition. I woke up early and went outside on the deck to watch us pull into port. It is tradition that when a Captain from Croatia comes back to Croatia that he blows the ships horn three times and then the church responds by ringing the bells as a welcome home. I got to see us pull past the church hear the Captain sound the horn three times and listen to the church bells rings and echo off the mountains. After we passed the church the Captain blew the whistle three more times to let his wife know that he was back. She was waiting in the window waving a white flag. It was a moving experience to see it all take place and I think from the very beginning I knew that I was going to enjoy Croatia. We pulled into port and I saw that Croatia was beautiful! It had such a beautiful shade of blue water that I can't put into words. After being cleared to get off the ship I went on a fdp to a Croatian Village. We walked around and got to see all the herbs that grow and see a church near by. We went to one of the houses that was in the village and they hosted us. We got to hear traditional Croatian music and they taught us a Croatian dance and we all got to join in. Then we were giving a piece of bacon, bread and cheese and got to toast our bacon over a fire to cook it. It was pretty good. Then we got to hang out and talk for a while, listen to more music while we waited for dinner. Under the house was a really nice stone room that had beautiful tables set and we sat down to have dinner. The dinner was amazing and you could tell that it was home cooked. We had more music and had the best time enjoying the music and singing along in some English songs and some Croatian songs. After dinner we headed back to the ship and I got to see a beautiful sinset on the walk back to the ship.

The next day I had an fdp in the morning to go visit and orphanage and children's hospital floor. The orpahange didn't have many kids because they were with a family member on summer vacation. There was only about 14 kids to alteast 40 of us and I think at first they were a little overwhelemed with us. They ended up playing bubbles, coloring, playing ball and lots of other fun things with us and had a great time. After we went to the hospital and got to tour and ask the main doctor questions about the hospital and Croatian health care. At the hospital there wasn't many kids either and the first group that went in got to play with them but they took too much time and sadly I was in the second group and I didn't get the chance to. I found out that the hospital that we visited didn't have any social workers and seemed a little understaffed. Our trip was running late and we barely made it back for lunch on the ship. After we headed to a beach and got a European feel. On the beach we could see our ship from the beach because it was not docked for a few hours. We had to tender to the ship which is where we take a life boat to the shore and back to the ship. It is fun for the first few minutes and then it was not as exciting. We had a great time getting in the ocean and laying on the beach.

The next morning didn't go as planned and we tried to go to a neighboring country but missed the bus. Disappointed and not sure what we were going to do we went back to the ship. We ran into our sweet Georgia family and they invited us to go along with them to an near by island. The island had peacocks on it just running around free. The island was beautiful and I got to swim in the Adriatic Sea which is my sea on the ship!! Then we went to the "dead sea" a lake pond that had a cave that we swam into and hung out there for a while. We had a great day with our Georgia family and were so glad they invited us along. That night we went to the Old City and walked around and enjoyed the city and it's beauty!

Our last day in Croatia I went to the Old City and got to walk around and get some shopping accomplished. The Old City is beautiful and you could spend more time there. We walked up the alley and ended up at a cafe on the cliff over looking the water. We sat and had cold coffee, wrote postcards, watched proffessional cliffdivers and most of all enjoyed the beauty of where we were. After we walked around some more and grabbed some lunch at a great cafe outside. Then it was time to go back to the ship so that we weren't late and get dock time. I was excited about going to Greece but sad to leave Croatia. It was a country that I didn't know what to expect out of and it turn out to be something amazing.