It’s 4am and I’m not asleep because I’ve been awake designing mine and my brothers tattoos. I went straight to photoshop with mine as I knew exactly what I wanted - I’ll take my brother’s to photoshop tomorrow when I get his feedback on the sketch.
I wish I had a job like this where I wanted to stay up all night to finish a task. That would be amazing.
At work this evening Andy went to the cellar to change the barrel of beer for me and he called me from the room and pretended to be asking for a room service and I had my polite voice on and I was very tired and I was expecting a call back from a room that I'd missed 2 calls from so I didn't really notice that the phone said "Keg room" and kinda thought it was someone's last name and started explaining that we only do pizzas after 10:30 and suddenly he was like "I changed the barrel" and I was so confused ... and then I realised and was so embarrassed. Violated.
Having spent 4 days in Zadar, met “the Americans”, and parted ways with our lovely hostess Karla, we moved on to Šibenik. Our purpose for stopping here was just to have a base to visit Krka National Park, but it ended up being one of my favourite stops.
We immediately set out to explore the town, accidentally breaking into a church by wondering through an unlocked atrium at the back, and realising all the chaos kicking off with keys sliding across the floor (into my own hands) was actually due to us. We quickly slipped out through the front as the guy ran to lock the back and got away with our free church visit.
We eventually settled by the water to stick to our usual sunset ritual.
I've had such a nice day! Apart from being woken up by a call from an estate agent which was fruitless anyway, but at least it got me up early. I'd been searching for houses all morning and when Andy got up we went out to buy food and I realised that one of the estate agents that I'd been looking on had an office on the street so we popped in and discovered we only had one real option with them and came back 5 minutes later to book a viewing for tomorrow. I went on their site this evening to show a friend and it's been labelled as off the market! I'm really really hoping they've taken it down cause we're so interested, but I highly doubt that. I'll be so mad though if it's gone in the space of a few hours? I guess we'll find out tomorrow. With the rest of my day I've been looking for a room for Andy's mate which is much less stressful than looking for a room for myself. I kinda want him to be close to us though so it will be much more helpful if we know where we're going to live. I have a few options anyway. Then Gemma came over who's been moved to a new house a few door up for the last 2 months of her tenancy so that the other house can be renovated. I went and saw the house and we've been back here ever since, chatting and laughing all evening. Our favourite topics have been Croatian slang and swear word, and all the weird eBay requests I get. My face actually hurts from laughing.
Andy came home closer to 5am this morning, and with only an hour before I had to get up for work, we ended up staying awake. Enduring the tiny hours together could have been so much cuter had we not had other things to do so soon. We talked in the dark as the gloom faded away into dull morning light, giggling, snuggling and hushing, so as not to wake the other housemates. My alarm for work went off soon enough (which caught me by surprise because I forgot that I’d set it to a sped up recording of my dissertation tutor sneezing - on repeat) and I had to leave him sleeping in bed, already into a deep phase of his sleep cycle by the time I returned from the shower.
We just had another hour together before it was his turn to go to work, and we spent it looking at houses. I’m already so tired of looking. I’ve requested 3 viewings and I really hope it works out with one of them so we don’t have to keep playing this game. One of them is so so nice but I just know there’s gunna be some ridiculous fee we can’t afford. Then its back to looking at all the options and weighing up compromises. To be honest - it just has to feel like home.
I’ve been emotionally unstable since getting back, a mix of post-holiday blues, missing Andy, and probably the lack of direction since finishing my degree. With all this, a build up of low emotions suddenly convert themselves into inexplicable positive energy, mostly released in form of smiling or laughing at myself/my situation, or overpowering need to dance.
The morning was slow going until I got the right playlist on, then I was productive for a while, and now, after draining social interaction with the girls, I have crashed again.
positives: 🙃 Washed, dried, folded and put away my holiday clothes 🙃 Contacted work to let them know I can go full time from next week, got a very positive response 🙃 Finally got some new stuff listed on eBay 🙃 Ate my frozen burritos from when I cooked 2 tonnes of rice before holiday - didn’t taste like mush-shit. 🙃 Spoke to Andy briefly on the phone. 🙃 Got PAID.
Today’s negatives: 😣 Got interrupted from productive stuff / didn’t finish listings / didn’t get round to 2nd task which was otherwise totally attainable today. 😣 Realised how shitty house hunting is when its not a procrastination of another task.
The positives outweigh everything. So although I’m feeling very low again, my eyelids feel lower. I think an easy sleep is about 2 minutes away.
I have not missed my house mates at all. Everyone was invited to come with us to Croatia and I’m so glad that only us 4 came. I mean its not like Ive got home and they have immediately got on my nerves, I just haven’t missed them in any way. I don’t feel close to them. I feel so neutral towards them. I’m looking forward to going my separate way and checking in again in about... 4 years.
I'm very pleased with the Croatian I learned and used while we were away - you could tell no one expected us to know even a word, so they were impressed with just the smallest things, it was great. It was also great that Gemma joined in with trying to learn stuff cause I had a practice buddy and didn't have to feel like I was pissing everyone off. I think I'm going to keep it up. I know I want to, it's a question of will power having already visited the county, not knowing when I'll return, and not knowing where else I'll be able to use the language - but I want to keep going with it. I do want to go back with Andy, so I guess that's one goal and reason to carry it on.
Croatia Crew 🇭🇷
I’m sad and tired and on my way back to Plymouth. It’s been a long night with just a short nap in a park by Buckingham palace where a homeless person offered us a blanket, a walk from Victoria to Westminster in search of a 24 hour McDonalds, success on the third store, a return to Victoria when McDonalds kicked us out to prep for breakfast, another 10min nap and a wait until 9am for our bus.
There’s now about 2 hours left of said bus journey, when I get home I have to sort my uniform, shower, maybe squeeze in another nap, and head straight back out to work 😫🔫
But these last 2 weeks travelling Croatia have been amazing, my usual updates are to come. As sad as I am, I’m also happy to be back and start a new routine - which doesn’t really involve anything new, just different proportions of things. Andy is back in a few days too and I can’t wait.
We just got our last result back for uni and according to my calculations I've scraped myself a 2:1 I won't believe it until I get my official paper saying so, but I'll be happy with that.
To back track to the night in Zadar that we met our host for dinner - here's the beautiful sunset we caught as she walked us back through the old town after our meal, not to mention the gorgeous moon. The 2nd photo features part of the club in the park that we later returned to. And a snippet of the diary I've been keeping with the Polaroid we took at ours while getting drunk - me, Amy and Karla kept one each. Finally have good enough wifi to update here too!
I'm so tempted to get this for Andy! It's right up his street plus there's nothing much else in the way of souvenirs for boys...
We spent most of yesterday, our 2nd full day, planning and booking the rest of our trip. We now have a string of hostels in 3 different towns, and we'll end our trip in another apartment just outside of Dubrovnik. Having done nothing else all day, we messaged our host and asked if she wanted to come for dinner. She took us to a cheap place in the old town from which we came away with enough pizza to feed us for the next 2 days, and that's just the left overs - they were huge! We convinced Karla to come back to the apartment where we started drinking. The night led us to this club in the park where we merged with an American group. All in all it was great fun and ended up with us showing them the Sea Organ, and several of us jumping in. Yes, including me, I'm not one to miss out on that kind of action. The Americans are leaving today and they've hardly had a chance to see anything?! We gave them some recommendations but who knows what they'll achieve with their hangover in this heat. On our way back past the port the Lebanese guy from the American group dared me to climb onto one of the boats I was admiring just moments before, so on his lead, off I went! He called us all out for being the least daring kind of people, which I took to heart, so I'm making it my goal to do as much crazy stupid shit this trip. I'll only ever regret the things I didn't do. We parted ways at the end of the port and may catch them again before they leave split, but I guess we'll see!
W fixed dinner at home and aimed to get back out to the Sea Organ for sunset, but cut it a bit fine. Either way we caught the end of it and it was still beautiful.
I was super excited for the Sea Organ which works by pushing air through the pipes built into the steps as the waves lap against them. We soaked up the mellow sounds as we got through 2 bottles of wine, chatting away, surrounded by people both local and foreign doing just the same. Minus the wine.
By the time we were ready to go the Greeting to the Sun monument - which we’d previously crossed but hadn’t yet seen in action - was at full steam. Another gorgeous spectacle, the Greeting to the Sun work by absorbing the suns rays throughout the day and using the energy by night to light up LEDs within the huge circle panel in random patterns.
A little tipsy we indulged to the max, running around like idiots and taking photos, since most other people has cleared out long before. It was a lovely end to our first full day in Croatia.
Our old town adventures took us through tiny streets, past beautiful buildings, and finally to St Donata's church, the largest pre-Romanesque in Croatia. The entry to the big round church and the bell tower were separate, so we ended up climbing the bell tower only. The views were stunning.
Arch to the old city
