Cheese and Ham, Croatia style

Cro'atz'sky, Croatia, Hvarstka...

After leaving the country today here are a few words about visiting Croatia. First, not unlike other European countries, their fast food is a ham and cheese sandwich. I didn't get that it was fast food until I realized that I had eaten at least one meal with ham and cheese every day since being in Croatia. In fact, I think that ham and cheese is a universal language. There isn't even a Croatian translation for it...

Except for this one day, when we decided that we were going to cut across the country side to head east towards Plitvice. We stopped at a corner store which had a deli. Knowing that the woman behind the counter did not speak English, I brought my guidebook in to assist with my sandwich order. At this point, it was at least 6 days into ham and cheese, so I was ordering some salami and cheese to keep it fresh. I ordered the "sendvich" and waited for it to be made. Frank was skeptical, as I struggled to point at the certain type of cheese and meat that I wanted. In the meantime, another woman came in and had her sandwiches made. She paid before I did. I paid for mine, went out to the car, opened the sandwich to find only cheese on a 12 inch loaf. I was too frustrated to communicate again. I vowed to eat the whole sandwich. mmm....cheese.

So, the next day, we drove through Bosnia for the first time. As we approached the border of Croatia and Bosnia, there were many land mine signs which showed the still-healing wounds of the war during the early 1990's. The signs bore the skull and cross bones in red with a warning statement below. Upon entering Bosnia, we headed towards the first town, Bihoc (Bee-hoj). We had no map to guide us through the area, but we went for it. We arrived at 1 p.m. which is when the Muslim prayers began from the mosques. All over town people were going about their business and the prayers just sang from the speakers high above the city. This was my first time in a predominantly Muslim country - and I was the minority. My reaction took me by surprise as I panicked on not knowing how to leave the country since we had no maps and the city center gave us three options for driving through it. We ended up pulling over to get help at a gas station, where four people, none of whom spoke English, helped Frank figure out how to get back to Croatia via the other direction we wanted to go. Frank drew pictograms inside for directions while I took photos outside of the buildings that were being rebuilt from UN and US aid relief.

Bosnia had appeared more war torn than Croatia. Upon my second visit back to Bosnia, I went to Mostar, which was completely bombed in the war. I learned that upon rebuilding Bosnia, there were no regulations on construction. Many houses were in the process of being built right next door to the house that was nearly in a pile of rubble. All around the houses would be gardens, beautiful and lush - yet admist a wound of a house once standing proud as the symbol of the family. We took a few photos of these places and even found some stretches of land that were marked with either monuments of a battle lost on that field from the 90's or WWII. We soon left that country to continue back into Croatia.

After a hot and cicada-laden night of sleep in Kastela, a town south of Split, Frank and I boarded a ferry for Vis. We were to stay with a friend's, friends' grandmother, who boarded us for 10 Euro a night. Upon arriving at the port in any Croatian town, you are approached by various people of different ages, offering accommodations (zimmers, cameres, sobes), for fairly cheap prices. Since we had Grandma waiting, it was good to walk through that onslaught of pitches.

Grandma's house was just off the main drag in town. She opened the door just enough to ask who was there and peek her eyes out. We were told that her place was "rough but clean. You'll get the top floor. Speak slowly to her because her English was OK." After explaining who we were welcomed inside and taken to choose our rooms. The house was at least 200 or so years old and each room was just a bed and a place to put our stuff. It was perfect - and there was a terrace where the shower room and bathroom existed. We plunked down our stuff, asked where the beach was, and took off to explore the island.

Vis was a blast. We rented scooters and explored the entire island. It was our plan to hit as many of the best snorkeling beaches throughout the day. Truly, Vis was our favorite part of the trip so far...

more later.