Rab, Croatia

Rab is an island roughly 3 hours by bus from Rijeka. We bussed along the beautiful adriatic coast and saw much of the beautiful landscape that is Croatia. The rocky coastline is dotted with trees and shrubbrush hanging on to life it seems, some of them are growing between in the rocks. It was not quite what I had expected. It was beautiful but in a different sort of way. Close to Rab the bus got on to a ferry and we arrived a few minutes later. The bus driver seemed like a very nice man who would wave at all the other bus drivers along the route, at policemen and at all his other friends along the way, giving us the feeling that this was a small town, which was nice. He even had a stuffed chicken hanging in the middle of the bus window.

Getting into Rab we were a bit confused about where the beach was, which is strange because we were on an island. We headed in a direction toward water, which was actually the port where all the boats were… not a very good swiming hole, however we did go up to the monastary on the hill nearby and wander through the mazes of streets and churches that riddled the hillside. I even climbed to the top of a small tower. It had great views of the island and the Adriatic Sea.

After sweating like a pig for several hours with my backpack on I finally set it down near the water. I dare call it a beach because there really was no beach to speak of. It was actually a concrete sidewalk that people were laying on with the water crashing against the rocks and concrete. We got to an area with what appeared to be the most beach-like thing we had seen on the island. The island is very rocky but pretty, so we were not able to get a great beach day in.

I put on my goggles and took my waterproof camera out to the sea, to see what I could see, and I noticed there were sea urchines around the rocks near my feet, so I made certain I watched where I stepped. (I met someone in Turkey who had stepped on one and her foot was very bloody and not doin too good.) While watching for more of these hazards I noticed a few fish taking an interest in me, I noticed more and more and more it was great. I even saw a school of fish that didnt scurry off right away.

There was a concrete dock that people were diving off of. I of course had the urge to jump of something, and did. It was really fun! However… the concrete was a bit tricky to get up.

In an earlier post a comment was left regarding my pink eye and how I should document all of my injuries… So I took a picture of this bug bite that I scratched a bit too much thinking that this would be one of my biggest injuries…

Turns out that the concrete was very sharp and tricky to get up. After going up it several times I looked down at my foot and this is what I saw…

My bloody foot and a nice view

So I swam around a bit trying to get the salt water in my cuts on my foot. Once the blood stopped pouring over my foot we got our bags and headed out toward the bus station. We got on a bus back to Rijeka. After eating an amazing burger and looking for pastry we jumped on a train to Slovenia.

Beograd, Serbia

Arriving utterly exhausted in Beograd early in the morning we staggered from the train station into the refreshingly beautiful Serbian capital. Confused about the name being either Beograd, Belgrade, or some other version we found our way through the streets up to a beautiful cathedral, and a few other sights specific to Beograd, we then found a very helpful tourist information help center which suggested we take a bus tour of the city, we figured it was a good idea and walked around the town a bit more looking at the sights, the more we explored the more we realized that this city was breathtaking! It was absolutly gorgeous. We headed back to catch the bus and jumped on. The tour around the city took right around an hour, since we were only staying in Beograd for a few hours we figured that this would be the only way to see all the big sights of the city. Driving down the streets you see magnificent buildings from the past, along side buildings that are quite drab with obvious communist influence. A bit further there are buildings from the war they have decided not to repair or demolish. It is quite a sight to see buildings with the sides completly crushed in because of artillery smashing into the side of them. It even looked like you could see where the bombs entered the buildings. We also saw from a distance the largest orthodox church in the world. It was beautiful! Along the ride whenever there was traffic the narration would pause and they would play classical music, I of course coming from a long tiring train ride, courtesy of EXIT, would fall asleep at such intersections … just like I do in school.

After the tour we headed to find some Krempeta, which is a delicious dessert made with a custard-like cream filling with a flaky crust on the top, with a touch of whip cream, it was amazing! Our Serbian/Canadian friend on the train told us about this speciality. Oh, plus we had ice cream, ummm great flavors!

After our dessert meal, we headed for the Nicola Tesla museum, which was quite small however very interesting, his works with electricity were astonishing and found a way to disperse FREE and wireless electricity! However, according to my knowledge of this, it is quite dangerous to have lightning always randomly going through the air from one tower to another, I guess his vision would have looked something like an electrical storm all the time, with lightning… REAL LIGHTNING! (for all of you powerthirst drinkers out there). Unfortunately because we needed to catch a train at 3:30pm we couldn’t stay long enough to see the video. We dashed out of the museum and headed toward the train station. We got our tickets and were on our way to Zagreb, Croatia!

Where am I?

In the past… I dont even know how long, I have been to something like this…
Stayed 1 night in Antalya, slept on a bus to Izmir spent a day there, spent one night in Izmir then woke up early and took a bus to Selcuk, then walked to Ephesus, walked back to Selcuk, took a bus back to Izmir, took a bus to Cesme, then took a ferry boat to Chios, then took another boat to Athens. Tomorrow morning I will be hopping on a bus to Trikala.
Because of all this traveling I am a bit disoriented, and am falling asleep. I will write a real blog entry later.
By the way Athens was beautiful!