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Our hostel in Athens has free internt, so you all finally get another update!
So, where were we...
I was not at my most composed upon discovering this, so the conductor got a colleague who was able to speak a little more English. Thankfully the reservation that we had for the couchette in the train stated that I had a rail pass, so the conductor didn't make me pay for a new ticket (at over 100 Euros)...they were really nice and let me stay on the train, and said they would try and sort out the Italian guards as well, so they wouldnt kick me off :P
Got to Bologna alright, and got off there to make a Police Report, in case someone had stolen them from out of the changing room...
The Italian police spoke basically no English at all, and they didnt have any forms in english to fill out...but they did have one form on German! So here I was in Italy, filling out a form in German, to report the loss of my New Zealand Passport :P
It was so funny- as we were finally leaving the police station, the Police officer said (complely seriously) Bye Bye!
It was so Croup and Vandemar that I almost burst out laughing, but thought that the men with guns might not get the joke...:P
So I was faced with a decision- wither head straight back to Germany to get it and lose my Ferry tickets to Croatia (which had cost quite a few Euros), or go to Croatia and head back to Germany once I had finished my Croatia holiday...
What the hell am I on about?! There was no question!
So I bought a wee train ticket to Ancona (armpit of Italy), to catch our ferry out :)
We had the whole day to spend in Ancona, and discovered something that they dont tell the tourists...
Ancona is actually a City Under Seige!
As it turns out, the train statino is stockpiling all the city's supply of toliet paper! there were many many rolls there in the train station toilet, but every other toliet in the entire city (including restaurants, public toilets and in the ferry terminal), there was not a single scrap of toilet paper, or hand towels either.
This is one reason that Ancona wins (thus far) the award for Crappest City. After a number of hours being bored and toilet paper-less there, the super market finally opened (after the siesta break), and we could arm our selves with a couple of rolls each before heading onto the boat.
Yay boat!
Boat!
Boat!
Boat!
I had never been on a boat bigger than either my uncles jetboat or our wee Sunburst, so this big ferry was very exciting!
We splashed out and got a cabin just to oursives, with an ensuite bathroom so we could shower :)
It was so amazing- we went up on deck to watch it leave port, and stayed up there chatting to another Kiwi guy for a couple of hours. The sky was clear, and as the port lights receeded the stars came out...followed by the shoothin stars :) In an hour there, I mush have seen at least 10 shooting stars, if not 20!
We got into Split with no trouble, and took the forst freey out that we could find. We wanted to head to Korchula town, but the only ferry there was later in the evening, so we got a ferry to a wee town called Vela Luka, which is at the other end of Korchula Island....
This turned out the be the most fortuitous piece of timetabling, as Vela Luka was the most lovely place ever!
We found an appartment with no trouble, with a lovely lady called Manuela- she was actually from Kosovo, but had gone to school in Switzerland so spoke perfect english and german.
The apartment was very cute , with a good kitchen, and Manuela even promised to do our laundry for us for free :)
Gah this is all so long ago I'm not exactly sure what we did on our first day , but I think we explaored Vela Luka a little and hunted some groceries for dinner.
The next day we got the water taxi out to the island of Proizd, which is about an hour away from Korchula. Proizd was just beautiful! We walked round the bottom of the island for 40 mins to get to a beach where there were not so many tourists- even though there is pretty much no way that insignificant little Priozd would have been used in the war, we were careful to only walk on the solid bedrock by the shore, as it would be alot harder to stick a landmine under there then further up where there were more moveable things :P
The wee bay we ended up in was lovely- we had a nice wee bench to sit on under some trees (thouhg that was not quite so lovely after the attack of the Vicious Attack Wasps, who were after our nectarine) and we weent swimming in the fantastically clear water. The water was lovely and wamr, and so clear we could see all the little silver fishies, and also the two little jellyfishies that we stayed well away from!
When it came time to get the boat back, we followed a couple of other people who were headed back on the taxi- turns out that there was a path right across the island that takes only 2 minutes :S
Ok, so there wasnt so much excitement and suspense there, but Im tired and its my birthday tomorrow so I want to be awake for all the fun and excitement (tm) that Athens will provide!
*Hugs* to you all