107. Scarlet the Lone Ranger

It’s happened. Scarlet has disowned us. We had a choice between two morning tours today. They both started at the same time in the morning, so I couldn't just opt for the later one. Choice 1 was Sissy’s castle.  We had learned a lot about Queen Elizabeth (Sissy) in Vienna with the family, so I thought that might be interesting. Choice 2 was a tour around the island of Corfu, Greece where we are docked. This is where we would see nature and take lots of cool pictures. 

I might not be able to admit this out loud, but I am not completely against looking through palaces and museums. I know I've spent a lot of time complaining about them for the last 3 months, but they aren't half bad occasionally, so I chose the tour of Sissy's castle. Scarlet immediately announced her desire to see the land and not some other building. 

Grandma and Grandpa also wanted to see the palace so Scarlet was on her own for the first half of the day. Thank goodness this trip is full of grandparents, though I know she took pretty good care of herself. 

Sissy's palace turned out to be really feminine! It has been used for many things between her time there in the 19th century to now, but the charm is still prevalent. She was really into the Greek God Achilles. His statue was EVERYWHERE!

Sissy was the empress of a large portion of this part of Europe - okay I don't remember exactly how much, I guess I'll need to go on at least one more tour about her. But  the bottom line is there was a lot of pressure on her to rule the people and act like royalty at all times. Many people admired her beauty. She spent 3 to 4 hours a day on just her hair. On top of that, she was in great shape. She had less than a 20 inch waist! But all of this pressure left her in a deep depression and although her marriage to Franz Joseph started out well and she had 4 children, soon she didn't feel happy about her life and felt more alone. In the hopes of lessening her depression, doctors recommended that she spend more time away from her home in Vienna. This is why she has many vacationing spots around Europe. This one being one of her favorites.

It's really a very tragic story. I think she had to have been more happy than the stories tell, but the stories say that she fell even deeper into depression after the murder suicide of her only son and his girlfriend. In the end, she was killed in Geneva while on the town for some shopping. But everyone loves her tragic story and how she refused to succumb to the aristocracy. There's a lot more to her story, but those are some highlights.

After touring her beautiful palace, we took a small walk down the old town of Corfu and eventually met up with the other group. Scarlet was ecstatic to see us. We chose to spend the rest of the afternoon in town rather than heading back to the boat. Grandma and Grandpa gave us maps and told us to lead the way. This would have worked fine if the maps were in the same language as the street signs. We might have taken the scenic route to all of our destinations, but these routes were in the shade! 

We found a nice restaurant in a courtyard for lunch and the most exotic order of the group was Grandpa with the squid. We spent some of our free time walking around the town peaking into shops. The shopkeepers here are very aggressive and really really really want you to come inside their shop. Maybe if I could have browsed in peace, I would have been more likely to comply. But I suppose their aggressive style must work for them!

With what time we had left, we found a spot on the beach to stick our feet in the water. Luckily, the place we chose was also chosen by a small poodle Boo boo and her owner. Boo boo was a very friendly poodle and came right up to us, she even sat in our laps and enjoyed the sun and the water. Grandma and Grandpa found a nice cool chapel to hang out in while Scarlet and I had our fun. 

We had just enough time to grab a cool drink before loading up the bus. The Athena was set to take off as soon as everyone was boarded. We are now on our way to Delphi, Greece where we will arrive early in the morning.

Tonight's entertainment was Karaoke! The last time I did Karaoke it was in a special karaoke place on campus last summer. In this place you are lead to a private room with you're party and have an hour or so to sing your hearts out to each other. I must say this group was much different than the lively camp counselors I was with that day, but Scarlet and I still had fun, and we heard many old songs we hadn't heard before.

Now Ivan is in the lobby quizzing me on what languages I can pick up on in songs, and I can't say that I'm doing very well. But I am doing much better than I would have last a year ago!

106. Mr. Z Wants to be Famous

Mr. Z is the Hotel Manager on the boat. He is the guy we go to when we want to complain about the WiFi, the air conditioning, the way your bed was made, and the lack of variety in candy on the hospitality desk. Every couple of days I have to beg him for a new internet password because all of the important things I do on the internet seem to take up 10 times as much internet than everyone else. The word about my blog has spread around the boat, and now I actually have to watch what I say and be nicer.

We sailed through the night from the Adriatic Sea to Ionian Sea. Saranda, Albania was our first stop where we unloaded to tour the Butrint Archaeological Site. This is a place where Greeks lived, then Romans, then Byzantine, then the Venetian. So there were many layers to this place, and our local guide, Demir, pointed out what places came from which people. It was amazing to see how they were all able to fit giant boulders perfectly together to make structures that would last thousands of years.

While this place had a lot to offer, Albania is still developing as a tourist attraction after being a closed communist country for many years. So there weren't as many tourists as there will be one day. We took a bus ride from the port to the site and along the way saw just how much this place has developed in the last 10 years. Close to the water there are many apartment complexes, restaurants, and other attractions. When we got further away from that, we just saw open fields dotted with old bunkers.

Demir also told us about their culture and some of his words of wisdom to Scarlet were "You are in Albania, you don't have to pay attention to the keep out signs." This was when Scarlet was avoiding a great lookout point because it was blocked with tape.

Back on the boat, we settled in for the trip to Corfu, Greece. There was nothing planned on the town for the night, but as soon as we docked, Grandpa, Scarlet, and I stepped off the boat to check out the town. We made it about halfway to the old town taking some of the back alleys but soon made the realization that nothing would be open on a Saturday night, and dinner was waiting for us on a boat.

During this entire trip - even before the cruise, remembering the day of the week has been a huge problem. Sometimes we would get to a new apartment, realize it was a Sunday night, and then have some leftover cereal for dinner because there is no such thing as a 24 hour WalMart in Europe.

In high school I went Florida with my best friend Jordan and her family a few times. On one of our trips together, her mom bought some baklava at a small town we visited. I was hooked after the first bite - even though at that point I still pronounced it really wrong. So you can imagine my excitement when I read the menu for dinner and saw that desert was 3 different types of baklava! Shout out to the chef!

After dinner we were treated to some on board Greek dancers. After a couple songs, the interactive dancing started. This just reminded me that there is a reason I am not in the front at Purduette shows, and it has nothing to do with my height... We made it through the steps without breaking anything and ended the night with a conga line around the lobby.

105. The Magic Painting

Today started reeeeeaaaaally early. Even the old people thought it was early, so that’s saying something. There was an optional tour leaving at 7:25 am. It was like last semester at Purdue all over again! Where most days of the week, I had 7:30 lectures.  We took a bus up 25 switchbacks to the old capital of Montenegro called Cetinje. I wish I could tell you all about the bus experience on the steep slope, but we were on a bus, so I was asleep. At the top of the mountain we stopped for a snack of prosciutto, bread and cheese. Grandpa made sure there were no leftovers. This little town also had some dogs running around so Scarlet and I made sure to befriend them.

In Cetinje we took a tour through the royal palace. This King ruled over a population that was smaller than that of Indianapolis and was the first and last king of Montenegro. He lost power after World War II. But he still had a nice house that we explored! All of these old outfits were laying out, some jewelry, a gun room, and the bedrooms were all decorated. The best part was comparing his painted portrait to a picture someone took of him. Cameras aren’t as forgiving.

We didn’t take the switchback road back down to the boat which most people were thankful for. Our second adventure of the day was taking a boat to Our Lady of the Rocks Island.

The story goes there once was a picture of the Virgin Mary sitting on a Rock just off the coast of Kotor, Montenegro. Some sailors found it and brought it to the church in town. The next morning, the painting was found again on the rock off the coast. This happened for three days. Finally the people decided there just needed to be a church built on the rock. So what once was a 2 square meter rock turned in to an entire island.

The church now houses a collection of things gifted to The Lady by sailors who were saved in the sea because of her. One of the most impressive gifts was a piece of embroidery that a local lady willed to the church. It was very intricate and depicted the lady surrounded by angels. She made this during the 25 years that her husband was at sea. There are two stories behind it. One is that she eventually went blind and died alone, her husband never returning from sea. The more popular one is that her husband came back frequently and brought her the precious silks she used to make the piece. The most impressive part was that the angel’s hair was actually made from her own. You could see how long it took her to make because the hair went from brown to grey around the piece.

Soon we crammed back on the boat that took us to the island and headed back to the Athena. For the next 15 hours or so we will be on the sea. No internet or anything! After dinner we had Movie night! No Man's Land was showing and there was popcorn served. Scarlet hated the movie because it didn’t end, but I thought it portrayed a very unique view of war that most movies avoid preferring heroic gestures or just lots of blood, but definitely a clear winner.

After a long day, Scarlet and I headed to bed earlier than usual, but made sure not to miss the ending of Romeo and Juliet that was playing on the TV in our room. Another ending that Scarlet didn’t prefer. 

104. The Pillar of Shame

“I HATE this thing! It’s made for women to talk to each other!”

Today, Grandpa experienced rage while trying to check his email on the iPad. He could not be comforted in any way. We don’t have much time for messing around on the internet, but what precious time we do have is spent downloading pictures and, for me, writing this blog!

I woke up today with the Athena cruising down the Adriatic Sea. After breakfast everyone gathered on deck to see the view through Kotor Bay. Kotor is another small town right on the coast of the Adriatic. Soon the Athena pulled up right across from a huge ocean liner.

Every night before dinner, Ivan or Rok have a port talk. Last night we learned that the people of Kotor, or Montenegro in general, are stereotyped as being lazy. This might be true, but we were anything but lazy while we were there. On our tour we learned all about the palaces lining the streets. They just looked like houses to me, but apparently everyone in Kotor was noble for some reason.

In the first square of the town was a “pillar of shame.” Unfortunately it is not used anymore, but in better days, criminals would be tied there for a day or so to endure some public humiliation before being thrown in a cell.

After some shopping and lunch, Scarlet and I met up with a smaller portion of the group to climb up the mountain to the fortress connected to the town wall, a journey that lasted over 2 hours. We made many stops for pictures along the way, and with the sun beating down on us finally reached the top!

 You can almost see the top in this picture 

We went up on a path with steps leading up to the top. For the way down, we went on the other side of the mountain. To get to this trail we had to punch a hole in the wall and crawl down some rocks to the path. If you don’t already know, this cruise is full of elderly people. Half of our boat is made up of a group called SIRS or Sons in Retirement. So you can imagine the fun we had with this extreme sport. All who were up to the challenge were rewarded with bragging rights.

Of course there were other little rewards along the way. One being the mountain goats we passed. A cool thing about this place is that there are no rules or regulations. Or at least a lot less than back home. In America I imagine staff members would be standing at every corner of the fortress and these goats being kept in a fence where we could admire them from afar and maybe get a good picture if our camera had a good zoom. Here, we can just climb wherever and the goats are just free to do whatever and they were super friendly! Bob lost some flowers he had in his back pocket, and he wasn't the only one the goats tried to pickpocket.

To celebrate our success, we went to a smoothie place back in town. I think America should have more smoothie places. We were greeted like royalty when we stepped back onto the boat. There were a total of 6 people who made it to the top and back.

The view from halfway down

As always, we were served a huge dinner that I couldn't finish, and had the rest of the night to ourselves. I  met up with Rok and Ivan to check out the nightlife of the city, and had a blast! It started off with a chocolate lava volcano cake or something like that. I’ve had a desert like this back home, but it really didn’t compare. We hopped around to a couple more places and finally found our way home at a completely reasonable hour.

103. Walking the Wall

"If I can't eat it or wear it, I'm not buying it."

This is the motto that my Great Grandma announces before we buy her Christmas presents, and its also the motto of the Golden Girls while souvenir shopping. Another shopping expertise they announced was "Well 5 Kuna is only a dime!" Nope. No it is not. Five Kuna is  almost a dollar.

Today we saw Dubrovnik by day! The amount of people in the city had multiplied drastically compared to last night, so the real lesson of the day was in patience. This only lasted for the city tour with a local guide, though. We walked around with Inga for a couple hours and she pointed out important buildings, told us some history and lead us to museums. We passed a lot of distracting cats along the way, so that is why there isn't a full report of the tour. My favorite parts of the day happened afterwards though, so you're not missing much.

We finished with a walk through the Rector's museum where I took pictures and touched things and got yelled at both times. We were supposed to meet up with Rok and Ivan next for "a little something special." When we learned about this surprise, I figured we'd get a special tour of some building, or meet an important Croatian person I'd never heard of. That is the last time I'll ever doubt Rok and Ivan.

Our surprise was meeting Ivan's family! He grew up here, and his grandpa repairs fishnets, something that isn't common today. Not only did he invite us to see his grandfathers workshop, but his mother also made some snacks for us, and his grandmother let us try some of her home brewed alcohol. Everyone was smiling the whole time, and we loved meeting the family of the guy who's been leading us around the Dalmatian Coast. Repairing the fishnets reminded me a lot of making friendship bracelets at Camp Tecumseh. We should really make a fishnet clinic. Everyone would love it!

On the way back to the bus last nigh, Ivan told Scarlet and I all about growing up in the city. There is this pedestal type thing sticking out of the wall. According to Ivan, the cool thing to do was try and stand on this stone and take off your jacket. Doesn't sound hard, right? Wrong. The stone was really skinny and worn down from people standing on it. The challenge was that if you could keep your balance while standing on it, taking your jacket off would throw you off balance and you would fall, mostly because you were so close to the wall that doing anything but standing stick straight meant falling. Scarlet and I were up to the challenge. Honestly, I thought it would be a breeze! I thought wrong. In fact, I couldn't even stand on the stone without falling. Scarlet could at least get that far. Ivan claims to have done it before, but I have my doubts.

We spent from 8:30 to 4 off the boat in the city. During this time Scarlet and I made Grandma and Grandpa trek all around the city. Including a walk of the entire city wall, a gondola trip up to another viewpoint, and a hike up to St. Lawrence fortress. The walk of the wall had a different view everywhere we turned it seemed like. So I have a lot of pictures that actually look exactly the same.

Once Grandma saw the steps leading up to the fortress, she just turned around and said she'd see us later. Grandpa came, but told me to get ready to resuscitate him at any time. Once at the top we groveled for some water from the catering company hanging out on the roof of the fortress, but they "didn't have any." YEAH RIGHT! We snapped some pictures and headed back down where we met Grandma and some other friends from our boat at a cafe. We ordered tap water as quickly as possibly and emptied our glasses in one gulp.
 

We had an hour or so when we got back on the boat to get ready for our night out. I took this time to engineer a clothes drying rack on our balcony, and admire my new farmers tan. Summer has never felt better. At 5:30 we loaded the buses to head  for a small town north of Dubrovnik where we would all split up and have dinner with a local family.

All 50 or so uf us were split up between 5 houses. I might be biased, but my group had the best family. They had a daughter Brody's age named Lorena, and Lorena had a small two week old kitten she carried everywhere.

 In America, the houses all have the same idea behind them. Houses are not as regular when they are built into the sides of mountains. So on top of meeting a great family, and having a great meal, we were in a super unique house. The family is very self sustainable. Most of our meal was made with what they grow themselves. We also learned about their wine making, an had the best olive oil I have ever tasted. On top of the meal and the company, we learned some traditional dancing and got a small tour of the house. This family was very open and friendly, there was never a dull moment!

I think every family was very generous with their wine tasting and the bus ride back was much louder than usual. Most of the time as soon as we board the ship after a long day like today, everyone heads straight to bed and I head straight for the wifi in the lobby. Tonight though I had a lot of company! Grandpa says there is to be no public mention of what we discussed around the table.

102. The Cold Water Challenge

For some unknown reason, Korcula is thought of as less superior to Hvar in terms of island popularity. I liked it even more! We met our guide in the morning to show us around the tiny town. It didn’t take long to catch on that she knew everyone in the town. In fact, her husband had 8 or so brothers who all had families in Korcula as well. We even passed one of her nieces on the tour. Can you imagine the huge family reunion parties these people throw?

We are staying on a part of the island that juts out in an almost circular peninsula , The town walls follow the water line and the streets inside were set up to make the town look like a fish when seen from above. There was one main road running down the middle, and walking down this street, you can see streets running to the left and to the right. On the left side, the streets ran straight and gave a great view of the Adriatic sea, to the right, the streets curved a bit so the sea wasn’t visible. This had something to do with the winds that came through. Those to the left were good winds, and to the right, were bad winds. It turned out to be a great ventilation system.

 Bad wind street

Good wind street

 Our local guide was great and although our tour lasted less than 400 meters, she kept us entertained with the history of course, but also with stories about her own life living on the island. She told funny stories about how they used to collect rain water to use as fresh water and the difficulties of raising a child using cloth diapers when there was limited water to wash them.

She took us through a couple of their churches and museums boasting ancient relics and documents. I loved walking through with someone who just wanted to point out important stuff and move on. That’s the type of museum visit that I enjoy.

Marco Polo's house (maybe)

We had a few hours before sailing away to explore the city. We walked through some touristy shops and an art shop that was really impressive. Plus the guy who owned it had a very friendly dog who loved people.

There is a “cold water challenge” that has been going on around America lately. I’m not sure how it started, but all of a sudden, I kept seeing facebook posts of my friends diving into cold water for certain charities. They donate $10 to a charity of their choice, then challenge 3 friends to do the same and jump in some cold water within the next 24 hours If they fail to do that, they are supposed to donate $100 to a charity. Right now we are docked in the Adriatic Sea. This water is cold. Instead of waiting around for someone to challenge us, Scarlet and I decided to jump in just because!

Once the initial shock wore off we actually enjoyed it. Well at least I did, Scarlet has a little less meat on her bones to keep her warm. We weren’t sure if there were any rules about how far we could swim out, and as far as I know there are none. So we just took off and headed for the biggest buoy. 

On the way back we ran into Ivan who is training for a race coming up in France.  Ivan, however was dressed in a nice warm wet suit while Scarlet and I had shorts and tank tops. Our conversation didn’t last long before Scarlet said it was time to get out of the water. She could have been back to the shore in 5 minutes, but being the caring sister that she is, she slowed down to the non-swimmer Brenna pace that I had been keeping with my expert doggie paddle stroke. As soon as her feet touched the rocks, she barely took time to pose for an after picture before heading to the warm shower on the boat. I took this time to catch a few rays and relax before getting ready for the “independent traveler” cocktail hour.

Scarlet and I arrived in our room the other night to find this invitation lying on our beds. As Scarlet explained, it’s for 13 year olds who have chosen not to get married. In reality it was just for anyone who came without a significant other, so that we could get to know other people. Scarlet and I are kind of a team, so we didn’t really count, but went anyway. The best part was that all the single people were ladies. So there was no match making today. We had a great time on the top deck of the boat talking to everyone and learning about where everyone had traveled before and where we should go if we had the chance.

In the middle of lunch, the Athena took off for Dubrovnik. We had the next 4 hours or so to just hang out on the ship. People use this time to read on their balconies, do puzzles, and sleep. Being the true college student I am, I opted for a nap. During this travel time, Rok and Ivan have been giving lectures on important things about Croatia. Yesterday was the Croatian language lesson, and today the talk was about the war in the 90s. Ivan is from Dubrovnik, a city that was in the worst location for attacks. I’m sure I heard about this conflict in AP European History, but I should really just give up remembering anything from that class. Ivan did a great job of explaining how the Balkans had gone through a lot of change in their history and how this change led to disagreements that couldn’t be suppressed after the death of Josip Tito. He also told us about his personal experience through this time.

One of my favorite parts of this cruise is learning about the culture through the people who live here. Rok and Ivan always have a great story to tell and have done a great job making sure we learn the significance of all the places we visit. It makes each trip into a different city more meaningful. Our local guides are very good at this as well.  

Soon after our talk, we arrived in Dubrovnik and had dinner on the boat before heading out to the Old Town for a short night tour. Like Korcula, the old town of Dubrovnik is surrounded by a massive city wall. It’s probably one of the biggest I’ve seen yet. Close to the wall is St Lucas fortress. This entire area was used for King's Landing from the Game of Thrones!!!

We got a little taste of the nightlife within the walls. The streets weren’t too crowded with tour groups, there were pianos playing at bars we passed, and the view from the old town dock was just beautiful!

Scarlet and I scouted out the shops and already can’t wait to visit a certain gelato shop we saw. This one stood out in particular because the guys serving the ice cream were throwing the balls of gelato up in the air and catching them with their scoops! They are the coolest ice cream scoopers I’ve ever seen, I don’t even care about the quality.

Tomorrow we will have a tour of the city with a local guide and learn even more about this place. What I’m really excited for is the dinner. We are all going to a local home for dinner tomorrow night! Getting home cooked meals from the local families always turn out to be the highlight of my trips. I can remember spending one evening in Denmark with the Christensens my senior year, the meal with Arden’s friend Ana back in Spain, and countless meals with families who house the Purduettes for away shows. The food and the company are always top notch. Just like this entire cruise has been.