Croatia

So it seems as though the position I was going to take in Italy next year is no more :( They have been investigating a problem of how they were going to fund the position for the last month or so but then last week I found out that now it looks like the research group I was going to work for is going to be dismantled - therefore without a research group and without funding, the position is unlikely to be filled. On one hand it is a shame, as I had been quite excited about the opportunity, but on the other hand I am feeling happy and settled in Norway so staying here also has an appeal. Anyway, that is the update on the Italy position and with that, I would like to close the Italian chapter of this blog and move on to one equally as exciting and beautiful - Croatia.

Liesl and I had booked a week on a sailboat to cruise some of the islands of the Adriatic off the coast of Croatia. We flew from Rome into the city of Split, stayed in a great room in a private house, had a rather unusual morning trying to find anywhere that would serve us a breakfast, located our boat and boarded ready for action. To our surprise, everyone else on the boat, about 25 people all around the age of 25, were all (except one) Australian. Most of them were Australians living in Europe (London, Zurich, Frankfurt etc) but all Australians nonetheless. Most strange. But then we found Croatia in general to be crawling with Australians - every backpacker or tourist you saw seemed to be an Aussie, it was really incredible. Especially after spending such a long time in Norway and being amazed any time you stumbled across anyone else from down under. Here is the crew of Aussies (and one guy from Crete who was dating an Aussie) that we spent that week with. The shot is missing two of our favourtie people from the trip - sorry Zoe and Paul but you take an afternoon nap and you snooze you lose!

Yes, it was very very hot the entire trip and that is why we are all half naked, and yes, that is a guy in a mankini. Strangely he had a wife who didn't seem to mind and even stranger, we ended up getting used to seeing him in it too. It was never very pleasant but it became familiar somehow.

Let me first say that this was a wonderful trip and anyone who is thinking about visiting the Adriatic should definitely go, as soon as possible. It is stunningly beautiful. Here are a couple of teasing shots of some of the views from the boat, just to convince you of this point.

Basically our schedule was get up, eat some breakfast and leave the dishes for the staff, change into bikini, read on the deck and watch the fabulous views roll by, swim when the boat stopped for some hours, snorkel if feeling energetic, eat the three course lunch the chef had prepared, snooze, sunbathe, swim again, change into something nice and go ashore in a new city every night for cocktails and a restaurant meal. Totally divine.

Okay the rooms were small and incredibly stuffy little sweatboxes but we could always sleep on the deck. Yes the Captain was kind of an alcoholic but we travelled safely and generally didn't have to have anything to do with him. Yes we were trapped on a boat with random stangers but most of them turned out to be great people and those who drove us crazy only did so towards the end. Yes the concept of being a vegetarian was taken to mean omelettes and sliced cheese were needed as protein supplements, but then I like eggs and cheese. So despite all the potential issues, I would still recommend the trip to anyone. What I thought I would do, is to use the rest of this post to put up some pics of the boat and then in some that will follow, show you some of the fabulous locations we stopped at.

The first pic shown in this post is me relaxing outside the door to our room, while here you can see the deck of our boat, one of the swimming locations we stopped in, and another boat just like ours in the background.
Here is the dining room packed to the brim at lunch hour
And finally, here is the deck where we sat in the sun, read, sipped G&Ts and watched the islands approach and drift by. Man, I miss that tan already :) xxx