Tuesday 17th August

 

17-08-04   Day 45

It had seemed last night, a good idea to get an extra hour in bed and cut our change in Pula rather fave. It seemed an even better idea considering my good failure to fall asleep despite the disco ended there, and I spent nearly all night awake listening to the noise progress through the stages of enjoyment and drunkenness until, at 5am the last party-goers dispersed (loudly) and the cafes started to open.

It turned out, though, that it wasn't. Six minutes late leaving Roviny gave us 5 minutes in Pula. We finished on a mad dash, me with all the bags, Heather suggesting a minor stoke in the rear, within 50 m of the train as it chugged arrogantly out of the station.

"But never mind" we said, now we can see Pula... so in scorching heat we trudge around the Amphitheatre (all well and good) and then proceed to discover that apart from said Amphitheatre, Poo-la is a smelly hole. (Interestingly, our Spanish travel companions disagreed, havingnot sampled the delights of Rovinj)

I would also like to send a few days discussing the Croatian postal system. Indeed, I will suffice to say that it stinks too. (Maybe that's why they unmastered the giftmartyred bar of scoop).

So now we are cryilin-bound, and optimistic that the 19 year old blonde girl who tried to charge us for this slow hot rickety train has realised her error and is not coming back. And we have just been complimented on the size of our puds by the friendly Spanish people.

(And Heather has just interrupted "No Woman No Cry" to tell me she wants to set up a romantic attachment between two people who have have, and probably never will, met)

I knew we should have taken the 7:30 bus.

On the upside, it does mean we have a full day to find accommodation in Split rather than 2 hours. The rain to the train Station nearly killed me but the pain didn't set in as quickly as I thought it would. Without my baggythm, my combat trousers and short hair I thought someone was going to shout "run Lola run" at me... we did get a few funny glares. The amphitheatre wasn't excellent - we thought it pointless - going in as you could see everything through the huge gaps in the walls! I liked the way you could see the sea from sitting at the back - and the concert stage they had set up would make a great night out. Not one of Croatia's better towns but there were lots of boats for me to get excited about. I bought a bottle of coke and so the ensuring train journey was spent trying to remember when I last had coke and we reckon it was Budapest. I was expecting a day of air-conditioned trains but we ended up in one where I sweatfor the whole 2 hours and couldn't do anything but stare straight ahead. And sweat, of course (I also fell asleep on a bench in Pula - shafty). Our bus (aka luxury coach) was waiting for us at Lugavora Station which took us to Rijeka, where we got on another train with no air conditioning but for the wide open windows, which made our conversations with the nice Spanish people rather stilted. There was a lot of arm waving. We literally jumped off (here) the train (too much liking the Spanish off I think) in Ogulan, a strange name for a place but then it is a strange place. We walked down a road which is being dug up, or recently or just sitting in a state of disrepair (could be any of the above) and had to ask directions to a restaurant which turned out to be a bistro and we made up 4/7 of the customers. So I thought for us they'd have made about £9 that night.

The Italian that followed was so insane that it has passed beyond the ability of Heather's mortal talents to express it. While I accept the role willingly, I profess a complete inability to do it justice....

Our excitement at the eager and excited 'yes!' from the waitress when asked if she spoke English rapidly diminished as it was revealed her vocabulary included "cow, meat" and "yes". In fact even "cow" was a problem and we had to settle for "Mooo".

So the conversation generally went (about 8 times) "do you want meat?", To which a 'yes' got a smile and a "no" got an "oh", followed by a spontaneous spurt of fluent Croatian.

I, of course, was fine - going for the first thing on the list, which I was assured was "Mooo", but turned out to be "cluck".shh, most tasty - even if it did get completely forgotten the first time round.

Even Heather was quick choosing, but this highlighted the significance and importance of her normal 3 hour decision cycle: she some how ended up with two main courses, a side order of chips, a salad, a portion of bread AND two beers, costing almost twice as much as mine.

But all that was the easy bit - the confusion started with the fussy Spaniards, who were larkring on about Kalamari (which they didn't even know the English for, so how the poor Croat waitress was meant to help them...)then decided to get one meal (a potential Kalamari) and wait to check out Heather's before ordering the second. This inevitably proved to be absolutely no help as we didn't have a clue what Heather had actually got. Anyway, they liked the look of it - ordered it and were given something completely different to Heather's... The plot thickens....

things were only partly clarified on revival of the (5ive) bills, which were slightly higher than we expected when we entered the place.

So now we find ourselves doing a 2 hour stint at Ogulin's tram station, where I have mastered two new juggling tricks (when I say mastered I am lying); 'under the leg' - twice consecutively, and 'the one ball pick up' - picking up a drop while still juggling with the right hand. Bozo-yeah.