Hrvatska!

Well, I'm exhausted but I know that if I don't get to posting things from Hrvatska, Croatia, now, I'll never get to it. I can't believe that I'm heading home first thing tomorrow morning, but I'm about travelled out right now and being able to settle in to home will be nice.

Altogether, it was a great week--I'm definitely ready to be traveling on my own now rather than with a group of 28 other students, but I'm so grateful to have been able to spend time in Zagreb & Split. Since I have 5 days of travel stories to tell, I think this one will be best as a photo post--It'll be a long one, but I promise it's worth it if you'd like a little taste of Croatia.

When we arrived on Sunday, we went on what we thought was a forest walk. It ended up being a treacherous downhill slide on mud with hopes of finding a cave. We eventually found the cave, but not without getting terribly muddy and wet and dirty. I was grateful for my chacos, but since we thought it was a forest walk many of us were in flip flops. Not so nice.

Here's just a little taste of our terrain.

Kayla was not so much a fan of the mud--especially when she ended up with it on her hands after slipping.

Despite the muddiness, I did enjoy this little outdoorsy fix!

Hey, we found the cave...eventually.

By the end our feet were just a bit muddy...

We were, however, HIGHLY rewarded after the hike with an amazing dinner. Because I don't eat red meat, I was served a vegetarian dinner at this restaurant. It may have been one of the best meals I'd ever eaten--all the veggies were cooked to perfection and we were really full at the end. YUM!

Monday, after recovering from the CRAZY walk, we got a chance to really explore Zagreb on our own. The outskirt areas were very different from the center of the town with old, 10ish story apartment buildings. These buildings were very much the remains of a communist society. Throughout town there were also more old, unkept buildings like this one below. Then there were gorgeous areas like the other pictures show.

Statue of King Tomislav, Croatia's first king who ruled in the 10th century AD.

After being in flat, flat København for 5 weeks, these hills in Croatia were a bit of a struggle, but they provided an absolutely beautiful look at the city.

Old government building

View of the city from atop the hill

Tuesday, after a lecture in the morning about Croatia's social structure and history, we had a guided tour by our lecturer who was a 27-year-old researcher from Zagreb. He was super knowledgeable and had a lot of great connections, so we were able to see some really neat places. Among those places, we visited 4 different places of worship--a Jewish Community Center, the Roman Catholic church, the Serbian Orthodox church, and the Islamic Center. The majority of Croatia is roman catholic; however, there are many minority groups and religions represented in Croatia due to the history of the region.

These two towers of the Catholic church can be seen from pretty much anywhere in Zagreb.

This cathedral is extremely ornate--pictured here above the crucifixion scene is ancient Croatian text telling the story of Jesus' death.

We had a quick peak inside the Serbian Orthodox church.

The outside of the Islamic Center--if you look closely you can see the moon, which was really neat because it was almost aligned with the tip of the temple, which also has a moon at the top as the moon is a symbol of Islam.

That night we went out for a few drinks. As far as drinks go, Zagreb was about 4 times cheaper than København, which was pretty crazy to fathom! The exchange rate from US Dollar to the Croatian Kuna and the Danish Kroner are about the same--in Zagreb we were getting two drinks for 17 Kuna and in Denmark we'd be able to get two beers for about 50 Krone.

Wednesday afternoon we flew to Split for just under 24 hours. It was a little disappointing that we weren't there for longer, but I made the best attempt to enjoy the time that I did have there. Hey, maybe I'll go back some day...

View from our hotel room's window

Diocletian's Palace in Split. Diocletian--former ruler of the Roman Empire & "son" of Jupiter--had this palace built around 300 AD. It was pretty outstanding to walk around here.

Split by night

Split by day. We didn't really have any beach time because of our jam-packed schedule, but we did at least get to enjoy the sunshine & views this morning.

Layover in Budapest--we saw Hungary, right? Okay, maybe not.

So, now, after a terribly long day of traveling, I'm back in København for one more night before heading back to Raleigh. It's so difficult for me to fathom that 6 weeks has already passed since I began this journey, but I'll definitely take a lot of wonderful things with me--namely the travel bug. I'm already thinking of where I'd like to go next. The only problem is that there are too many places I want to see! We'll see what the future brings :)