I'm just a little too flabbergasted/amazed/bewildered at where we started this morning...
...compared to where we are ending this evening.
I suppose I could just break the ice by saying that I'm on a yacht right now. Curled up under a cozy checkered blanket on a soft, delicious mattress in the harbor of Marina Dalmatia.
How? What? Even... possible?
Happy.
These are my thoughts. They are a disjointed mixture of disbelief and ecstasy.
Our last night with Mr. Boring involved us trying to cook him baked stuffed aubergine with mozzarella and mushrooms and tomato sauce. Except he told me he was making us fish and that I shouldn't use tomato sauce because tomatoes don't go with fish. Then he told me I shouldn't bake the aubergine because they take too long. They should be cooked on the stove instead. I made a lighthearted joke about it being his fault if my dish didn't taste good, because he was finagling with all my plans.
He let me bake my aubergine. So I wouldn't blame him for its doomed demise into the bleak, bland land of "boring."
During dinner, he tried his best to convince Tessa that there were no islands in the Pacific Ocean between Panama and New Zealand.
Tessa rammed her hand into her face and we brought out a globe.
There are a few islands between Panama and New Zealand. Just so y'all know.
Then he made the all too familiar joke to me about yoga and Yogi Bear.
I chuckled weakly. A weak chuckle took magnificent strength and forbearance.
I can make anyone feel comfortable. Yes. This is my skill. I can be obscenely nice.
Then he said something about Pooh Bear coming after Yogi Bear.
Tessa does not possess my skill of being obscenely nice. She possesses a different skill. It's aptly titled, "Queen of bullshit calling."
"I'm pretty sure Pooh Bear was before Yogi Bear," she said through gritted teeth.
"No," Mr. Boring looked up from corn crusted, tomatoless fish. "Pooh Bear is a new thing."
"Pooh Bear came out in 1924. I just googled it," Tessa resolutely displayed her iPhone.
"I hate Google," Mr. Boring retorted before tasting one of my aubergine circles.
I petted Tessa's' knee reassuringly. I wasn't sure just how much more bullshit she could handle.
"Can we go watch the sunset?" she asked me after we'd finished our fish and veggies.
"Yes," because sunsets aren't boring. Sunsets are breathtaking, my thoughts raced through my quick response. "We'd like to watch the sunset. Is it okay if we're back in about an hour? Thank-you so much for dinner. It was really, really lovely."
"Yes, thank-you," Tessa's relief at escaping the situation put on the facade of gratitude.
"An hour is okay for me," our host watched me take the plates from the table to the sink. "No, no, don't wash! I will take care of this."
So my simmering friend and I skip-hopped down to the promenade to watch the sunset. It was spectacular.
We said goodnight and goodbye to our host when we returned. Our plan was to leave the apartment quite early (seven o'clock) in order to catch a bit of morning traffic and miss a bit of morning curmudgening.
I made myself a cup of instant coffee the next morning. My mug was decorated with an angry looking cartoon child and the caption, "Every day the same shit."
How does this person get through his days? I tried not to let my souring mood sour my coffee.
I took another sip of Nescafe in the silence.
Is that... rain?
Drip.
Drop.
Pitter, patter.
SPLATTER.
CRASH, BOOM.
blurgh.
Tessa and I waited an extra fifteen minutes for the weather to clear, and then waltzed outside into the clean, fresh air, dancing, prancing beside puddles.
"WE DID IT!" I crowed. "We survived the most depressing worldview in the world, souls primarily intact."
"I feel scarred," Tessa said as she rummaged through a pile of cardboard next to the apartment dumpster. "How's this one?"
"Great," I tore the cardboard in half and scrawled on the word "ZADAR."
Here we go.
We walked up a goodly amount of stairs, scampered around precarious shoulders of busy streets and eventually found ourselves out of town.
We held up our sign, stuck out our thumbs and pasted on our smiles.
"I think tradesmen are our biggest fans," Tessa laughed as a group of middle-aged men gawked, grinned and waved as they whizzed past.
We're learning just how little attention people are paying to the road whilst driving. Most are talking on cellphones, messing with their faces (and some manner of makeup), or eating some sort of takeaway.
The scientist in Tessa wants to do some sort of study on people and their driving, but I'm more interested in trying to make eye contact with the ones who pretend we're invisible. Perhaps it'll be like seeing a relative you assumed was long dead. Or finding a partially moldy tomato in the back of the fridge that you thought you ate at the potluck last week.
People look at us in a vast variety of ways as they careen past. Some are confused. Some are guilty. Some are purposefully blank. An amusing and popular variety is the face one makes when one sees a gone off piece of produce hiding behind the milk. It's the, "umm... I think I'd rather just ignore that than chuck it out," face.
We are the rotten tomato. Man.
Our first location wasn't good. The drivers who acknowledged our existence smiled apologetically and circled their fingers to convey that they were on their way back into Sibenik and could not give us a ride.
Our second location wasn't good. It was at the bottom of a hill, drivers were flying past and all seemed to be flying directly towards Sibenik. Do not pass GO. Do not stop to collect two cheerful looking hitchhikers who are continuously laughing at their own jokes to keep their spirits up.
Our third location was perfect. We waited for around fifteen minutes in front of a large supermarket just past the last exit to Sibenik, smiling and waving and engaging in other friendly, "give us a ride, we're actually adorable koala bears in disguise" antics. Then a large cement truck rumbled to a stop.
A truck driver... hasn't the media told me that 99.9999 percent of truck drivers are actually dirty old men who just want to molest hitchhiking young ladies?
"Should we take it?" I warily eyed the large vehicle.
"He looks nice," Tessa noted as the driver hopped out to put some of his things in the back and make room for us.
"Great," I swallowed my media induced fear (Harriet would have asked me to describe it in detail). "Let's go for it."
And it was. So, so great. Our ride was a rather huggable man from Split who spoke hardly any English, but smiled pleasantly and laughed out loud when he saw how amazed I was by the seat suspension.
"This is wonderful!" I shouted as the seat bobbed up and down with the bumps on he road.
"Aimee has decided to become a truck driver," Tessa tried to communicate with the huggable Croatian. "She likes the seats so much."
I don't think he understood, but he laughed anyway. We all did.
The seat continued to bob and I continued to be absolutely delighted.
Nako (our driver) slowed to a stop a few kilometers outside of Zadar. Tessa and I climbed down the stairs and onto the pavement and he passed our bags down to us. Tessa's first and without complaint. Mine second and with a huff and a heave and an English exclamation of "it's a big boy!"
"I know..." I huffed and heaved it onto my back. "Hvala! Thank-you!"
"Goodbye!" Nako waved before slamming the passenger door shut and driving off down the road.
We stopped at a Lidl to assemble our traditional picnic and then continued our trek to Zadar.
Anything with my "big boy" is a trek.
It started to rain just before we reached the old town, so we popped into a cafe for a cappuccino, some shelter and a bit of internet.
 |
| We don't get picked up by women. We might start carrying chocolate to persuade this demographic. |
"We'll be okay," Tessa sipped the foam off her coffee and seemed unperturbed.
"Yes. We'll figure something out," I adopted her unperturbed expression and tried to make it mine.
This is still so hard for me. Letting things be last minute. Resisting the impulse to panic and micromanage. We don't know where we're sleeping tomorrow night, but we'll probably sleep somewhere. And it'll probably be okay.
The rain stopped, so we continued our journey downtown. We browsed the criminally priced local market for some apples and then sat next to Zadar's famous sea organ to enjoy our picnic while being serenaded by the sea.
 |
| Haven't quite broken in my shoes... I'm becoming a master at ignoring pain. |
At this moment, do I want anything different? Career? House? Husband? Children?
Nope. This is where I belong and this is how I belong.
 |
| The ice cream here goes well beyond extravagant |
At least, I assumed he'd be meeting us at the beach. I figured that he was probably working at the marina or something similar. What else would he be doing on the beach?
"Wait..." Tessa stopped as we approached the pier. "Does he live on a boat?"
"I'm... not... sure?"
"He definitely lives on a boat!"
We followed the directions on my phone down to the beach, to the left and then to pier 42. We froze. Except our jaws. Those dropped considerably.
"He lives on a yacht."
An attendant wandered up and told us not to take pictures. We replied that our friend was on the yacht. He remained quite unconvinced and motioned that I put my iPhone away and "not take pictures."
"Our friend --" I tried to say, but then gave up. I think I realized just how ridiculous this looked. Two smelly, dirty, poorly dressed foreign girls with ENORMOUS backpacks turning up randomly in front of a gorgeous yacht and saying that their friend is inside?
A bit incredible.
So I decided simply to call Kristof.
I'd wanted to couchsurf with Kristof for many reasons -- most of which were related to the fact that the Frenchman has already accomplished nearly everything I hope to do with my life. He walks the Camino every year. He goes to India every year. He's been all over South and Central America and his profile just made him out to be a sincerely nice guy to whom life isn't boring. In the least.
I've discovered that the most difficult type of person for me to connect with is the perpetually bored. The impossible to enchant. Those who approach the world with the disinterested attitude of "I've seen it before, why would I care to see it again?"
Kristof if not one of those people.
Kristof is absolutely enamored by life. Just being around him for an evening filled me with energy and excitement. Motivation and clarity.
Kristof did not ask me when I would stop traveling. Kristof did not tell me I needed to stop traveling.
Kristof simply opened my eyes to many more places I could experience.
This is the kind of person I want in my life.
He brought Tessa and me jars of pineapple juice and asked if we were going to swim. We swam (I panicked even less this time), showered, walked around the small town of Sukosan, took yoga pictures and returned to the yacht.
Where Kristof prepared an absolutely gorgeous meal of basmati rice with ginger, cardamom, lemongrass and coconut milk while Tessa and I watched this new sun as it slowly, gloriously set over this new horizon.
There were strawberries after dinner. Then chocolate. Then silver cardamom saffron morsels Kristof had picked up in India.
"If we eat anything else, we're going to sink the yacht," Tessa commented as she broke off another square of hazelnut chocolate.
We watched a few short videos with our host and then collapsed into the most comfortable bed in which I've ever slept.
"Tessa?"
"Yeah?"
"Are we on a yacht?"
"Yeah..."
How? What? Even... possible?
Happy.
These are my thoughts. They are a disjointed mixture of disbelief and ecstasy.
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