THE END...of a trip to Split

For our last two days in Split my Mum choose the place we stayed at ( a huge challenge in releasing control for me). The place chosen was from one of the hundreds of leaflets my Mother insists on picking up everywhere we go to add to the mountains we have stashed away back home, all unread. It was advertised as a 'Boutique Hostel' my mum reads Boutique I just see Hostel, to me I have no idea why you would want to move from a hotel to something cunningly disguised as a youth hostel.

As we enter the reception area my Mum is gleeful at the reasonably 'trendy' interior declaring that she's always wanted to stay in one of these 'cool' places, they have even named it 'Golly and Bossy' whatever that means. I hate to break it to her but it just looks like a youth hostel with white walls and a minimilistic reception desk. Our room on the third floor (we skip past the lower floor dormitories of course) is quirky I'll admit with a nice view. The walls are all white and the decoration very modern with sharp edges and cute touches. One bed is in a corner with windows enclosing it in a rooftop view of Split while the other bed is tucked away on another level (reached by a very scary ladder). I already hate the fact that I have to basically climb a vertical wall to reach my bed, while being up high is also very hot, and the sharp edges everywhere are cutting my feet. And don't even get me started on 'wet rooms', why would you want a shower that is meant to spray water all over the room soaking everything. Oh and the tiled floor smashed my MAC foundation. I do realise that I sound like a pensioner here but after the fire alarm went off one night I am allowed to complain.

The effortsome ladder but you get the gist!

Escaping the room, on our final day we decided to visit another one of Croatia’s islands (the joke over there right now is that Greece has to sell islands to gain capital and hence Croatia can then claim to have the most islands) but for now there are not. Brac (pronounced very confusingly more like Brache, if you say you want a ferry ticket to Brac you get a very blank look) was our island of choice and involved another ferry journey with a Lost like ensemble of people and a nap for me. It turns out that Brac is something of the Costa Del Sol of Croatia with tourist packed beaches greeting us to our shock (where in the world do you have to go to get PEACE I wonder). Advantages of this were we somehow managed to sneak onto two Thomas Cook sun loungers for free (SCORE) and have a day not with the yuppies but the jet skiing, water sliding families. We got out our guide to Brac at this point and it turns out there is a lot to do on this wee island, including monasteries, one of the best beaches in the world (honest), and some old bridge; we couldn’t be bothered with any of this though and resorting back to falling asleep on sun loungers. After a nap the Croatian winds picked up again (honestly there is more wind on their coastline than the East coast of Britain) so we managed a wee amble round the cute wee harbour before deciding we had better get the ferry back for another nap.

not so bad really eh...

My mum was also very keen to get back to ensure she had bought every souvenir Split had to offer (she has decided that fridge magnets are her new collectible piece in an attempt to be ‘kitsch’) and I bought my brother a very tasteless postcard to her great embarrassment. We then of course had one last ice cream; where it turns out even Royal fever has hit with the creation of a ‘Wills and Kate’ flavour! Whatever next!

If you look very closely at the middle block of ice-cream you may just be able to see the sign...or perhaps not but honestly the ice cream was called Wills and Kate!

 

And of course it rained our last night, so while reports were coming through from Glasgow of beautiful sunshine we were being raining on in the Mediterranean! Luckily packing everything does mean that I was of course prepared for every eventuality so could whip out my school waterproof for that holiday in the sun look.

 

 

 Note my Mum's brilliant photography skillz..

And finally getting home, a very stressful experience for my poor mother - part of me doesn’t understand why she goes on holiday when the travelling part clearly ages her so much. Our journey involved a 7am bus ride to Split airport, a flight to London Gatwick where we had to check out then check back in for our flight to Glasgow, before a final taxi ride home. This as you can probably guess is a long journey, the whole duration of which my mum is so stressed you cannot talk to her – GREAT. I was just so excited for London Gatwick I barely minded, after a month away the thought of M & S food was making me potentially a bit too excitable. By the time we were on British soil I already had my whole meal planned out meaning I was able to rip open the packaging almost immediately after sighting the British food haven (and can I just say now it was totally worth the wait and hype!)

HOME SWEET HOME

SPLIT

Holidaying with my mother is of course laced with pros and cons... On the positive side, I get to stay in slightly nicer places (hostels are too much for her, the idea of sleeping in bunk beds confuses her) and eat in slightly nicer places (the woman does like a bargain but deems my usual eating bread on the street a step too far). Further positives are that I am not travelling alone and the company is useful, for instance we took a walking tour of the city, I was able to fall asleep (metaphorically) and get a simplified version from her later.

Negatives are that I am stuck for 8 days with my mother. You can take the person away from the package holiday but you can't take the package holiday out of the person. My mum hence enjoys doing nothing and somehow manages to make wandering about the town centre entering souvenir shop after souvenir shop last all day... Yesterday we found somewhere to sit and my mother not wanting to pay for pricey UK magazines managed to spend 2 hours reading the Croatian ones, she found the way UK celebrities were depicted very interesting, god knows how she worked out any Croatian! Not that I am necesarily complaining as we sample every coffee shop in Split, the only problem is finding a coffee that we define as normal...if you ask for a coffee you get an espresso, if you ask for a coffee you get an espresso with milk, if you ask for a cappuccino you get an espresso with frothy milk on top; or some crazy combination of all three. We have tried a whole range of hand actions and words to no avail, yesterday after a particularly heated sign language conversation, I was handed an espresso in a large cup and given a whole metal jug of frothy milk separately - we give up. Another negative quality of my Mother's is that she believes no one here can speak any English so does the very British thing of shouting at them in slow English. Even when they answer back in perfect English she still instinctively has to shout at them, this is incredibly embarrassing believe you me.
After exhausting every souvenir shop in Split, the last few days we moved to an island off the coast called Hvar (pronounced var with a kind of weird flemy sound on the front). The catamaran over there was entertaining in itself, Hvar seems to attract literally every kind of person under the sun; every nationality seemed to be accounted for, as well as families, elderly couples, back packers, and plenty of rahs ( one of which had an amazing TOWIE tote bag that said 'totally reem'). In a weird way I almost wanted the ferry to crash in a Lost-esque way as the people on that ferry would make a brilliant TV show. As long as I was the main character of course.

Hvar was in my mum's words full of 'Hooray Henry's', we managed to pick the one place in Croatia that is horrendously overpriced. Lovely as it was mind. The food was a particularly highlight as we made our way through cuttlefish risotto (a bright black delight), shrimp pasta, fish soup, muscles, sea bream, and plenty other culinary delights. While one night my Mum went all out and had a glass of wine, she never drinks so after about two sips was feeling slightly merry, made even more amusing because I had chosen a slightly 'hip' bar. She knows some of the songs thanks to aerobics classes and is always happy so show off her moves! A man was doing yoga one morning and she was one step away from having a yoga off beside him as apparently she is more flexible!b I also have a new hobby (as shown below) of photographing my Mum eating, as you can see there are some hilarious consequences, the woman is amazingly unphotogenic.

Sinister risotto while my mum goes mad for the shellfish.
It was at the harbour though, the full extent of the holiday makers Hvar attratcts is clear, the yachts were verging on private cruise liners all complete with crew that polished the white ships constantly. This is the place to meet your rich husband for sure, the pricesest cocktail bar contained plenty of men by mother's age who I would be more likely to head home with. We were more content however spending our evenings in our apartment watching BBC News (naturally the only English channel). We pretty much had a middle aged couple holiday! Having repeated naps through the day and only going for short walks which then tired us out for the day.

HVAR

AND FINALLY
just because its so funny, my mum's passport photo (she is scared of the flash!), I don't even know how she got away with this...

lonesome travelling ENDS, mother ARRIVES...

Generally people are quite surprised when they see I am travelling alone and think I am a) brave and b) presume I must get very lonely. In fact I think its the complete opposite - no one bloody leaves me alone! ( and I mean this positively). In the Balkans if you're on your own people seem to assume you therefore need someone to talk to. Within minutes of leaving the German girls a posh Montenegran woman who now randomly lives in Zurich was telling me about her life and insisted I take two bananas. While waiting for a bus to Dubrovnik involved an encounter with a very odd man who from what I could make out learnt English out a book, worked in the train station during the week, and at weekends masquerades as a taxi driver at the bus station (he offered me a lift which I declined). He however insisted I take his number so that next year me and all my friends can go stay with him (he'll drive us anywhere). In the course of my painfully long 30 minutes with him he managed to plan out a full trip we could do which includes a trip to the local archeology museum. Somehow 'Duka' also managed to take a photo of me in between saying his favourite word (and a general favourite of Bosnians) 'super' a lot. My lasting memory of Duka was me getting on the bus while he stood at the window saying 'I can see you 'super'. Maybe his number is one to bin...

On a tour to Mostar from Dubrovnik I met two English couples who found me travelling alone particularly perplexing - I explained that I was staying mainly in Youth Hostels so was never really alone. Later I overheard them dicussing this - with one explaining to the others that things are different now and these things called Youth Hostels allow young people to mix! So as you can see travelling alone is not really being alone. The arrival of my mother though would soon sort that! You see wanting a holiday, and since I was in a sunny part of the world it made sense for my mum to join me for my final week in Croatia.

A lover of the package holidays though this presented obvious difficulties as she would have to get to the Croatian town of Split without the aid of a tour guide. The night before I was bombarded by text with questions such as 'do they speak English?', 'will they accept credit cards?', and 'what is the weather like?'. I honestly believe she thought I was secretly taking her to Afghanistan.

By some sort of miracle though she did make it from the airport to the centre of Split, of course ten texts were sent on the bus (I explained afterwards this was roughly a 2 pound interchange) asking more questions such as 'how do I know when to get off?' and again 'do they speak English?'. I told her to get off when everyone else does and speak German to them. The silly woman then spent the journey learning German phrases!

Our hotel was conveniently located near the bus station so a short walk and we were there. I had spent the previous night in the Split 'Booze and Snooze' hostel that actually involved a lot less boozing and more snoozing than you would imagine (probably due to the signs everywhere informing you if you went to the clubs 'YOU WILL GET ROBBED'. Nice city then! So I had already checked us into the hotel before I met my mother, the woman at reception asked where my colleague was (I LOLed). I even managed to get all my washing done for a mere ten pounds (tourist prices!). My Mum was fresh off seeing Glee in London the day before (by herself bless her and was high like a 15 year old girl!) When I brought my Mum to the hotel I think it was evident business associates we were not, my Mum offered the idea though I could be her toy girl...

It's going to be a long few days....