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.
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.
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...
