Croatia?

In the morning I had breakfast down in the main lobby of the hotel I stayed at. It was slightly better here than at the last hotel, or maybe I was just hungrier. It's hard to tell. I tried to take my time checking out. I had all day till I needed to be at the ferry station, and I didn't want to be stuck hauling my backpack all over the city. At the other hotel they kicked me out at 11, however I didn't see any kind of a checkout time in the lobby so I tried to stay as long as possible, perhaps get some sleep. I had barely slept at all last night, I was up writing the previous night's blog while watching some TV in my room. I finally turned it off for the night and was awaken about an hour later when the TV suddenly turned itself back on. I thought I had rolled over the remote, but I found the remote still sitting on the nightstand where I'd left it. I turned it off again, making sure to press the same button, thinking it might have been possible I accidently set some kind of timer. However, the TV remained off this time.The whole ordeal freaked me out, and I had trouble getting to sleep the rest of the night. I need to start getting back to places with hostels. This whole "on my own" thing is starting to mess with my head.

After I'd finally checked out. It was still only about 12:30, so I hung out in the ferry for a while. I was hoping to buy my ticket for the ferry while I waiting there, but there was no one at the ticket counter. I asked some of the guards how I buy a ticket for the ferry to Dubrovnik. They all pointed to the empty counter as if I was stupid. "There's no one there" I defended myself. Several times over, I got the same response. They looked surprised, shrugged, and said "I dunno, wait a couple minutes, someone'll be there." Two hours I waited, and no one came. Someone told me to come back at 4 when the ferry gets here, and then I could buy my ticket. All right, well that leaves me with another 2 hours to kill. I grabbed my stuff and walked down the harbor for a while. I bought one last gelato in Italy before I was off to Croatia, and watched the boats on the mediterranean.

As I was heading back, A seagull dove down and grabbed something in the water, then flung it at a man sitting on the dock. It just missed his head and landed right about at my feet. I look down to see what it was. It was a huge squid! It was about the size and shape of a water bottle, in fact that's what I thought it was at first, but it was actually a live gigantic squid! I thought it was pretty awesome, I'd never seen anything like that before. Only in Venice.

I returned to the ferry station only to find nothing was different. There was still absolutely no one in the ticket office, and way too many guards standing around a single metal detector. 90 percent of the people in the station were guards, and there was one metal detector, so the rest of the guards had absolutely nothing to do but cluster around and gossip like it was the 5th grade. I asked one of them to help me figure out why there was still no one able to sell me a ticket, and the ferry was supposed to be here 10 minutes ago. He shugged like they all do, and said it wasn't his job. I wanted so badly to say "well what IS your job!?" But I resisted. I just sat by the metal detector planning that when the ferry arrived, I was just going to go through and try to get on the ferry without a ticket. I was fairly certain this place was so unorganized, I could just walk by and no one would ask questions.

It didn't end up happening like that though. At about half past, A huge German tour group came through. Of course, immediately they were allowed to board. They asked me for my ticket. I wanted to scream. "I've got no ticket! There's no one in the ticket office." They again checked the ticket office, once again baffled that there was no one there. Finally, one of the guys came over to me trying to help. I told him what I was trying to do, and he told me there aren't any ferry lines to Croatia today, just tour boats. I was about to get upset, but then he told me to wait here for a second. He was gone for a couple of minutes. I saw him talking to the leaders of the German tour group who kept looking back at me and shaking their heads. He finally returned, and said He'd get me on the boat, I just had to show my passport to the captain so he can log me down in the the books, and then slip him 50 euros.

I agreed, and then somehow ended up on a cruise ship full of old Germans for 4 hours to Croatia. The tour guide was way to excited as he welcomed the group of seniors to the voyage with a Mickey Mouse club type enthusiasm. A couple rows down, a group of 6 or 7 ladies periodically broke out into song, and the old man sleeping next to me occasionally spurted out angry sounding german sentence fragments which I can guess must have come from his days as a Hitler Youth.

At last we arrived in the harbor, and de-boarded. I wandered around these new docks as darkness set in, however I didn't see anything anywhere that said Dubrovnik on it. Just to be sure, I stopped at a shop by the docks, and asked what city this was. "Porec" he told me, with a confused look on his face. I ran back to the boat just as it was shoving off. I flagged down one of the dock workers. "I needed to go to Dubrovnik!" I told him. "That boat says Dubrovnik!" He told me it was just the name of the boat. It doesn't go to Dubrovnik. If I wanted to get to Dubrovnik I'd have to find a bus and travel all night. He showed me where to find the bus station, and I ran there. However, by the time I got there, it was all closed up. I sat there at the bus station for a while in the dark trying to figure out my next move, when I noticed a hotel next door. I walked in, and picked up a map to see where exactly I was. The good news was that I was in Croatia. I was just in the wrong part. I asked when the bus station would be open again, and they told me around 7am tomorrow. Again, I was sort of left without many options. I booked a fairly cheap room for the night. Tomorrow morning I'll try to catch a bus to Dubrovnik, and we'll see if that all works out. However, I'll get to see a little more of Croatia than I'd planned, so that's good, but it looks like I'll be flying through this country just like all the others.
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