Mr Snake

July 17^th 2012

Today we decided to brave the beach and face the sea urchins once again. Setting off with no idea where we were supposed to be going, we walked for miles, snuck into the private grounds of a hotel and eventually found a quiet stretch of beach and by beach I mean rock. 

We had some sea urchin free swims, saw some cool sea life (including a spider crab and a cuttlefish) and I had a good read on my Kindle. It was all quite peaceful until Rory started shouting at me to get up quickly. I thought I was super sunburnt but it turns out that a four foot black snake had just passed right in front of me. I was completely absorbed in my book and therefore completely oblivious but Rory was on the ball and made us move, just incase Mr Snake decided to come back and attack us. Snake aside it was a very nice, relaxing day by the sea.

Our night was fairly uneventful, we had a nice walk around town, listened to some street performers and generously applied after sun to all our burnt bits. As this Blog has been fairly short I will include some of the things which annoy me about this lovely country;

Sea Urchins – obviously, these little creatures are a massive pain in the ass, or should I say foot. They’re well hidden and are everywhere. They make nipping into the sea impossible and for that reason, are my least favourite thing about Croatia.

The inability of people to form an orderly queue – why can’t people just line up? It’s not difficult. I’ve been doing it since I was a child and had to queue to get into nursery. It’s polite and makes everything easier. There is nothing more annoying than when someone just walks in front of you without any form of apology.

The sometimes too laid back nature of Croatians – I get that it’s sunny here and you’re living the good life and being chilled out but I want to pay for my apartment. I don’t want to wait for days and days with hundreds of pounds tucked away under my bed all because you’re too chilled out to take the money from me.

The absence of simple niceties/manners (for example, please, thank you etc) – if I have to learn and use whole new word, then you should learn to say the little things like please or thank you. You should also look at me when you’re serving me and giving me my change – if you behaved that way in M&S you’d be fired.

The code of the road – I hate that motorists don’t stop at zebra crossings, they just drive straight through, even when you’re standing at the side of the road trying to cross. It’s only when a kindly person decides to stop that you can make a dash for it and even then you’re not guaranteed that the person in the other lane will stop too! Also, I hate when motorists drive through a pedestrian crossing when the green man is up. What’s worse is they look at you like you’re in the wrong for crossing the road. No foreign motorist, that man is green. Green is good. I can cross and if you knock me over I’ll be taking every penny from you and having my own Croatian holiday home. Clearly I’m not up to date with my Croatian highway code so what these people are doing is probably perfectly legal but it’s still really annoying. Why can’t everyone just be sensible, like we are in Britain? Rant over. More adventures to follow, I promise!

Grievances aside, Croatia is nice.