the best italian st. pattys there ever was...i think.

ill just start this entry off with my game face...

lucky for christine and i, the italians reallllly know how to celebrate an irish holiday (but even the irish dont party on st pattys like americans do, we pretty much made that baby up). i was going to skirt over this particular puzzle piece in my italian adventure but decided that i would be skirting over one of the best nights of my life right next to notte bianca which i will blog about later. 

ill keep this short and sweet because with the countless amount of very large beers that i consumed that night, i dont really remember much (sorry dad, its only happened once :)). 

the first beer and the only one bought at lions fountain

we decided to do a bar crawl for the day and started quite early, around noon. this is the day that we met a great group of people that we ended up hanging out with the rest of the semester. this includes luca- shout out to him because he recently started following me...hey luca! luca is pictured below. a hansom italian man with a smart ass mouth but endearing personality. also, very good taste in music which he played with his band conveniently right across from my apartment at a bar called BEBOP. 

christine and i were pretty poor in italy. but we wanted to have fun like rich people. so naturally, we made our way to our local euro store to buy our beers. it was the worst beer that ever touched my lips but you win some you lose some. except i still won because they were only a euro, and thats that. of course we forgot about a bottle opener so i ended up popping them off with my bare hand on a metal post in the street all day. i felt pretty badass. the next day i woke up with a hangover and a purple hand. 

this is the part where i tell you all the details of the night. but they are sort of muddled so...

details, 

everyone signing my bar crawl shirt (some appropriate, some not so appropriate. definitely cant wear that shirt in public)

details,

christine dropping her iphone in the toilet,

christine making bets that she can outdrink grown men,

details,

ride on lucas scooter,

details,

teal shows up,

details,

we meet a wonderful older couple erin and something or the other and have a drink with them,

chatting with teals mom about how amazing erin was...

on and on till about 4am

the details arent important! what is important is that this night was one of the best and i met some wonderful people that made the rest of my time in italy a blast. the next morning i was greeted with the worst hangover in the universe that was thankfully cured by a little thing i like to call GUSTA PIZZA. those people put crack in their crust, i swear it. 

"im almost positive this is where fairies come from."

i can honestly say that croatia is one of the most beautiful places on earth. imagine: the islands are made of this beautiful white rock, contrasted with forests of deep green colored trees and all of this sitting in the middle of the bluest, freshest water. during my visit to croatia, teal, christine and i saw the islands of korcula and hvar. both seemed to be straight out of some crazy utopian world.

the funny thing is- we went to croatia for our spring break which was halfway through march. nobody informed us that the islands dont really get poppin' till the first weeks in may. so...everything was dead. in a nice way! let me tell you, with all the florence craziness, a relaxing spring break was sort of needed. 

to give you an idea of how dead it was...we only had basically ONE choice of a restaurant to eat our meals at. that leads me to the subject of hospitality...the croatians art quite possibly the most hospitable people that i have ever met in my lifetime. maybe its all the fresh, fabulous air? or maybe everyone is always slightly high on smiley drugs? not sure. but ive never felt so welcome in a foreign place. 

when we arrived at our first hostel, the owner (whos name i could not for the life of me 1. remember or 2. pronounce if i could remember) sat us down, fed us the most scrumptious dried figs (they are known for their figs) and gave us the strongest homemade liquor i have ever touched my lips to. i like strong drinks. i choose to drink whiskey on the rocks. this stuff, i think if i actually swallowed it, i would have been jumping from rooftop to rooftop, topless. for real, people. (a thought- maybe this is why they are all so chill?) on top of the strong drinks and figs, this man, all warm smiles, made us feel like family. upon realizing the VERY short list of eateries, he insisted that he would find a way for us to have an amazing seafood dinner. he called his friend up and told them to open their restaurant to cook for us and only us. (this restaurant hadnt been open since the end of the season which was easily september). a personal chef basically! if that isnt hospitality, i dont know what is.

the view from our first room

our time on the islands was made mostly of finding hidden sunbathing spots in the rocks that line the shore. we found a few amazing spots- one spot is featured in my current profile picture on facebook that has caused such a huff among everybody. i mean, come on people. if youre going to go topless, it should be in croatia!

PHASE TWO of our croatian adventure: the mainland and the spectacular plitvice lakes

check out the video for a peek at our journey:

journey to the lakes in a british accent

waiting for our car after the rental guy brought us the wrong one. i looked as the stick and said uh, somethings wrong! so teals a bit sad cause she wanted the little red car. 

a better picture than the stuff in the video of what we were seeing on our drive

we walked miles on top of the water of the lakes (these hand rails were a happy surprise because usually there was no protection)

veliki SLAP (slap means waterfall. that was fun to say)

to see more of the lakes, watch this video i found on youtube. the music is...interesting. 

but! the scenery is beautiful!

plitvice lakes

heaven.

a mini cave that i just needed to explore. it would have been awesome if i found a bear in there.