Advice from Split, Croatia

When I was travelling by myself in Croatia after my study-abroad 2 week program ended, I went to Split for the last part of my solo week.

PICTURES AT THE END. READ FOR THE REWARD.

I was eating dinner at Hotel Peristil’s own restaurant and it was dead. Where the hungry people were, I do not know! A young – and attractive waitor – was just sitting and I was just sitting and we weren’t talking. That’s weird for people over there. He started talking to me. We must have talked for at least 3 hours. He shared with me SO much about the culture in those hours than all the studying in the world could have done. It was amazing. I discovered how much alike people are. How everyone in the world worries about how their government is changing and so on. How they work, how the economic crisis isn’t just in the US – dimwitted, I know.

He told me all about how the businesses have declined and how foreigners are all worried about how much they are spending, when only a few short years ago, that would have been the farthest thing from their minds.

Yeah, the world is a lot crappier than it used to be.

Aside from the fact that he thought it was weird that I was travelling alone, he told something about myself:

I am time-obsessed.

He reminded me that time is yours. And it’s up to you how you spend it. But, he said, Americans have lost this amazing ability to use time. Time uses us.

It was then that I noticed that the whole time that I was talking to him, I was checking my clock! WTF!? I thought… I am on vacation and I have nowhere to be, and no time constraints, I don’t have to be up early. What am I doing? I immediately put my phone far away from me so that I couldn’t see the time. And we continued to talk.

The best thing he told me the whole night was this:

Whatever you have to do, will be waiting for you when you get to it.

I so wish that this were true… they have work ethic, but they take it easy. They don’t bust themselves up by the time that they are 45 trying to do everything on Monday so they can do everything on Tuesday.

This isn’t a race… it is life.

So just slow the freak down when you can. Enjoy yourself. Don’t make yourself haggard and wretched inside just so you can have everything checked off.

Take it slow.

Take long lunches with friends. Walk slowly on your way back from class and take deep breaths and smile as you look up to the sky and try not to feel so sad doing it.

Yeah, I know, we all have schedules, but screw it every once in a while. Like he said, “It’ll be waiting for you.”

I mean, I spent a whole day walking around Zagreb’s up-town basically lost. I was looking for ONE thing in particular and essentially ended up losing a whole day… but it’s ok. I met some AMAZING people.

Look what you can miss if you don’t take time.

A little window on the streets of Zagreb. I would have missed it if I hadn't looked up. Take time to look up.

After a day of being lost, you can feel like a master of the streets once you figure it out and finally find what you've been looking for (Zagreb).

A real Croatian Baseball game... I think that's what it was. I watched it for a bit then moved on the the Archaelogical museum. Take your time getting to where you're going. Enjoy the unique things that you find along the way. (Split)

Sometimes getting lost reveals something that you would have never seen (canopy in Split)

Take the time to look and admire (Market in Split)

Zagreb. Just take a moment to look back to make sure you didn't miss anything.