New Adventure

I know I have neglected this for far to long. Please forgive me, but upon returning from my trip to Honduras and Guatemala, everything seemed too boring to write about. The most exciting thing that happened while back in Charleston was going up to Pittsburgh for Christmas to be with all my family. Not much else happened and most of my days were filled with the fumes and stains from coffee, along with the incessant pleas of customers wanting just half a Splenda in their latte, not the whole packet. I must admit though, my hand slipped several times and the whole packet ended up in the latte. Surprisingly, no one complained or said their latte was too sweet, and instead our tips went pleasingly upward. I must say that my time in Charleston hit rock bottom, when upon entering my Starbuck's parking lot for my first day back I ran into a car speeding through the lot. To make matters worse, Crazy Judy (a regular with a nickname that says it all) was a witness to the whole thing greeted me by saying “I heard you were coming back, but I didn't think it would be made with such a BANG (insert evil laugh).” Since that encounter, Judy's drink was made with a little less care.
All this though, definitely made me search a little harder for my next scuba adventure. Unfortunately, though all the opportunities that I found were for scuba instructors. It turns out that divemasters really aren't part of the professional diving world and if you want a job you have to be an instructor. With this in mind I started searching for the best and cheapest way to get my instructor certification. I eventually found a internship in Croatia on the island of Vela Luka. I sent in my resume and they excepted me immediately. After praying over it and trying to find something a little closer to my side of the world I agreed to enter their program. The deal was that as long as I bought all my materials and paid all my PADI fees, they would teach me for free and upon completion, I would work for them for 2 and a half months. The program started on May 10th and I would be free to go on August 6th. The first two weeks were for my instructor training. I decided on this back in the beginning of March and May seemed so far away. I really didn't think it would come fast enough. However in the last two weeks of the countdown I was wishing I had two extra weeks. Of course, being a Speer I had to wait to do everything. Those two weeks were filled with buying plane tickets, PADI books, dive gear, servicing my old gear, and trying to figure out where in the world Croatia was. The day before I flew out of Charleston I was calling my local dive shop seeing if my books had come in and whether my serviced gear was ready to be picked up. Yes, I am still thanking the Lord that everything worked out and that I got everything accomplished in time.
Anyway, I decided that I was going to leave Charleston a week early and go up to Pittsburgh to see my sister and her family. Then I would fly straight out of Pittsburgh. What I didn't know is that my parents had decided to fly my other sister out to Pittsburgh during that time so that we could all see each other. It ended up being so much fun, and my special Aunt Jennifer also came up during that time. It was a lot fun, and I believe Jeremy and Sarah are still trying to recover from that crazy weekend. After both Janine and Jennifer left it was really neat to relax and see both Sarah and Jeremy in their parent modes. My hat goes off to both of them, because I have to admit that after a week of two small children crying, needing to always have something in their tummies, and also for wrinkling their noses and saying “EWWW..........poo poo” I was ready for Croatia. That week really showed me how selfish I am and that I am no where near the child rearing stage. Parents (and I mean good parents) really have my respect, because that is one of the bravest things someone can do, and it scares me to death to think about the responsibility it takes to raise little ones.
My week at Sarah's went faster than any other week I have ever had. I was sad to go,but excited for what was to come next. At the Pittsburgh airport I got the first small taste of how things were going to be. The machine refused to print out my boarding passes and no one knew how to make it print them. They ended up doing it manually. My flight to JFK was uneventful and so was the flight from JFK to Frankfurt. It was strange though to be on a plane flying from America and not hear one word of English on it. Just about everyone was from Germany going back home. Needless to say, very little of my four years of German came back to me.
Once in Frankfurt I had no idea what I was supposed to do. I knew I needed to get my boarding pass for my flight to Split, however what about my bags and was I supposed to go through customs? I had no idea and ended up walking around and riding the different trains back and forth from the different terminals trying to figure it out. Eventually I realized I was supposed to go through customs, get my bags and then check in with the Croatian airline people. Finally, I got my boarding pass and got my bags checked. However, I was not supposed to have a second bag and it cost me 65 euros. A little steep I thought, but it was either that or not have either my clothes or dive gear.
I got to Split and had to catch the bus into town. The airport was 20 minutes from town so we had a nice ride through the country. The bus dropped us at one end of the strip of the old town that ran next to the water. Of course this is the busiest part of the city, because all the tourist stuff, along with the local markets, and the ferrys, are located there. To makes things even better, there was a festival going on that day in honor of the Patron Saint of Split. Throngs of people were everywhere and I had to manage my way through them with two 40 lbs bags, all while trying to find my hostel. I had directions but the were very nondescript. They read, make your way to the palace wall, turn right, walk for one minute, there should be a large gate (silver gate) in the wall, and on the right of the wall is a large stone building, enter the building and walk up the stairs. Yeah, I really didn't think I was going to find this place to easy. Luckily, there was a nice lady that read the confusion on my face and helped me along my way. Turned out that I found the place quite easily, and everyone there was really nice and helpful. I actually wasn't going to be staying in the actual hostel but at an apartment they had for people to stay in. I moved all my stuff in and decided to go out and look around.

The city had gotten busier by this time and I just wondered around. It is an amazing place and the festival really added to the feel of the city. After a couple hours of walking I went back to the apartment to try and get some rest. In the past 24 hours I maybe got 2 hours of sleep. After a couple hours of sleep I decided I would go back out for a while and then go back to bed. I need to explain something about my room before I go on. To get to it you had to go through another persons room. No one was in that room when I checked in or when I went back to my room. As I went through the door to exit my room I hear a gasp and of course the GIRL that was in that room was changing. I was so embarrassed and quickly ducked back in my room. After a few seconds she said it was alright for me to come through, and quite awkwardly we got through our introductions. We figured out a system to get around the strangness of how our rooms were set up and from then on everything went fine.
Back in the city, I grabbed my dinner of pizza and gelato and hiked up to the city's lookout point. The views were amazing and after a couple of hours of walking around I headed back to get a good nights rest.
The next morning was more of the same, coffee and a small cafe, and more walking around. The weekend markets were open and everyone from the country had brought their wares for sale. They had everything for sale. I saw walnuts and honey, fresh cheeses, butcher's hacking at meat, dried meat hanging, fruits and veggies of all kinds. It was by far one of the neatest markets I have seen. I also walked through the fresh fish market which was really neat. So many different kinds and they all looked like they were just pulled from the sea. Back at the regular market I bought a cherry turnover and walked to the park to read my PADI scuba manual and eat. That cherry pastry was so good I thought about going back for more.
I bought my ticket to the ferry to Vel Luka and it leaves at two. I have about an hour and better get ready to hot foot it to the ferry. Hopefully I will make it and not run into any problems.