Why I Love Croatia: Essay Three by BA Three

As promised, blagosphere, here is the third and final installment of our Croatian adventure. Danbot used to have long hair, runs entirely too much, and knows what I'm talking about almost 72% of the time - which is no small feat.


“We’re going to Croatia.”

 “Cool! Where in Croatia?”

 “Exactly.”

           It’s difficult to say when the trip to Croatia actually began.  For me, Croatia wasn’t just another country that I was visiting for a weekend.  It practically became a state of mind.  Even before setting foot in that country, I was in a state of perpetual mental planning and preparation: food, water, shelter, location, packing lists, backup plans, double check lists, barter for a goat?, all the what-ifs, haircut?... Sure, why not.

           “Where are we?”

Bus-Train-Train-Bus-Airplane-Bus.  After nearly 11 hours of travel, a 24-pack of Twix, antithetical passport guards, a RyanAir flight full of loud, crazy Belgians (partying next to me in the aisle), and screaming, kicking Irish kids (behind Molly’s window seat.  I think this was the one case where taking the middle seat was actually the best option.  Kevin wins, yet again), stamps on stamps, and a confusing currency withdrawal, all we could ask was “where are we?”

              “What brings you to Europe?”

                Before I continue, I want to elaborate on the passport guards.  We were in line at the passport check before departure and Molly is the first one to go.  The passport lady asks a few questions, takes one look at Molly’s passport, and commences a lengthy tirade at Molly for not having a student visa (the very student visa that we didn’t need since our stay in the EU wasn’t going to last longer than 90 days).   Meanwhile, the guard sitting next to little-miss-devil-incarnate looked bored out of his mind, with his cheek propped in the palm of his hand.  He nonchalantly waved Kevin and me to his desk and joked with us about life in Belgium as flames and the gnashing of teeth continued to spew from the adjacent desk.  Kevo and I get waved through the doors with a smile.  Five minutes later, the doors opened and out walked poor Molly wearing the what-have-I-done-to-deserve-this?-look that you usually see on lost puppy dogs.  If you hang around Molly long enough, you get to see this face fairly often (see blog post concerning pants). [it's always me...]

Now, back to the question at hand: “Where are we?”  The answer was relatively simple at the moment- we were on a bus headed towards the coastal town of Zadar.  It just didn’t feel so simple.  What was this land surrounding me? Dry scrublands spanning for kilometers, mountains exploding upward in the distance, a machine gun pillbox…what did we just pass?  Seriously, what is this place? It didn’t take long for us to realize that signs of war hang on this country like shadows cast by a conflict that lingers closely in the past.  Nonetheless, we were here and we could only go forward with our plans.

"3 Tickets to Plitvice Lakes, please."

You know you’re going to have an awesome Friday when your breakfast is comprised of apples and ice cream.  That, and not 20 minutes after leaving the hostel, we get to witness a mob of tourists pour out of their bus and start shoving parked cars off the road.  No, it wasn’t your standard Friday-morning riot (would’ve been cool, though!); the bus just needed some wiggle room.  Next step: purchase supplies.  In Croatia, there isn’t a better place to shop than Konzum!  They have it all- from dense bread to I <3 Hrvatska bandanas.  Fully stocked for 3 days of wilderness survival, we headed to the bus station.  A cameo appearance from Croatia’s very own female Clint Eastwood (we have photo evidence) and a three-hour bus ride later, we were in Plitvice Lakes National Park.  And that’s when we heard those iconic words: “Caaaaan I heelllpp yoouu?”.  Graying hair, pink-purple shirt, black fanny pack, and a face that reminded me a bit of a koala’s- Room Lady (never got her actual name) comes up and offers her place for “twweeeenntty Euuurrooss.”  No, thank you.  “I wait here thiiirrrtty minutessss”.  Ok, we’re going to go now. 

One thing you’ll never hear after the first night of camping: “I slept SO well!  Such refreshing sleep clearly deserves to be recorded in my Captain’s Log for future review!” 

I spent a good portion of the night shivering from the cold, yet still sweating due to all the nylon my skin came in contact with.  The dichotomy of it all was pretty gnarly.  Also, critters.  You could hear their footsteps in the leaves.  Pretty sure we heard a deer.  We also heard something creeping around the food bag.  Couldn’t tell what it was.  But alas, Mother Nature’s lovely minions let us be.

Bosnia or Bust

We were awake the next day by 04:00.  I was able to experience the glorious joy of peeling my arms and legs apart, already sticky from sweat and grime (it only got better from there).  We packed camp and readied ourselves for the day’s journey: go to Bosnia.  How were we planning on doing it?  Go east…very east.  One thing I didn’t really consider as we set off on our hike:  following a compass in one direction is great and all, but it doesn’t account for slight deviations made in the North or South directions, and those deviations add up.  After a few hours of hiking and straight up bushwhacking, we found a good resting point and checked the maps.  Mind you, the area we were in was absolutely beautiful: sprawling woods, chirping birds, massive rock formations.  It all just got… repetitive.  That was a bit unnerving.  That whole “Where are we?” question was resounding in my head more and more.  We decided to play it safe and start the return journey.

 I was on point to guide us back to the park.  It was difficult at times as I had to put all my faith in a little piece of magnetic metal to point us back to the direction of the highway.  In between telling stories to pass the time, I was thinking about how much supplies we had, how long it would last us, etc.  After the hike, Kevin and I both agreed that we would’ve been able to easily get by comfortably for at least 3-4 days with what we had.  I am thankful that Molly and Kevin were the ones crazy enough to go on this adventure.  Kevin’s wild stories about all his shenanigans and Molly’s choir-trained singing helped me take my mind off the unfortunate situation that we were potentially getting ourselves into.  I never really thanked them for that… cue overdue shout-out: {Thanks!, and keep on keeping on dude and dudette! \m/ }

Moving onward, we happened upon a stone wall and followed it a bit towards a creepy abandoned building/murder-shack next to a swamp.   One of the most hardcore NOPEs I’ve ever done and a 180 degree turn later, we were walking back to the wall.  I spotted a house (with intact windows) through the trees up a hill.  It was an insanely lucky find.  

Now imagine this:

You are sitting in your gazebo, in your quiet neighborhood, on a warm Saturday afternoon with your two daughters and your good friend.  Suddenly, out of the woods come three sweaty, dirty young adults with matching I <3 Hrvatska bandanas, large hiking packs, and probably a severe case of crazy eyes, admitting to camping in the wilderness and not having any idea of where they were. Yup. 

I’m pretty sure the guy thought we all had severe mental issues for thinking our plan was a good idea (I still think it was a great idea, just needed a little tweaking).  Anyway, he showed us that we’ve managed to hike off the map that we had and then directs us to the highway.  About three miles later and we’re all sitting on a bench near the pizza bistro where we ate at the night before.  And I kid you not, this is exactly what happened: a car pulls up, window slowly lowers, and… “Caaaan I heeellpp yoouuu?”  This lady is persistent!  We smiled and shook our heads no, shortly erupting into laughter as Room Lady and her husband drive away.

“Guys, I think we’ve just found Google Images”
Sunday morning: hot breakfast, HOT COFFEE! And we were ready for more waterfalls.  I definitely saw people who recognized us from the day before.  I particularly enjoyed watching everybody’s reactions after they smelled us.  Glorious.  I didn’t mind.  I was busy thinking about how much I could get fined for jumping into the pristine water and whether or not it was worth it.  You see, the government doesn’t want the “mineral content” of the lakes to be messed with, so they banned swimming in the lakes.  Yet the park runs ferry tours.  DIESEL ferries.  Go figure…

After we had our fill of immaculate, natural beauty, we headed to the bus stop for our ride to Zadar.  And lo and behold: “Whhhyy you no liikkeee my rooms?”  Room Lady is a trooper, I’ll give her that.  Probably spends a good deal of her time stalking that bus stop.  I bet if you go there now, she’ll be there.  Same outfit, too.  She changed clothing just as much as we did that weekend (we didn’t).  We explained to her how we were staying in a “place” a little ways “off the road”.

Zadar (Reprise)

The bus arrived, we got on, and I experience a T.K.O in the back row, waking up in time to watch as we rode over the appropriately named Dalmatian Mountain range.  We got back to Zadar and checked into Hostel Elena.  I asked the owner why it was named that.  He looked at me and smiled as he said, “it’s named after my daughter”.  This man = Champion.  Right after check-in, we headed straight west and dove into the Mediterranean Sea.  This was my first full-body contact with water since Wednesday night.  That’s nearly four full days without a shower.  Pretty righteous. 

The rest of the evening was vastly enjoyable; we walked around the Old City, debated the benefits of having an underwater forum, checked out souvenirs, ate ice cream and seafood, and watched the sunset.  

My time in Croatia was a monumental moment during my summer abroad in Europe.  I love the country, the culture, and the scenery.  I would do it all over again if I had the chance. Oh, the infinite wonders of Croatia!

Why I Love Croatia: Essay Two by BA Two

Molly needs no introduction. And probably the only place the preceding statement will ever be valid is this blog.

Here are some of the reasons why I love Croatia:

kuna. Talk about exchange rate, my friends. Big bags of Haribo are 6 kuna. 6 kuna are one dollar (or, were, while we were there). Therfore, big bags of Haribo are one dollar. Our first money spent in Croatia was "have-to" money. We had to get from the airport to the town, so we paid bus fare whatever it was. We had to eat dinner that night, so we paid for pizza and the convenience of a nearby restaurant without trying to scout for better deals. It wasn't until climbing in bed at the hostel that night that we looked up the exchange rate. Exuberance followed. The rest of our money spent in Croatia was I'm-a-millionaire-gonna-make-it-rain-kuna money.

konzum. This is the mother of all Croatian supermarket chains. It comes in three sizes: Konzum, Konzum Maxi, and Konzum Super. We definitely hit up the Super Konzum by the bus station at least three times. Best Konzum purchase? Matching "Ja *heart* Hrvatska! (I *heart* Croatia!)" bandannas. Because a team of adventurers without matching bandannas is not a team of adventurers.

zadar. This coastal town is hopping. The water is beautiful, clear, and blue. The world's oldest sea organ wheezes somewhat underwhelmingly, but is still neat. Old men dressed as Summer Santa Claus walk around. Juice is called nectar, which makes it seven fold more fancy. The forum was built underwater (that's a lie).

gelato. I feel like everywhere on the planet touts world famous ice cream, and that's fine by me. Being just across the sea from Italy, Zadar delivers some world famous quality ice cream, and for only a dollar a scoop (roughly). This might or might not have resulted in Breakfast Ice Cream before taking to the woods and 5 Scoops in 5 Hours after coming out of the woods.

hammocks. For all the times I've napped in hammocks, I've never for real slept in one. Until now. It was a delight. After getting over the initial, ugh-I'm-about-to-monumentally-embarrass-myself feeling that comes with jumping into a hammock for the first time, comfort abounded. Except, of course, until halfway through each night when the temperature turned frigid and I had to swaddle in a rain jacket and towel and put socks on my hands and wake up shivering+sweating due to the swaths of synthetic material surrounding me on all sides.

anarchy. Our Croatian experience was a slap in the face to the norm. Not showering for four days? check. Not changing clothes for four days? check. Breakfast Ice Cream? check. Camping in unmarked woods? check. Lighting fires in restricted areas? check. Socks and Chac's? check.


chacos. Yes, I ended up with gnarly blisters all over my feet, but were I to do it all again I would still wear the Chaco's. They're by far my favorite adventure sandals in the world. Once back in Metz, I flossed these bad boys for the first time since acquiring them many moons ago, and nasty globs of dirt surfaced from who knows what trail, puddle, or country. Not saying I deserved the blisters, but I promise to take better care of you from now on, Chaco's.


croatia shirt. My outfit plan for the trip was simple and, dare I say, ingenious. I purchased a t-shirt for a mere 4 euro at Cora prior to leaving, and wore that puppy out. Being me, that means more than your average camp wear and tear of sweat, dirt, soot, and mosquito carcasses. It means olive oil, chocolate, kebab grease, ice cream, apple juice, nectarine juice, and trails of toothpaste. Sorry, Mom.


signs. In Europe, people speak lots of different languages. Hence the importance of descriptive, unambiguous signage......not. We made an Olympic sport of deliberately misreading signs as literally as possible. Because what else would a national park be saying, other than "Don't Stand in the Water and Throw Snowballs Whilst Wearing a Backwards Cap"? What else would an airline be saying on its safety cards, other than "Clear All Severed Arms Before Opening Emergency Exit"?


firsts. This was a trip of firsts for me. First time cutting another human's hair. First time flying RyanAir. First time in Croatia. First time sleeping unprotected in the wilderness. First time sleeping in a hammock. First time peeing in the woods multiple times in succession. First time eating a fish eyeball - it was a challenge, and who was I to ruin the week's theme of obliterating challenges?
Basically, there are many reasons why I love Croatia. Probably the most important reason is that I came out of those woods feeling that much stronger and braver for having survived, and survived well. One thing's for sure, this trip will forever be in my memory as a once in a lifetime experience.

Why I Love Croatia: Essay One by BA One

K-Fed almost always finishes the jar of Nutella, has never lost a game of Rock, Paper, Scissors, and is opposed to the clubbing of baby seals - except, of course, for when the seals deserve it.

Day 37: Mercredi 20/6/2012

...following dinner, Molly gave Danny and I much needed haircuts with a pair of scissors and a comb in Danny’s room...when all was said and done, the haircuts turned out quite well, especially since it was the first time Molly had never cut people’s hair before. Danny was the first human guinea pig because he lost a best 3 out of 5 rock-paper-scissors match to me in a final score of 3-0. I won with scissors, scissors, and then paper...


Day 38: Jeudi 21/6/2012

We woke up and went to a sporting goods store near Cora to get some supplies...one of our big plans for this weekend was to not book a hostel, but instead, camp in the woods somewhere in/near Plitvice Lakes National Park. In the store, they found and bought 25 meters of nylon rope (2 of them) and cheap but sturdy hammocks (3 of them). With those purchases, we then went to Cora to get our travel day’s supply of food (baguettes and other easy-to-eat entities). Our first train took us from Metz to Luxembourg. Then, we had to go from Luxembourg to Namur, Belgium. Finally, we went from Namur to Charleroi, Belgium where we had our flight...while we were waiting in line at the Charleroi airport and during our flight to Zadar, Croatia, we met a mechanical engineering major from the University of Florida. I don’t know if we ever exchanged names, but we talked with her for a while. It was nice to see new American faces and share travelling stories with them....upon landing in Zadar, we took a bus from the airport to the city and then walked to our hostel. The city of Zadar, being right on the Adriatic Sea across from Italy, had a very Italian feel to it (architecture, food, etc.). For dinner, we all got very delicious pizzas at a very low price. The current conversion rate is about 1 US Dollar to 6 Croatian Kuna, so we had tons of purchasing power. As such, I could get by for meals, hostels, and transportation with having withdrawn less than $90 USD over the entire trip. For our hostel that night, we were on the 5th floor of a building that was right on the coast. Our room didn’t have a waterfront view, but it was really easy to find the building because you could simply walk along their shoreline until you found it. However, heat rises and our hostel didn’t have air conditioning, so we were very hot and sweaty the entire night.

Day 39: Vendredi 22/6/2012

Today, we woke up and had ice cream for breakfast. That’s always a good start to a day. Then, we went to a store called Super Konzum which sold pretty much anything you could think of. While walking there, we saw this one tour bus that couldn’t make it down a tight road because somebody had parked their car poorly. To fix this problem, the bus unloaded its 10 strongest men who literally lifted and relocated the car out of the way of the bus. Croatians are crazy. At this supermarket, we bought a small cooking pot, a knife, a lighter, a can of beans, a can of Mexican corn, pepperoni, 3 loafs of dense bread, a jar of Nutella, a jar of peanut butter, a small bottle of olive oil, a 6 liter jug of water, and a bag of instant coffee mix. All of these food stuffs were carefully chosen because we needed energy dense meals (calories per unit volume) that weren’t perishable because we were going to have them with us in our backpacks the entire time. With this, we began our journey into the wilderness. For the equivalent of $15USD we bought a bus ticket that took us 3 hours east across Croatia to the national park...upon arriving, we greeted by this nice old lady wearing a purple sweater who asked if we needed help finding a hotel. Clearly, she was trying to get us to stay at her place...we told her we already had a place to sleep (lies!) and that we were all set. We then found a bistro nearby and got dinner. When we got the bill and saw it was 60 Kuna, Danny freaked out thinking they were trying to rip us off, only then to hear me tell him that it was collectively $10 USD for all three of us to eat. After dinner, it was starting to get dark, so we had to begin preparing for nightfall. The entire park was on the west side of a “highway”, so we went just across this street into the woods, set up our hammocks about 200 meters away from the road, and prepared for sleep. We weren’t in an actual camping site, so we don’t know if we were legally allowed to be camping there, but we didn’t get caught, so all is well that ends well. We put all of our food into a “bear bag” and tied it up between two trees a good distance away from us so that any animals that may be attracted to the scent wouldn’t be attracted to us. Danny and I are both Eagle Scouts, so we sort of knew what we were doing. We used one of our 25 meter ropes to tie up our hammocks. We cut it into thirds (because there are three of us) then each of those pieces in half (because each hammock has two ends that need to be tied). Using a series of clove hitches, bowlines, square knots, and various other knots, we were able to quickly tie up all of the hammocks into a triangular formation. Being our first night in the woods, we were at first scared by every noise we heard as we were in a relatively vulnerable position. We ended up falling asleep somewhere around 10 PM (because it was dark) only then to end up waking up several times throughout the course of the night because it was really cold. We knew the daytime temperatures in Croatia were 70 to 90 degrees Fahrenheit, but we hadn’t anticipated the night
time temperatures dropping as low as they did. By time we woke up at 4 AM (sunrise), we were all wearing almost every article of clothing that we had with us. It was rough, but we made it.

Day 40: Samedi 23/6/2012

Waking up at 4 AM, the first order of business was getting our bear bag out of the tree and taking down our hammocks. Then, we began with our breakfast (one loaf of dense bread, the jar of peanut butter, and a hot cup of instant coffee). This required making a fire which was against the law (forest fires aren’t cool). Nevertheless, we did it with a reasonable amount of ease and were able to get the water for our coffee to boil in a few minutes. After breakfast, at only 7 AM, we began our big adventure of the trip. We had seen on Google Maps that we were about 10 km away from Bosnia and Herzegovina. With a park map and a map of the country, we set off on what in hindsight was a really stupid hike. No one else knew where we were, we hardly even knew where we were, and all we had to guide ourselves was a compass. We walked and walked as straight eastward as we could for hours before finally giving up around 10 AM. The terrain was filled with massive bowls, steep hills, and thick forestation making it very difficult to move fast or in a straight line. Eventually, we gave up without ever knowing if we had (illegally) made it to Bosnia or not. Finally, deciding that we had ventured far enough, we turned around and headed westward as best as we could in hopes of making it back to where we had started. Something happened along the way (either while going there, coming back, or probably in both directions) and we ended up drifting a bit off from our intended east-west line. The woods all looked the same, so we had no identifiable landmarks to go by and no trail to follow. After a few more hours of wandering westward, Danny miraculously spotted a house off in the distance. Smelling like a mixture of sweat, wilderness, campfire, and nasty, we knew they would be in shock when we came walking out of the woods into their backyard. Regardless, we needed to find our way home, so we approached the house. There were two guys sitting at a picnic table smoking and chatting with each other as they watched their kids play together in the yard. They knew English and thought our story was very funny. We pulled out the Plitvice Lakes National Park map to ask them where we were and they said “you’re somewhere around here,” pointing a couple inches below the map. Somehow we ended up about 6 km south of the park and they were happy to give us direction on how to get back there. At around noon, we left their neighborhood and headed north along the “highway” back to the park. Shortly after 1 PM, we made it back to the park where we run into none other than the purple sweater lady (it was the same purple sweater, but then again, we were also wearing the same clothes as the previous day) who pulls up in her car and asks us: “Can I help you, do you need a hotel?” Again, we told her that we were doing fine and didn’t need her help, so she reluctantly drove away. Then, we had a well-deserved lunch of another loaf of dense bread, olive oil, half of our pepperoni, and trail mix. Following lunch, we snuck into the park (because the 80 Kuna entrance fee for students seemed stupid and there were already well-defined paths made by other people who had done the same thing before us) and we toured the southern half of the park. The waterfalls there were beautiful, but not quite what Google Images had led me to believe we would be finding at the park. All along the trail, the other tourists were all looking at us, probably because we were a mess, but probably also because we smelled disgusting. By time we were done with the southern loop, it was around 5 PM and we needed to get back to our camping location to prepare dinner, put the bear bag back up in the trees, get our hammocks set up, and get ready for sleep before the sun went down. The campfire for dinner was much easier to build than the one at breakfast because we had a proven system this time of a way to get the campfire started with what we had to work with. We ate the can of beans and the can of Mexican corn along with the second half of the pepperoni that we started at lunch. Again, putting the bear bag up was very easy because we had that down to a science following the somewhat long ordeal of trying to get the rope up in the trees the first night. Hammocks too were very simple for the same reason. By around 8:30 PM we were in our hammocks and just waiting for it to get progressively darker. We talked for a little bit just to kill time but were probably asleep by around 9 or 9:30 PM. It was just as cold as the previous night but we were so tired that we slept right through it. Also, after having survived the first night, we weren’t concerned about the animals or noises that we may have heard
throughout the night.

Day 41: Dimanche 24/6/2012

Again, we woke up at around 4 AM. We got the campfire going, boiled water, made coffee, and drank the coffee along with our breakfast consisting of a loaf of dense bread and Nutella. Molly and Danny were exhausted and wanted to just have an easy day of travelling back to Zadar, then relaxing. However, I really wanted to see the northern half of the park. The southern half was alright, but it wasn’t what I had been expecting, so I was hoping the northern half was going to be better. I was right. We went/snuck into the park at around 8 or 9 AM and explored the northern half of the park. It was amazing. But of course, we run into another recurring character. One of the two guys who gave us directions when we walked out of the woods 6 km south of the park happens to work as a tour guide at the park. He saw us while on a tour and couldn’t help but laugh as he told us: “I see you found your way”. We also saw several tourists from the previous day who clearly remembered us as well as new tourists who were also put off by our disheveled appearance and increasingly more potent smell. There were caves, bigger waterfalls, and a lot more great scenery than the southern half had to offer. We ended up staying there until about noon when we had to start heading back to the bus stop. We made it to the bus stop around 1 PM, ran into the nice lady for what was now a third time. She was still wearing her purple sweater and talked with us for a bit as we waited for our bus. She tried to make her pitch to a few new people then told us her life story and how she couldn’t afford to advertise her hotel on the internet. We got on the bus around 1:50 (?) and made it back to Zadar at around 5 (?). We bought a loaf of bread and some food for our Monday travelling, ate ice cream, found our hostel, checked in and went straight to the water (about a block away). Fully dressed in our dirty clothes that we had been wearing in the woods for almost four days, we jumped into the Adriatic Sea (or at least some channel/bay/straight/sound thereof. There are many islands belonging to Croatia that surround the entire mainland coast, so this wasn’t exactly the Adriatic Sea, but it was an open body of salt water that was directly connected to the Adriatic Sea. Following a short swim and drying off period, we then went back to the hostel to take real showers (our first since Thursday morning or Wednesday night). Then, we ate our loaf of bread with the remainder of our olive oil, got some ice cream, then went to watch the sun set over the sea near Zadar’s Sea Organ. We then ate a very nice dinner trying to spend the remaining Kuna that we had and finished it off with a little more ice cream (the ice cream was not only really good, but was also really cheap). We then went back to our hostel where we got quality sleep in a real bed.

Day 42: Lundi 25/6/2012

We woke up around 8 AM and headed to the Zadar bus stop. We boarded sometime around 9:30 AM and went back to the airport for our flight back to Charleroi, Belgium. When we get there, we meet none other than the UF mechanical engineer from our Charleroi–Zadar flight. She had finished her stay in Croatia at the same time as us and was on our flight back to Charleroi. We talked some more and shared stories about our Croatian adventures before boarding our flight back to Charleroi. We landed and took the bus from the airport to the train station. There, we waited for a long time as the trains got further and further delayed...apparently there were many European train lines that were having protests and someone said the computer system at the Metz train station was malfunctioning. Whatever the cause, we eventually did pull in at around 10 PM. Hungry, we decided to go straight to a kebab place rather than take the bus back to campus. The food was good, but when we left at around 10:30 PM, we didn’t feel like waiting a half hour
for the next bus at the closest bus stop. So, keeping up in the tradition of our long weekend of outdoor adventure, we walked the 2 km back to campus and got back around 11 PM. Exhausted, I showered, unpacked, pulled two ticks off my body (major downside to camping), and went to sleep.

Why I Love Croatia: Introduction

This past weekend was my program's five day break. Most people go to Italy. Some cross the Channel. The few that miss the memo explaining Spain is for the 4-day and Italy is for the 5-day go to Barcelona. And then there's me. (I've been told that if I were I river I'd be the Nile, because I flow in the opposite direction of everyone else...)

Planning for these five days with my bros Danbot and K-Fed started with this question: where is the strangest place we could possibly, feasibly go? Our answer? Croatia. Sounds good. Stay in the capital city, see some sights, maybe set out on a day trip to see waterfalls in a national park, the like. But after awhile that started to sound a little too normal. More days in the park? All the days in the park? Camping in the park? Camping in the unmarked and unprotected woodlands alongside the park, BearGryllsing it in the wilderness for three days? Bingo. Interlaken was going to be an Epcot village compared to this.

Our preparations included a lot of logistical work to get us from Metz to Zadar and eventually to the Plitvice Lakes National Park region, a lot of list making, a lot of supply shopping, and a lot of hair cutting. The boys wanted some fresh cuts before going extended periods of time without showering, so I stepped up to the challenge and turned a dorm room into a de facto barber shop. The cuts might not have been perfect [read: the cuts were borderline awful]. The hair was shorter, though, which is really what it all comes down to, right? Right? It's nerve-wracking to cut the hair of people that you're going to be trusting to keep you alive in the Croatian wilderness.

Once hair was cut, bags were packed, and hammocks and Twix were bought, we were ready to begin our trek. What happened from there? oh. so. much. In an attempt to tell the full story of this adventure, I've enlisted the help of my Broatians to take the blagosphere by storm and deliver my first ever blog series and guest bloggers - at the same time. Woah, dang. And so begins "Why I Love Croatia: Three Essays by Three BAs".