Sunday evening (April 7) around 6 PM, everyone met up in the school parking lot and waited to board the coach bus. After about 45 minutes, we took off and were on our way to Croatia! I'm pretty sure we drove from Belgium, to Luxembourg, to France, to Switzerland, to Italy, to Slovenia, and finally to Croatia.
During the bus ride, every once and a while they would play movies, and otherwise people would just talk, attempt to play cards, and later on sleep. At first everyone was pretty hyped up and energetic, but the bus ride was about 16 hours so it didn't stay that way. I was one of the few people who couldn't fall asleep so I just listened to my iPod or talked with victims of insomnia until we stopped for breakfast in Italy the next morning. At that point, we didn't have too much time left in Italy, so we left Italy, zipped through Slovenia, and made it to Croatia.
Our hotel was located in Poreč, Croatia. Poreč is a small town along the Adriatic Coast with a population of about 17 000. The hotel was called the Valamar Diamant Hotel. If you clicked on the link, unfortunately the outdoor pool wasn't open at this time of year, but it was an amazing place to stay anyways. Here are some of the pictures I took of the hotel. It was a little rainy so it usually looks even better.
Hotel room exterior shot
The first thing we did after arriving at our hotel was get shown to our rooms. Some were rooms of 3 and some of 4. I was paired with two guys named Valérian and Nicolas. I already knew Valérian pretty well before, and Nicolas not so much but now I know he's cool too.
After a short break in our rooms, we all met back together in front of the hotel. From there we walked a couple minutes down to the sea and then walked along the shore to Poreč. My friends and I went out for pizza, and then we went into groups for a guided tour of Poreč. I forgot my camera in the hotel room, but we went back a few days later and I got some really nice photos of the area.
Everyone was exhausted the first day so it was a pretty chill night after the guided tour. I went out for a drink with a couple friends in town, bought a pair of sunglasses (most people forgot theirs in Belgium, I forgot mine in the US), went back to the hotel to take a nap before dinner, ate dinner, and hung out in someone's hotel room until curfew.
Every night and morning, we ate at the hotel and had a buffet. The food was pretty good, there was a lot of variety and it was cooked right in front of you. And they served American breakfast! Eggs, cheese, toast, bacon, saussage, pancakes, etc. If I had to make a list of the top things I miss from the US, breakfast would make the Top 5. It's my favorite meal in the US but it's not really a big thing in Belgium, just coffee and a croissant.
Tuesday morning we woke up early to board the coach bus for a guided tour in a Croatian town called Pula. Pula is bigger than Poreč with a population of about 57 000. The history of the city goes way back to the Roman Empire. The first picture below is a famous Roman amphitheater called the Pula Arena constructed from 27 BC to 68 AD. Some of the students asked me if there was old architecture like this in the United States. I said it was rare because the US is new, but I believe you can find older stuff in big cities on the East Coast.
After the tour, we had about an hour to walk around Pula freely. I went around with Ashley and our friends Maxime and Matthieu. We checked out a lot of the street shops and then ended up at McDonald's (I know, lame, but sometimes you just go with the group).
After Pula, we went hiking in the hills through small villages called Grožnjan and Motovun before getting back for dinner.
After eating dinner at the hotel, a lot of people were going to the indoor pool so I went along. We stayed there until the pool closed at 10, so then I just hung out with friends again until curfew.
On Wednesday, went rode about three hours away to Plitvice Lakes National Park. It's the largest national park in Southeast Europe and it's beautiful too.
Let's just say it was slippery;)
Because it's a well-known national park, there were some people hiking the trail that weren't from our school. While trying to cross a path without getting my shoes soaked, I came across a middle-aged couple from Pennsylvania. They were really friendly and they explained that they'd visited Western Europe a few times before, but never Eastern, so they decided to take a two week trip through former Yugoslavia. It was funny because Ashley came up to me just as I was about to say goodbye, and she could tell right away from their accents that they were from Pennsylvania because she was born there.
After all the hiking, we hopped onto a ferry and rode it across a lake towards our bus. Then we went back for dinner. When dinner was over, most of the students and teachers went to the bar in the hotel lobby. I didn't drink very much during the trip, but Wednesday night was an exception. I happen to know one song by Céline Dion in French, Pour que tu m'aimes encore, and I ended up singing it in front of everyone, students and teachers. Embarrassing, but at least I got a lot of praise for it!
Thursday we finally had a free day. We had to go into town in Poreč in the morning, but there were no tours or anything. The teachers just bought everyone a drink and then the rest of the day was free.
This was the first day we had of downright great weather. The first day we went into Poreč, it was alright looking, but when the sun's out, you couldn't ask for a better place to be.
Homeroom
After sharing a drink with everyone in town, I went back with to change into a bathing suit and then went back down to the shore to jump in the water with my friends Romain, Anastasia, Marie, and Alex. You wouldn't exactly say it was warm, but we don't regret it!
Anastasia & Romain by the sea
After swimming in the freezing sea, we went back to the indoor pool again. This time my friend Simon was there with his waterproof camera.
After the pool and dinner, it was back to hotel room hopping and screwing around! The last place I ended up was in a hotel room with about five other students and a few teachers. It's funny because in the US, I can remember my teacher talking about how there was a controversy when a student saw some teachers out having a beer and told her parents (maybe just because it's a religious private school), whereas in Europe, you play drinking games with your teachers. And it isn't like you're out getting wasted with them either, it's just sitting around relaxing and talking. Sometimes I wish it could be like that in the US, but I like being able to drive at 16 too.
Every night of the trip we had a curfew because we usually had to get up early, and also because a group of over 100 teenagers up at night isn't exactly quiet. Usually it was somewhere around 1 or 2, but we had a curfew of midnight for our last night in Croatia because we had to wake up really early the next morning. Well no one really wanted to go to sleep. Ashley called me about 15 minutes after midnight to ask me what I was doing, and I said nothing so I asked if I could hangout with her room with her and her roommates. She said it was fine so I headed out about a minute later.
The teachers and other staff on the trip were really serious about the curfew so you had to be careful sneaking out. My roommate Valérian was leaving at the same time as me so he helped me see if anyone was coming. He took a quick peak around the corner and told me to go fast. So I ran across the small road between the other hotel buildings and made it outside of Ashley's room. When I got to the door, I gave a small warning knock, opened the door, and there were two teachers I had been with just before the curfew doing a role call to check if Ashley and her roommates were in their room. Mrs. Rhap gave an 'I gotcha' look and said, "Keaton..." so I said "oh, uhh, Ashley forgot her cell phone in my room!", pulled out my cell phone, and gave it to Ashley. Well the teachers bought it and told me to have a good night!
So the next morning loaded our baggage in the coach bus, ate our last meal at the hotel, and took off en route to Italy. I didn't actually realize that we were going to be stopping in Slovenia to visit caves, but as long as I'm here, I'm up for any opportunity I can't have back home. In fact, I actually had to ask someone if Slovenia was an Italian city or a country. But at least I was almost sure that it was the second one.
We took a mini-train from the entrance which sort of felt like a mini-rollercoaster, and then we got to the caves. I'm not the best at differentiating between different French accents, but the tour guide's Slovenian accent when he tried to speak French was so incredibly strong. It wasn't too hard to understand though because he spoke slowly too.
After the cave tour, we grabbed a bite to eat somewhere and headed to our hotel in Italy. We didn't actually stay in Venice, but we stayed at a hotel in a town called Sottomarina, probably because Italy is a lot more expensive than Croatia, and particularly in Venice.
This time I was in a room with my friends Maxime, Matthieu, and Léopold. The room was sorta small, but comfortable, with one bunk bed and two separate twin bedsThe hotel also wasn't as nice as the one in Poreč, but it wasn't bad either, especially location-wise. It was a two minute walk from the sea, and unlike in Croatia, there was an actual beach this time.
View from hotel room balcony
Like in Croatia, we ate breakfast and dinner at the hotel. Before dinner on the first night in Italy, almost everyone went to the beach. I was the only one who went swimming when we first got there. People thought I was crazy, but it was a lot warmer than the water in Croatia! Then I went with the group of people seen in the picture above around the girl who was playing guitar. It started off with a smaller group of people singing along when they knew the song. We were looking through her songbook for songs that everyone knew and we found Hallelujah, so she played that. This one girl Laurie who is an incredibly good singer held the sheet with the lyrics, and I already knew the song by heart, so we led everyone with the verses and then everyone else sang the chorus. Eventually everyone came over and we all stood in a giant circle with our arms around each other and rocked back and forth while singing. There are a lot of great people at my school and I'm gonna miss them a lot next year.
We went back to the hotel to eat dinner, and then almost everyone went back to the beach again. I didn't swim again at night but some of the people I was with earlier did. Other than that, we all just sat on the beach and enjoyed ourselves. The same girl brought her guitar again so I ended up in a huge circle of people singing and playing again. Some of the teachers joined us too. We played things like Let It Be, Wonderwall, some French songs, etc. and eventually ended up doing Hallelujah with everyone again.
The next morning we woke up, ate breakfast, and walked for about 10 minutes until we reached a river. We then boarded a ferry together and made our way towards Murano, a small set of islands just north of Venice. I believe the boat ride was about an hour.
The first thing we did in Murano was go to a glassmaking factory. I had seen it done before in Michigan when I was a lot younger, but I don't really remember it at all. It was amazing though, the man made a perfect glass horse right in front of us.
Then we had the next hour or so to tour Murano before we boarded the ferry again for Venice.
And finally, we were on our way to Venice! We had three hours to stroll around Venice the first day.
As soon as we got to Venice, I knew it was probably my favorite place in Europe, at least so far. It's full of character, history, class, and most of all, it's warm. That's probably actually the main reason. It was the best weather I had seen since the day I left Michigan.
So because we were in Italy, one of the first things we had to do was eat Italian pizza. Italian pizza is great, but to me it's almost the same as pizza in Belgium. European pizza is way different than American pizza though. European pizza is really thinner than American pizza. It's also not drowned in cheese and tomato sauce like American pizza. One time I remember seeing an Italian-style pizza special on some cooking show, and they talked about how in Italy, it's not important to put on so much tomato sauce so that you can't see the crust underneath. And speaking of crust, don't expect to find cheese filled crust anywhere in Europe (unless maybe if you go to Pizza Hut).
After eating pizza, I went off with my classmates Gilles and Nicolas to check out the rest of Venice.
Gilles & Nicolas
I wasn't ready haha
Eventually we all met at the plaza and took the ferry back to Sottomarina. We probably got about five hours of card playing in that day.
We went back to the hotel, ate dinner, and then had another free night at the beach. Except this night, some people decided to go to the dance club down the road with the trip leader Mr. Goffin. These ones aren't my photos, but who cares
Unfortunately, that was our last night in Italy before heading back home. The next morning, we packed our stuff, waited outside, and walked back to the river to board the ferry. This time, we went straight to Venice, and for nine hours too.
The people I was hanging out with and I were pretty hungry from the get-go so first we found a place to get more Italian pizza. This pizza was even better than the day before.
A couple hours later I met up with some other people who wanted to do a gondola ride. Not very many people were up for it because it seemed pretty expensive, but 80€ split between five people is only 16€ per person. After all, who knows if I'll be in Venice again, and going to Venice without taking a gondola ride would be like going all the way to the mountains in Colorado without skiing.
After the gondola ride, we had a few more hours left. I met up with some of the friends I was with earlier and did some more sightseeing around the city. Then once we met at the plaza again, the teachers did a role call to make sure everyone was there and then treated us to dinner at a Venetian restaurant.
We still had some more time before we boarded the ferry again so I went with some friends to grab a hot chocolate at the Hard Rock Cafe. I had actually never been inside one before. I've only seen the one in Orlando from outside several times.
Waiting at the plaza
And then unfortunately, the trip was terminé. Around 10 PM, we hopped on the bus and road back to Belgium. However, Belgium was nicer when we got back than before we left. A few days before I left for the trip, I was freezing outside in my winter coat. When I got back in Belgium, it was a lot greener. I was still wearing shorts and a t-shirt and it wasn't cold out at all.
Since I've been back, I'm back to the same old, same old, going out with friends, running around in Belgium, etc. I would write about it, but this post is long enough already so I'll just see ya next time;)
Keaton
