Split's Personality

Croatia is a country that I honestly might not have ever thought about, except that my high school soccer coach was from there and that's really all I have to say about that. I never in my life said to myself, "You know where I really want to go?!?! CROATIA!" But, when our family heard that Split, Croatia was on the itinerary of our cruise, I think we all thought, "Sweet!" (Actually, the itinerary said just "Split," so we spent a lot of time discussing if this meant that there were two ports we could chose from and some people would be tendered to one place and others would be tendered to another, and therefore the people would be "Split." But I digress.)

Split, Croatia - along with the rest of the Dalmatian Coast along the Adriatic Sea - is a beautiful, white, sunny locale.
After tendering ashore, we walked around Diocletian's Palace, a huge ancient edifice that once housed thousands of people during danger. The place was huge, and it was weird to see these old nooks and crannies of the palace filled with vendors selling CDs and modern jewelry.

This little park was just outside the Palace walls.

Just outside Diocletian's Palace was the Green Market, which had a section for touristy souveniers and a section like a local farmer's market.

We stopped for a drink near the water. It was Sunday, and Mass was being shown on a flatscreen in the outdoor bar lounge area. Cultural difference? Guilt trip? The only thing on? You decide! Michael took pictures at each of our stops of the local beer, so here's the first of many:

Then we all walked to Bacvice Beach. It's funny, only about a quarter of this was actual sand beach, the other three-fourths were just stone walkways that dropped off into the sea. Mom and Dad secured us a spot at a restaurant while 'the kids' went down to the beach. Shan got some sun while the rest of us jumped in the Adriatic!

I was a little hesitant after JP shrieking that it was cold, but eventually got the courage to jump in. It was cold at first, but felt good after a few minutes. We all jumped in a few times before joining Mom and Dad for lunch.

After visiting the nude beach:Kidding! We all are wearing bathing suits under this! And you can see our ship in the background!

That restaurant was so cool. It was three stories up above the water with great views. The food was INCREDIBLE (I had shrimp risotto).

Then we headed back to the ship. We played trivia (got 3rd place) and got ready for dinner. This was our quasi formal night. Other cruiselines have serious formal nights, but Norwegian is known for being "freestyle" and casual. Here are a couple pictures from our balcony.

That night was our official celebration of JP and Shan's anniversary. The servers were so sweet on this cruise! They came over and sang a little song for them.

Later, at the karaoke bar, Shannon and I mustered the courage to sing! We did a duet of "A Whole New World" from Aladdin. I was the male role, obvs.

We both felt a little ambivalent about the whole thing. I think we both had fun but thought we could have sounded a little better. Man, karaoke is harder than it looks! But Michael and JP insisted that we sounded great. They are either truthful or very smart.

Since it was the 4th of July, there was a big country music Ho-Down after karaoke. There was a lot of dancing and learning line dances. We mused that only Americans would completely embarrass ourselves by looking so ridiculous in front of others like this. I kind of like that about us.

Then we had this little guy greet us back at the cabin:It's a puppy, don't you think?

Next up: Corfu, Greece!