Croatia quickie

I ve been in Croatia now since bright and early Saturday morning and have spent most of my time here braving the high seas and trying not to throw up. Because, well, Liebling, myself, and six other friends are rented a sailboat and are sailing for the week on the aquamarine, mostly calm waters of Croatia. We had our last pizza in Italy on Friday night and flew from Rome to Split on Saturday morning.

I ve never been sailing before so I didn t know what to expect, but it s been cool so far despite my ever-present seasickness (I must be setting a record for hours of continual nauseousness but haven t thrown up- victory!!) and the ever-present sensation of feeling as though I am rocking and swaying (even when off the boat- I am writing to you from an internet cafe in Vodice, Croatia, which is very firmly planted on the mainland aka solid ground). Getting my sea legs, I reckon!

But such is the life of a sailor in training, even though the guys have been doing most (erm, all) of the heavy pulling and lifting and fastening and making sure we don t capsize. Our “crew” is comprised of 5 strapping Germans and 3 lovely lassies (from different areas of the commonwealth: one Brit, one Kiwi, and one Canuck), and us lassies are all fairly petite and weak of arm, so needless to say the boys are doing the hard part and us ladies are increasing the babe factor of our 49-foot sailboat. Ha!

Liebling is the skipper and I must say that hearing him bark orders at his comrades in German has been very appealing. Heh. What can I say, I m a girl who loves a man of authority!

Anyhoo, it s been a lovely experience so far and the weather is great. We got our first taste of Croatian nightlife last night and they played “New York State of Mind” so I shaked my booty with reckless abandon.

We sail until Friday night and will check out Hvar (the Ibiza of Croatia, I ve been told) and a few other islands before handing over the boat. Saturday morning I begin the epic journey back to HK…a real doozy with me flying from Split to Rome, laying over in Rome s Fiumicino airport for a whopping 11 hours (think I will try to go back into the city), and then flying from Rome to Moscow (weird, right?) and then Moscow to Hong Kong. I m dreading thinking about that trip, but comforted by the fact that amazing sushi and an abundance of foot and body massage await me on the other side.

Cheers!