Es un Mundo Vagabundo: Making ourselves at home in Pisak, Croatia

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Our arrival at Pisak began with the bus dropping us off on the side of the road. We were basically at the top of a huge cliff over looking a gorgeous Adriatic Sea with a few houses below us. The apartment owners were kind enough to pick us up because it is a beast of a hill to get down to the apartment. With all our luggage it took two trips! Our apartment is perfect, 2 bedrooms, a small bathroom and a small kitchen. The view we have of the sea is amazing and we got great seats on our deck for the sunset. The apartment owners are very cool, we always talk with the wife, Mira, who is very kind and always helpful. Her husband seems really nice and they have a little girl who is 2-years-old that Jennison loves! Mira's brother in law even took us out on a boat one day to see some beautiful parts of the coast. As we were getting situated and all absolutely starving, we realized we were pretty much in the middle of nowhere and the one restaurant in town won’t open up for a month. As a small panic started to set in, Mira knocks at the door to inform us they will be providing dinner! Wahoo, “perfect”, I thought. They brought us about twenty of these grilled tiny fish called “small fish”, they were actually pretty good, they didn’t taste like sardines, but actual white fish. They were just a lot of work to remove the head and bones. Along with a salad and some boiled potatoes. Oh and a bottle of homemade red wine!

The next day we went to Split to visit my mom and had our first experience of walking up the hill to the bus stop. I’m pretty sure we missed the bus because it took us so long, but, luckily they come pretty often. We discussed how hard it was to breathe and that it must be the altitude but, we were at sea level, haha. A month later, that hill still sucks to walk up, and you know it’s bad when it’s tough to walk down too.

The next few days were spent exploring. We went to the 7-Eleven-sized market, which basically has most of your bare essentials. The tiny harbor, where the boats and closed restaurant are, is beautiful. We discovered numerous beaches, without a soul around, that we call “our private beaches”. The water is crystal clear and you can see fish swimming around. I told Jennison that mission number one for me was to get a fishing pole and catch dinner. Well, I got the pole, but so far, no dinner. I did however catch the most beautiful fish I have ever seen that Jennison made me throw back, glad to say it survived and swam off.

Our friends, April and Peter, came to visit and we had an absolute blast. I finally had a fishing buddy and Jennison had a sunbathing buddy. We took a trip to Dubrovnik, Croatia, in which half way we unknowingly crossed into Bosnia! Bosnia was pretty cool, we stopped to eat lunch and ended up at this restaurant with a gorgeous view.

Next to visit is our good friend Santi, who we became really close with in Spain. Then the day after he leaves, my buddy Alex from San Diego arrives and will be here for my birthday, I’m so excited! While Alex is here, Jennison’s parents arrive, so we have a full schedule for the rest of our stay. We are both really excited for all of our visitors and I am looking forward to all of our adventures that await.

Hers

Never in my life did I imagine living in a tiny village with one market the size of a 7-Eleven... a village which requires us to hike about 20 minutes uphill to catch a bus... a village that is a 30-minute bus ride from the nearest coffee shop or "super market"...a village where almost no one speaks English... a village so small and unknown it doesn't even register a "street view" on Google Maps...

Never in my life did I imagine living in a village with the most incredible views of the Adriatic sea, some of the most beautiful beaches I have ever stepped foot on, and locals who wave and smile hello to "their tourists" as they pass us by on the trails towards our new home.

Never in my life did I imagine living in a village like this, and absolutely, positively, love it.

A village named, Pisak.

For the past three weeks we have been settling into our new home on the Dalmatian coast of Croatia. We are located about 45 minutes south from Split and about 3 hours north of Dubrovnik. We selected this place by random, aiming for a quiet little town to counterbalance our adventures in the city of Valencia. The weather has been absolutely

gorgeous since we arrived and the beauty I awake to every single morning, takes my breath away. We spend our days sleeping in, enjoying coffee together, making brunch, and then heading down to the beach for sunbathing and fishing. At night we experiment with fun recipes, using the limited amounts of ingredients we can find at our local market, watch the sun go down, and enjoy a movie or TV show. As my brother said, "you lost me at sleeping in"... There is not a day that goes by that I do not feel incredibly grateful for this experience and this quality time I get to share with my husband.

We've loved exploring the little towns near our village. Our favorite spot for dinner would be a hole-in-the-wall pizza restaurant, which is about a two-kilometer walk (after the uphill hike) from Pisak, in a small town called Marusici. The first time we ventured here, we decided to make it a "Run-to-Pizza" day, not only providing us with a little extra motivation to exercise, but also less guilt for eating pizza. As we arrive to the restaurant, red in the face, we ordered two pizzas. "No pizza today", was the response we received. We would have to call ahead in advance if we wanted pizza in the future. We settled for a couple of local beers and a beautiful view of the sea. Needless to say, we did go back and enjoyed every bite of our pizza!

The highlight of the past three weeks was when one of my best friends, April, and her awesome boyfriend, Peter, came for a visit. They were in Europe for two weeks and made the trip out to Croatia for about four days. I could not have been happier to see their faces when we picked them up from the airport!! It was such a surreal moment to have them here. We rented a car and first took them to the old town of Split where we shared in a traditional Croatia meal. After dinner we sat around Split's Diocletian's Palace where you can listen to live music every night. It was amazing! Besides relaxing around Pisak, and exploring Omiš and Makarska, one of the highlights was a road trip we took to Dubrovnik. Halfway into the trip, we drive up to what looked like a border crossing of some sort. We all looked at each other, confirming everyone had brought their passports, and drove on through with little questioning from the officer. Once through, we pulled up a map and realized we were now in Bosnia! We decided to have lunch in Bosnia and enjoyed our al fresco dining and more beautiful views of the Adriatic. Dubrovnik was an amazing town. We spent the afternoon roaming the old streets and ghetto of the city and taking in all the picturesque scenery. On our way home we decided we just had to stop for dinner in one of our new favorite countries... Bosnia! To end an amazing trip, we took a small boat down the coast from Pisak and our guide showed us these gorgeous springs that rise up from the bottom of the sea. We had packed a picnic lunch and enjoyed the day relaxing on one of the most beautiful beaches in the world.

We made so many wonderful memories in Croatia with April and Peter and we are so lucky that they were able to come out to see our new home. We are looking forward to the many more visitors we have coming to visit in the month of May!

Highly recommended vacation accommodation on the Dalmatian Coast of Croatia: www.apartmani-simic.com

Brian out on one of the beautiful beaches in Pisak, Croatia