Eastern Trekker

Ten days in Croatia and I still can t find the apostrophe key.  I m writing from Pag, and the town we are in has one 8-computer internet cafe.  I ve been spoiled so far with hostel wireless connections.

I am officially an Eastern Trekker now.  Joined the tour from Split to Prague yesterday morning, and a rough morning it was, thanks to the festivities of Friday night.  We started at a bar called the Red Room, then moved on to the beach clubs.  On the beach, I noticed a large group of deaf people.  I ve got deaf parents, so was instantly intrigued.  The only problem was that I know American Sign Language, and these people weren t using ASL.

Contrary to popular belief, sign language isn t universal, so there was no guarantee that they would be able to understand me, but I took a shot and tapped one guy on the shoulder.

“Are you deaf?” I asked.  Duh.  Great conversation opener.

It turned out that he didn t know ASL, but his friend did, and I carried on a conversation with them for a while.  They were Italian and Croatian, also on holiday.  One of them even had friends at Gallaudet, which is where my parents went to college.  Random small world.  It s a trippy experience having a conversation between an English speaker and an Italian speaker in American sign language.  I think that language barrier is starting to crack.

Here in Pag, another Croatian island, there tend to be a lot of German tourists, so hospitality workers have a pretty good knowledge of German.  I got a gelato today (cherry flavor) and he told me it cost funf kuna.  Since my German counting abilities extend up to the number seven, I knew that meant five.  This is really cheap for gelato, so I might have to get another one later.

So far I m a bit confused on this tour.  I keep looking around going, “These people werent on my boat, where am I?”  Our guide, Carlos, forced us to “speed date” on the bus – rotate from seat to seat and have a quick chat with people so we got to know each other.  I was bitter about this at first, because all I wanted to do was sleep off the night before, but I was glad he did it.  Looks like another good group who are only going to make it harder for me to get on that plane out of Prague on Saturday.

Tomorrow I leave Croatia and enter Slovenia.  Better consult the language dictionary and swap my kunas back into euros.  I ve also got some photos and videos to catch up on, which I ll post as soon as I can get some wireless.  Until then, I see a beach outside and it is calling my name.  Got to take advantage of this, because I sure won’t find anything like it in London.