Croatia: Dalmatians are my besties.

Tour guiding for college kids is pretty much a thankless job. You ride in an uncomfortable bus seat for 8+ hours, explain a thousand details about an amazing destination to twenty-year old students who only want to know what movie you’re gonna play on the bus or when they can get off and pee, and spend your weekend alternately taking care of very drunk or very stupid people (sometimes both) until you want to rip your hair out.**

(**This description only applies to about 99.9% of college kids studying abroad in Europe. The other 0.1% are mostly cool as shit and I want to hug them and cry and be their besties when they get off my buses at the end of the weekend.)

However, these negative aspects of the job can be overshadowed in the blink of an eye when you get to finally, finally travel to a new place. Insert Croatia here, because I got to visit Split for 2 weekends in a row and I wanted to poop my pants I was so happy. THIS IS WHERE DALMATIAN DOGS COME FROM, PEOPLE. What more could a tour guide want?!

In all seriousness though, I had an unbelievable, fantastic, super dooper pooper time in Croatia, minus the first weekend when Hurricane Asshole decided to try and knock our bus over on the highway with its gale-force winds and make us 3 hours late to Split, therefore ensuring that we would spend the rest of the weekend trying to make up for it.

Split, in my humble opinion, is a city that both rocks and is incredibly dangerous for people like me, who like to wear flip flops 24/7. I mean, seriously, people–what is up with the treacherously smooth marble floors? You’re just asking for a lawsuit when somebody (namely me) goes ass over elbow because your street cleaners have just sprayed the ground with copious amounts of water. Who knows, maybe Croatians just like to live life on the edge. Or they are just really good at skating.

All of this beautiful white marble, while being faintly tomblike and creepy, only further enhanced my opinion that Croatia is, in fact, one of the coolest places ever.  Throughout the weekend, I successfully managed not to kill myself or any students while river rafting on the Cetina, eating local fish on an island hopping tour of Brac and Postira (i only choked on like 30 or so bones), exploring the alleyways and canals of Trogir, and swimming underneath the waterfalls at Krka National Park. And I even took pictures!

It’s not often that I get one of those “Oh my god, this is my life right now” moments while working, but Croatia definitely put me under its lavender spell of love. Maybe that’s because there’s lots of lavender in the hills, but I like to think it’s the universe’s way of saying “Thanks for working your butt off. Enjoy the view.” Which I most certainly did.