An idea that stuck with me from class this week was the fish out of water concept that we revisited from the first day. In particular, I found this impactful: “When you’re in your water you know how to swim really well. But who do you become when you’re not in that environment any more? Your routines and actions are going to change meaning your purpose and, undoubtedly, your identity will too.” This was something I thought a lot about when I first moved to college, but in the opposite way. I was intent on constructing a new identity for myself and knew that I would naturally become associated with the clubs and activities I participated in. By my second year I was a member of the running and rowing club and worked at the climbing wall and as a SOAR leader. Since then these things have become my water- they start and end my response anytime I am asked to describe who I am; they give me a purpose. Moving to Barcelona completely detached me from this purpose. Right now I don’t have any jobs or belong to any clubs. The superficial layers have been stripped away, leaving my purpose bare for everyone to see… It’s just me! This realization is exciting and fun and terrifying at the same time: Without all that extra stuff latched on, what does “Hi, I’m Mazie!” even mean anymore?

• 4:35 - Alarm goes off. All Mazie wants to do is go back to sleep. Sad.
• 4:53 - Walk out the door of the hostel. Refill our waters.
• 5:10 - Bolt car to bus stop
• 5:22 - Bus stop to Zürich HB train station
• 5:37 - Spend a while being really confused, finally ask a train conductor and the helps us find our platform.
• 6:02 - Train leaves to Bern. Didn’t realize we were sitting in first class and almost had to pay an 100 CHF fee. Whoops.
• 6:58 - Train arrives to Bern. We walk to Platform 10 to board the next train.
• 7:04 - Train leaves to Interlaken.
• 8:00 - Arrive in Interlaken. First destination is the hostel to drop our bags off in their “storage room”.
• 9:00 - Walk over to a nearby bakery for a light breakfast. I got a delicious pretzel bun.
• 9:30 - Walk into the city center, shop around, stop for coffee at Dunkin Donuts
• 10:00 - Stop at this really expensive and fancy chocolate shop but of course I’m gonna get chocolate. The Dubai chocolate here was amazing.
• 11:30 - Photo shoot at this cute bridge with incredible views.
• 12:00 - Stop at Toblerone and Lindt stores. More and more and more chocolate (and free samples!)
• 12:30 - Brief rest sit at a bench
• 1:00 - Long rest sit in a park watching paragliders land and talking about politics, power, and the history of Barcelona (and practicing our Spanish and eating a lot, lot, lot of really amazing chocolate)
• 3:00 - McDonald’s for a late lunch (don’t worry I didn’t get anything)
• 3:30 - Stop at the Edelweiss gift shop again. I bought some people some things…
• 4:00 - Walk back to hostel to check in. Everyone else takes a quick nap, I take a walk and sing (because finally there’s no one to see me being loud and obnoxious).
• 5:10 - Walk to a really pretty lake to watch the sunset. Sky was very foggy/not clear, but we skipped rocks, had more good conversation (this time about car accidents), and took quite a few pictures despite the lackluster colors in the sky.
• 7:00 - Walk back to hostel. Includes (probably illegally) climbing a fence (ish).
• 7:30 - Drink water, colect more layers
• 7:45 - Walk to bus stop
• 7:50 - Bus to train station
• 8:00 - Train to a lake with the gigantic floating boat that we selected as our dinner spot (they have.a very nice restaurant on board however it is only Gracie and Mya who eat because everything is insanely expensive. The water was tasty though).
• 9:45 - Catch the bus to the train station.
• 9:50 - Stop in a small supermarket for Natalie and I to buy dinner right before they close (we kinda didn’t think about the fact that things may not be available to us 24/7 in a small ski town.
• 10:10 - Walk back to hostel. Commotion in the hall
• 10:30 - Get ready for bed
• 12:00 - Almost ready for bed

Goodnight!

Again another rapidfire timeline because I am attempting to get more than 5 hours of sleep :)

• 4:35: Somebody’s alarm goes off and I wake myself up thinking its morning. Sigh.
• 7:00: Alarm goes off, pack backpack
• 7:27: Leave room
• 7:30: Throw backpack in secure storage aka hostel basement
• 7:32: Grab breakfast. The hostel had a free, home cooked breakfast that was my favorite meal of the trip. I grabbed a giant hunk off freshly baked bread, cheese, and cucumbers.
• 7:34: On the road- bye bye hostel!
• 7:51: Meet our paragliding instructors at the park
• 8:00: Hop in the van and drive 20 minutes up the mountain. We randomly draw for instructors. Mazie gets incredibly nervous the closer we get.
• 8:25: Five minute walk through a somewhat snowy forest to the hill we’re going to be jumping off (it was more like running until you lifted into the air but its cooler if I call it jumping off the side of the mountain). My guide Lea got everything ready while I put on more layers, looked over the side of the hill, and finished getting properly nervous and excited.
• 8:45: 1-2-3 Take off!!! It really was not even that scary and it was SO FUN OMG! I will have to write another post about paragliding, but I can say it made me want to get my pilot’s license.
• 9:05: Land in the park. From the experience of the passenger, landing is no biggie at all- you kinda just stand up.
• 9:10: Caved and spent $50 to buy the photos of me in the air. All my friends were doing it…
• 9:15: Walked over to Dunkin’ Donuts with Gracie and Natalie for coffee while Mya left to go paragliding (she booked a later time)
• 9:40: Watched Mya land. Exquisitely done!
• 10:00: Walk around town a little bit more.
• 10:30: Mya and I split off for a hike! We began our quest to Harder Kulm wearing three layers each. Five minutes in we were both down to our t-shirts and sweating. It was absolutely beautiful and very much uphill. The highlight was encountering a natural drinking fountain part of the way up right when we were about to wisp away of thirst
• 1:00: We’re still not at the top and are wondering if we should turn around because we need to be back at the hostel in less than two hours. But that makes us sad because there’s a cheap fondue restaurant at the top with beautiful views. We befriend this guy on the trail who tells us that the restaurant is closed for the season and the funicular is also closed, so we had to get a move on down the mountain.
• 2:10: It took us less time to get down than we thought. We randomly run into our new friend at the base of the trail again and ask him for a fondue restaurant recommendation to which his answer is all of them are tourist traps and suck.
• 2:30: We find a place serving fondue and get some anyways. It’s quite insanely expensive but at least they let us share one (they’re usually very strict about prices per person)! The fondue itself was pretty good but the bread left something (many things, actually) to be desired. I kept wishing we would’ve saved fresh hostel bread…
• 3:00: Walk back to the hostel
• 3:30: Grab our stuff and refill water bottle
• 3:40: Insanely full bus to the train station. You know when you cram toys or books into a closet and slam the door closed so they don’t fall out but the next time you open the closet you forget that you did that and everything comes crashing out? That was what was happening on this bus, and we were the last toys haphazardly thrown on top.
• 4:05: Arrive at Interlaken Ost. Walk to train.
• 4:15: Train departs, heading to Basel. I pull out my laptop and work on the presentation I have to give in class tomorrow that I am not done with, of course. We invent SIDES syndrome. If you’re confused you should’ve been there.
• 6:15: Arrive in Basel. We all instantly like it here.
• 6:30: Bus to the Euro Airport. We had no idea beforehand, but the airport is technically in France so it was all of our first times visiting France together!
• 6:50: Arrive at the Euro Airport. Scan my location just to make 1000% sure there’s no Airport POAP here.
• 7:15: Get through security and find a nice corner to sit in. My laptop is back out and never have I been so appreciative of good, fast, clean airport WiFi.
• 9:00: We board the flight. Gracie and I are sitting next to each other with Mya and Natalie one row away!
• 9:15: The takeoff usual: AirPods in, Twenties game out
• 10:45: Land in Barcelona 25 minutes ahead of schedule! The Swiss will make sure you are there on time.
• 11:15: After a wild goose chase of random airport signs, we all hop on the Renfe. Natalie and I transfer to the L5 and then the L7, getting off the train a few minutes before it closed for the night.
• 12:00: Back to Cristina’s!!
• 12:15: Decided to save my “un sandwich” for breakfast tomorrow, but I had a banana and unpacked.
• 1:00: Sat on my bed furiously trying to finish my presentation that is now technically late
• 2:00: Realized I could not form sentences in my head anymore and couldn’t even read the words I was typing so I decided to just go to bed and wake up early to finish. Of course by the time I brushed my teeth and everything I felt awake again and couldn’t fall asleep, so I got a few more minutes of work in.

That’s it for Switzerland! One of my favorite trips so far! What can I say, the land of cheese, chocolate, and paragliding never disappoints.

Well this one is super after-the-fact, but better late than never and I don’t want to make the first day of our Switzerland adventure sad by not giving it any recognition.

• 3:30am: Alarm goes off. Once again, Mazie must get up even as everything wants to drag her back into bed. Throw the last items into my backpack.
• 3:50: Out the door
• 3:53: Catch the night bus to Plaza Espanya.
• 4:15: Catch the A17 bus to Airport Terminal 1.
• 5:00: Arrive at airport.
• 5:30: Through security, meet Mya and McDonald’s and wait for Gracie. Eat breakfast (whether that’s McDonald’s or the random snacks in your backpack)
• 6:15: We realize that we should probably head to our gate because the plane is boarding.
• 6:40: Make it to the gate just in time!
• 6:55: Flight leaves.
• 8:55: Arrive in Zurich
• 9:15: Linger at the airport while we figure out a plan. Decide to buy the Zurich card which allows us free public transportation, free or discounted access to many museums around the city, and discounts at select restaurants.
• 10:00: Catch a train into the city center.
• 10:30: Visit the National Museum which was conventionality located right outside the train station and was such a cool museum! I’m really glad we went. The design was very Swiss- simple but effective, hands-on but clean, and they had some really niche exhibits like fans and accessories, a whole bunch of crazy rings from different places around the world (that one was a group favorite), and exhibits covering the historical and current political and environmental landscape in Switzerland.
• 11:30: Walk over to the old town. Walk along the main street in search of a coffee shop. Natalie, Mya, and Gracie got iced lattes at this one place where we (sort of) made a new friend, and then we went to a second coffee shop where Mya, Gracie, and I got a feta and spinach quiche kinda thing for lunch. Of course we forgot to use the discount from the Zurich card- oh well.
• 1:30: Mya left for a tour at the Lindt House of Chocolate (I was tempted but tickets were quite expensive and I have already had the privilege of sticking my spoon under their chocolate fountains). The rest of us continued walking around the old city and shopping.
• 2:30: 30 minute trek by train to our hostel. Free access to public transportation was great, but no one ever checked our tickets anyways :)
• 3:00: Check in to hostel. The room took a little adjusting to as there was nowhere to lock anything up and no curtains. I guess Switzerland is just a very secure place.
• 3:45: Bus to the Museum Reitberg. Free access again thanks to the Zurich card! Was cool to walk around and see art and sculptures from all over the world, and we got to make our own Japanese postcards!
• 4:50: Walk over to the FIFA Museum. Mya rejoined us :) The National Museum was really cool, but the FIFA quickly stole the prize for my favorite museum of the day. Their exhibits were beautiful, really cool, and highly interactive. I set a new high score for this soccer dancing battle thing, and the last room (which we very sadly only had like 10 mins to play around in) was basically a human-sized soccer arcade! They had mini games like soccer pinball, shoot out, dribbling, hit the target, and once you created a player you could go around to the different stations and try your hand at the games. There was a line for everything so I didn’t get to try all the games, but it was a lovely set up and I could’ve spent much longer in there.
• 6:00: FIFA museum closes and we head to the big park overlooking the city. I remember catching our fondue ride here last time (I think)! We watched the water and these adorable ducks as it started to get dark.
• 7:00: Wandered back into the city towards the Pandora store so Natalie could take a look at the charms.
• 7:30: Randomly stumbled across this pretzel sandwich street vendor on the way which ended up being the perfect dinner, and for a much cheaper price than we were going to find anywhere else! I got a lettuce-mozarella-tomato sandwich and it was genuinely so good and inspired me to look into pretzel sandwiches in the future.
• 8:00: Natalie ends up buying a cute box of chocolates charm!
• 8:15: We end up in a Swatch store which makes me remember my old Swatch and marvel at the really fun, chunky ones on display in the store. Gracie caves and buys a pretty green swatch!
• 9:00: After some more aimless wandering, we decide to grab a bottle of wine (consumed by all but yours truly) and head back to the park for some deep conversation.
• 9:30: Although it was really dark and really cold (especially sitting next to the water), the deep conversation we had on the park bench was one of my favorite parts of the trip and was a great bonding moment.
• 10:30: Caught a bus back to the hostel because we (mainly Gracie and I) were freezing and extremely tired.
• 11:00: Back at the hostel, got water (sooo thirsty), and got to bed as quickly as possible. We got to listen to the dad who was also sharing our room talk to his kids on face time which was really cute.
• 11:45: Legit go to bed (destined for a night of about 4 hours of sleep, but that was at least an improvement from the night before!)

I really don’t like sausage. Like, not at all. Maybe I’m the crazy one, but something about chunks of leftover meat and fat collected from factory floors and stuffed into a clear intestinal casing just doesn’t sound too appetizing. Most of the time things I sweep up from the floor go into the garbage, so by my logic it would be fair to call sausage another form of garbage. I bet the Latin word for garbage was something like “saucsus”. Well anyways, guess what I spotted on my plate when I sat down for dinner tonight? Three long glistening (the intestinal casing makes for a really nice glimmer) speckled sausages. To add insult to injury, my roommate Natalie is currently on a week long trip in France so my plate was the center of attention; I had nowhere to hide and no other option (other than break my host mom’s heart, make the situation real awkward, and waste a poor pig’s life) than to eat the sausage.

The longer and the larger they are, the worse they are. These were probably 3-4 inches long and on the skinny side, so I had hope that they might be manageable if I really just dove in and embraced the garbage-loving part of me that surely had to exist somewhere. The moment I cut into the first one, however, I knew it wasn’t going to be that easy. I had to saw at that casing to get it to snap and I didn’t notice the giant fat blobs until they were bouncing and squeaking between my teeth. But I put on a smile and tried to focus on how good of a blog post this experience was going to be. When the inevitable “do you like it?” came a few minutes later, I nodded and responded enthusiastically, speeding up my pace and controlling my face to make sure I didn’t accidentally resemble Emily Hobbs eating maple syrup spaghetti for breakfast in Elf. I was sawing, stabbing, and chewing like a lumberjack turned racecar driver. In fact, I probably looked like I’d been craving some good old sausage and no doubt my host mom made a mental note to serve it again soon.

I made a pact with myself that I only had to eat the middle of each piece. I could cut the ends off and leave them to the side (that would be weird, right? It would be like cutting the crust off of toast). Although they looked slightly more flavorful, that was where I assumed any extra casing would be hiding and I wasn’t about to take any chances. I discreetly shoved any fat bits I could spot into the same pile and covered it with my napkin when I finished. After washing my mouth out with the rest of my dinner (the beans, veggies, and bread I had all ‘saved for last’), I walked my plate over to the the garbage and returned those sausage bits back where they belong.

A few aesthetic Switzerland photos! My friends thought I was crazy for photographing my Lindt chocolate ball so intensely 😆.

And… a taste of what I’ve been up to since Switzerland! I’ll give a bit of context:

• Photo 1: Me in a shop between classes. I don’t remember which shop.
• Photo 2: I’m pretty sure this was later that same day. I randomly stumbled across one of Gaudí’s iconic houses while walking around el Barrio Gótico!
• Photo 3: To give you a sense of just how magical it is to walk into El Desván Bakery. Pictured front and foremost are the Linder Bueno and Nutella cookies/mounds of joy. I snapped this one during the HOUR I ended up waiting for my lemon pie cookie (I was told it would be 20 minutes until they were ready…)
• Photo 4: Me with my Turkish kebab at Parc de la Ciutadella on Wednesday. I like this one because I just look so happy!
• Photos 5-7: More from Parc de la Ciutadella. I’d been wanting to go for a while, but finally did it on Wednesday afternoon to finish an assignment for my sustainable development class. As you can see it was so, so beautiful and I must return.
• Photo 8: A street.
• Photo 9: My 99 Cheesecake pic from this week, of course. Sauces were Lotus and Kinder Bueno, toppings were Lacasitos (basically m&ms).
• Photo 10: Me leaving my house this morning prepared for a day of who knows exactly what, but something that was going to include running and walking.
• Photos 11, 12, 14: Sights I saw on my run/walk. I managed to exit Barcelona proper and got to see some of Santa Coloma de Gramenet and Badalona, which are two immediate suburbs.
• Photos 13: Special for Friday the 13th! Ooooo! An ancient cool looking ship I passed that seemed photo-worthy.
• Photos 15-16: Streets of Santa Coloma de Gramenet (At least I think that’s where I was).

Hola! Para los que no quieren practicar su español, pueden usar el Google Translate :). Mientras que estoy en España, parece que debo escribir algunas blog posts en español!

Hoy fui al servicio de Misa Internacional en la Sagrada Familia. Es una oportunidad especial por does razones: Puedes atender una misa en unas de las iglesias mas famosos de todo el mundo, y puedes entrar al iglesia sin pagar (aunque no están felices si intentas sacar fotos o explorar fuera de tu silla). Aprendí de mis errores la ultima vez que intenté ir (no había espacio porque llegué en un espíritu optimista 5 minutos antes de que empezó) y llegué a las 7:45- mas que una hora temprano. Me admitieron, pero fue bien que no llegué mas tarde porque solo admitieron 20 o 30 personas mas después que yo.

Fue una experiencia muy bonita y estoy feliz de haber despertado tan temprano en un domingo para ir. La única parte desagradable de la experiencia fue sentando en mi silla para 50 minutos esperando para que el servicio empezara. Nos dejaron entrar unas pocas minutos después de las 8 pero el servicio no empezó hasta las 9, así que quedó mucho tiempo para mi sentar y leer mi libro de Kindle. Hubiera explorado el interior de la iglesia y sacado fotos pero las guardas se pusieron enojados cuando salías de tu asiento.

Jamás había visto el interior de la Sagrada Família; solamente he podido imaginar lo que pudiera tener basado en el extravagante que es el exterior. No me decepcionó! El altar fue decorado y iluminado con velas, había estatuas por todas partes, y el techo tan alto y intrincado fue muy impresionante. Pero mi parte favorito, sin duda, eran las ventanas. Eran tan grandes y muy, muy altas- casi llegan del suelo al techo- y de todas las colores del arcoíris. Los diseños fueron suficiente impresionantes, pero cuando filtraban la luz según el arcoíris fue una belleza de otra planeta. Tomé todas las fotos que podía antes de que las guardas me empujaron por la puerta.

Después de la misa salí de la Sagrada Familia para encontrar la calle llena de gente gritando. Tuve suerte de estar en el lugar perfecto al tiempo perfecto para ver los corredores del Maratón correr al lado de el Sagrada Familia! Entré en el muchedumbre y empecé a gritar y animar a los corredores con los demás. Fue divertido simplemente mirar mientras tantas personas pasaron. Había un letrero que dijo que los corredores habían ido 14km (8 millas). Casi un tercio del maratón!

Decidí que debía caminar hacia Arc de Triomf, donde completó la carrera, para ver algunos de los corredores élites terminar. No llegué a tiempo para ver las atletas mas élites, pero vi muchas atletas muy buenas (porque cada participante era buena!) cruzar la linea de meta. Entonces encontré otro calle donde continuó la ruta (todavía estaba relativamente temprano en la carrera; la gran mayoría de las atletas no habían terminado) y decidí seguir los corredores en la acera para sentir mas como una parte de la carrera. No aburrí de caminar y tres horas mas tarde, crucé la linea de meta con las ultimas corredores (quienes que, a este punto, hubieron transformado en caminantes también).

Pienso que caminé las ultimas 7-8 millas de la carrera al lado de los corredores. Al fin estaba sudando y motivando a mi mismo para seguir adelante. El calle siguió haciendo curvas y virajes, pareciendo como nunca iba a terminar, pero estaba intenta en llegar el Arc de Triomf usando mis propios piernas. Lo poquito de triste que había sentido al principio por no estar participando había desaparecido y fue reemplazado con un sentido de asombro por todos los corredores: si mis piernas me dolieron como resultado de caminar una sección de la carrera, como fue posible que ellos estaban corriendo todavía?!

No obstante, experimentar el maratón de manera tan intimo me hizo completamente seguro de que voy a hacer un maratón un día. Seguramente estoy idealizando la experiencia de hacerlo, pero quiero experimentar lo que estaban experimentando los corredores hoy y poder decir que lo hice. Podías sentir la energía del muchedumbre en cada calle, validando la lema del carrera y patrocinador oficial, Hoka: “Barcelona te hace volar”.

Hashtag our family is reunited in Paris! City of ❤️- We really planned that well :)

Disneyland Paris: The second leg of a wonderful weekend with some wonderful people!!!

Remy (our adorably hilarious mouse friend from Ratatouille) invited us to dinner at his restaurant. He himself prepared us a delicious three course meal and, because he has a special place in his heart for our family, reserved us the best table in the house. Hardest part was figuring out how we were going to fit in the mouse sized door as very much as not mouse sized humans.

I am not a fan of flying. In fact, I really don’t like flying and am continually annoyed by how takeoff puts half the plane to sleep while it only ever seems to jolt me awake out of fear. That is why, when the flight attendants buzz the classic “enjoy your flight” message over the loudspeaker as the plane is approaching 10,000 feet, I don’t expect to actually enjoy it much.

But my flight back from Paris was different. To start off, we were the last flight out of Terminal 3 for the night which was equal parts fun and depressing. The people on our flight were pretty lively, which made the airport feel fuller than it really was. I noticed a few people sporting Disney Paris merch! Soon after we finished boarding, the pilot gave a full blown speech over the loudspeaker. He talked about many things, notably how two of the flight attendants had just gotten married (to each other, I think?) and how handsome they both were. He had the entire plane laughing and clapping.

He then went into a little section about how aviation is the safest mode of transportation nowadays but why many people are still wary of flying. I’m not sure a pilot should joke about the safety of their passengers, but there were plenty of jokes sprinkled in. At one point during his explanation of airplane safety, he said: “Well, we’ll see about our flight tonight. Hope for the best!”.

And then he repeated an abbreviated version of the same speech in English and French (actually I’m pretty sure all he said in French was “Welcome aboard, we value your safety…. I really don’t speak French”), meaning he was talking for close to 10 minutes. Definitely the most connected I’ve ever felt to a commercial pilot! Aside from the intense turbulence storm as we came into Barcelona, he did a great job flying the plane as well :)

• 8:45 Tammy wakes up
• 10:18 Tammy wakes Mazie up (almost 12 hours of sleep!)
• 10:50 Leave and walk to bus station
• 11:10 Buy bus tickets somewhat successfully
• 11:30 Bus to Klis
• 12:10 Get off at Klis Fortress and realize that we took the wrong bus, so hike down the hill to the bus stop we wanted to get off at and hike back up on the pretty path to the fortress.
• 1:00 Explore Klis Fortress. Thoroughly.
• 2:30 Leave the fortress and raid the local supermarket for European picnic supplies
• 3:00 Find a nice spot on the hillside to enjoy our European picnic. The cheese was incredible.
• 3:15 Realize that buses are scarce up in the mountains and the next one for a few hours is arriving soon
• 3:25 Run back down the hill in record time, successfully buy our second round of bus tickets, and hop on Bus 35. It arrived and left 8 mins early, which I didn’t think was exactly allowed.
• 4:00 Walk to Airbnb to drop off our extra bread and cheese.
• 4:30 Walk around town. We like the vibe when stores are actually open. Bought designer vibe t-shirts and gelato while exploring. Salted butter caramel and Kinder.
• 6:00 Began hike up Marjan hill
• 7:00 Reach the weirdly modern viewpoint at the end of the peninsula. Includes a bathroom. Begin hike back down.
• 7:30 Back down from Marjan hill
• 7:45 Dinner at Cicibela. Stone bass and pesto gnocchi with grilled bread and virgin mojitos. -8:45 Wander back to Airbnb. Stumble across Boris, a local guitar player and singer who entertained Tammy and Mazie until Tammy got tired and cold and went to bed.
• 10:20 Mazie stays and hangs out with Boris and Vivian (studying abroad in Madrid) until past midnight. Boris imparts a lot of wisdom, shares lots of very long stories, and plays lots of music for us. He even teaches us a bit of Tai Chi. We are joined partway through by three other students, including- get this- Maisie, who is studying (permanently) in Prague. At the end of the night we exchanged phone numbers and took a selfie together
• 12:15 Mazie back to the Airbnb and to bed :)

• 7:45 Tammy wakes up and goes for a run
• 9:10 Tammy wakes Mazie up
• 9:45 Leave our apartment- bye bye!
• 10:10 Leave luggage at a storage place on the harbor after finally getting cash. Walk to Cookie Lab pastry shop
• 10:40 Hazelnut eclair and hazelnut mousse dessert at the Cookie Lab. Tammy enjoyed the eclair “very much”.
• 11:10 Began the walk back to the Old City along the beach. Saw some crazy waves
• 11:45 Walked around the Substructure of Diocletian’s Palace
• 12:30 Tried to go to the Cathedral (oldest one in the word) and the Temple of Jupiter but they were not open :(
• 12:30 Smallest street in the world!
• 1:00 Ethnographic Museum of Split
• 1:30 Discovered a random staircase while trying to exit the museum. Led to a beautiful rooftop looking out across Split that was called the Vestibule Terrace. We were probably supposed to pay…
• 1:45 Uncovered some new streets!
• 1:50 Quick tourist stop for some souvenirs: Beach towel with Croatian boats and wooden boat wall art.
• 2:00 Gelato stop at the same shop as yesterday. Tammy tried the salted butter caramel flavor and we wandered around one last time.
• 2:30 Return to storage place and collect our luggage
• 2:40 Figure out that our boat is docked at Port 21. Board and sit there rocking in the waves for an uncomfortable amount of time.
• 3:00 Depart for Hvar island. It’s a smoothly rocky ride.
• 3:50 Arrive at Hvar Town.
• 4:00 Met with our lovely Airbnb host to get acquainted with our apartment. It is quite a beautiful place with a balcony overlooking the Adriatic sea.
• 4:15 Banana, trail mix, and marvel at the four chambered garbage
• 4:30 Left to explore Hvar Town. Walked through some quaint streets and along the shore.
• 6:00 Dinner at Mizarola, right down the street from our apartment. Vegetable Tagliatelle, roasted chicken breast, “pizza bread”, tiramisu- a Tammy standout!
• 7:40 Back to the Airbnb. Both Tammy and Mazie shower.
• 9:40 One episode of Young Sheldon before bed

6:45 Tammy wakes up 8:45 Mazie wakes up 9:20 Leave apartment in search of the e-bike rental place 9:30 Found it! Filled out form online to hopefully rent bikes for tomorrow 9:45 Stopped for pastries from Pekka Bakery. Burek and Nutella filled donut. 9:50 Began the trek to Robinson beach via the coastal trail. The trail begins after the road out of town ends, so we almost deemed it nonexistent and turned back. 11:00 Reach Robinson beach, our initial destination, and decide to continue to Milna. 12:09 Reach Milna, walked around in search of European picnic supplies but slowly realize that literally nothing is open. It is a beautiful setting though. 1:00 Back to Robinson beach. We dissected some almonds. 2:00 Back to Hvar Town. Tammy is about to pass out from hunger and Mazie is about to pass out from thirst. 2:15 Procure European picnic supplies. 2:30 Return to Airbnb to eat European picnic. Enjoyed the view of the harbor and Adriatic Sea from our little balcony. Our cheese selection this time around was bad, but our choice in chocolate was impeccable. 3:45 Leave for Španjola Fortress. Short 10 minute walk from town, but it is starting to rain. 4:00 Enter Fortress. Very cool ancient feeling. There is even a prison we got to walk around in. 4:45 Leave Fortress, visited a tiny church on the way down. 5:00 Arrive at the oldest public theater in Europe (and maybe the world). We hung out for a while because the theater was adorable and dry and there were kids practicing for a play. Very cute. 5:45 Head back to Airbnb to grab umbrellas. 6:00 Watched dad/Jamie’s polo and realized the urgency of his situation. We knew he was sick before but didn’t realize how sick he really was. 6-10:00 Text, email, telephone campaign to alert people of Jamie’s situation and get him the help he needed. All of the friends and family we contacted were so amazing and willing to help, but still very scary. 10:15 Jamie is getting proper attention and has Tyler and Hector there with him. Watched one episode of “Never Have I Ever”. 11:00 Tammy goes to sleep. Mazie kind of does a bit of homework. 2:00am Mazie goes to sleep after covering herself in every blanket and comforter she can find because she is incurably cold.