Mazie

Today I embarked on an epic mission that I was not expecting to be so epic: Finishing the Salomon Run Barcelona 10k! When I signed up for this race on spring break in Croatia, I was craving a deeper involvement with the Barcelona community. I felt like I had been in the walking around and exploring random neighborhoods phase for too long and needed to do something real in the city. I needed my name written down somewhere.

The race definitely quenched that desire and I am very happy I did it! I even made a new friend at the starting line who is from Argentina and moved to Barcelona 10 months ago. As she was telling me about the mountain summit races she’s done in Argentina I joked that the stairs just beyond the start line would be no problem for her. I never considered my lack of Argentinian mountain training (or any training at all, actually) and how important that might actually be for the Montjuic MOUNTAIN course.

Picture the starting line with me for a second: You are standing at the base of Montjuic mountain staring up eight? Nine? flights of stairs. The gun sounds and you’re off, flying up the stairs like a champion and getting annoyed with the people already walking because they are blocking the entire stairs and forcing you to slow down. You make it up all eight or nine flights, shake out your legs, and are able to run again. Considering how high you’ve climbed, you’re feeling pretty good. You’re patting yourself on the back for choosing the stairs over the escalator in the metro.

And that’s when you see the long stretch of downhill in front of you, pretty steep. It appears a little suspicious, a little too early to be coasting down to a flat course and then the finish line, but you have hope. Well I should’ve expected the worst, because this hill dumps me out at the base of a fresh eight or nine flights of stairs, basically climbing back up everything I just climbed (jogged? bouncily walked?) like two minutes ago. So I do that and I think: All right, good joke, but we must be done with this now.

Of course not! The top of this new hill turns out to be the bottom of another hill, and so on and so forth for the next 9 kilometers. I couldn’t count the number of times we ran up a hill just to turn the corner and run down the equivalent number of stairs. Kilometer 6 was especially bad as the entire thing was one long, terrible incline. One of those that was just incline-ey enough to be taxing, and it just would’t stop. Usually during a race the competitive environment and cheering makes me feel like I am running faster than I usually would be, but this time I couldn’t have even tricked myself into thinking that. I was a helpless little snail wriggling my way up that hill. Honestly, as long as I was still moving, I was moving fast enough.

The last kilometer provided some relief… until the last stretch: You could hear the finish line up ahead, just after you mounted, descended, and re-climbed a final few flights of stairs. The best part, as usual, was cheering on the last few stragglers after I finished. They even had a Vertical Solomon challenge after the races finished where 32 participants raced up the initial flights of stairs over and over again until they narrowed it down to one winner. All in all it was a fun time and made me feel a small pocket of community in the middle of such a big city.

A few more…

A little study of waves and a staircase.

Smallest street in the world!

Jamie visits Klis Fortress.

• Picture 11: Quaint street just outside of the city center at dusk.
• Picture 12: Treats, including an eclair mommy went crazy over, at the Cookie Lab bakery.
• Picture 13: Taken from the Substructures of Diocletian’s Palace.
• Picture 14: Cuz why not?
• Picture 15: We not-so-sneakily-sneaked onto this ruins rooftop and there were really pretty flowers.
• Picture 16: Yeah, classy, I know
• Picture 17: Possibly my favorite phot of the entire trip in some strange way. I noticed these ladies taking a gelato selfie and the scene was just calling my camera.

Don’t worry, there are many more to come :) I have hundreds I could post… What I am going to include in this blog post (partly for my own sanity as I should really be going to bed right now) are some of my favorite photos from Split, our first destination. We arrived early Sunday morning and stayed for two nights, exploring mountains, farms, bakeries, gelato, shops, parks, and quaint streets. Split is really unique as it is constructed within ancient ruins (truly mind-bogglingly ancient), meaning people have been working and sleeping and chatting in these same buildings and on these same streets for well over a thousand years.

A little bit about the pictures…

• Pictures 1 and 2: Cheese burek from Bobis. We swear there had to be at least 762 Bobis locations in Split, but honestly they’re justified because it was insanely delicious.
• Picture 3: A really cool section of Diocletian’s Palace. For perspective, this is something you come across casually when walking down the street.
• Picture 4: Me posing by the harbor :)
• Picture 5: More ruins, aka the city.
• Picture 6: Isn’t this the most adorable kitty I’m in love
• Picture 7: Another cat. There were lots of them everywhere in Croatia!
• Picture 8: No explanation needed. Same goes for this website hehe
• Picture 9: Cool mural! You would never have been able to get this picture in the summer because there would be five hundred people posing and messing up your picture.
• Picture 10: The farthest reaches of Marjan Hill. This photo was snapped after we climbed a path that could’ve entered a “steepest path” competition and won, if such a thing existed.

• 4:00 Tammy wakes up to finish packing and getting ready
• 4:20 Sitting on the bed time- basically goodbye :(
• 4:35 Leave the Airbnb and lug suitcase back up the steps
• 4:40 Tammy meets her ride to the airport in the middle of the highway. Mazie wails and screams and cries but can do nothing to stop the car driving away. Final goodbye through the car window 😢
• 5:00 Mazie returns to the Airbnb and tries to fall back asleep but is very sad.
• 7:00 Mazie wakes up for the second time and gets ready to leave.
• 7:30 Goodbye Airbnb, for real! Mazie catches an Uber to the airport and has an educational conversation with the driver.

Mazie —> BCN (9:50)

Tammy —> AMS (6:30) four hour layover, MSP (12:45)

Well, I wouldn’t want to bore you with five hundred bullet points about boarding planes and taking off and landing, so I guess this is the end of the log :( What an amazing adventure in Croatia- we had a really, really great time! Thanks for keeping up to date with our trip and a huge thanks to Tammy/mommy for planning it all! Hvala!

• 6:00 Tammy wakes up
• 8:30 Mazie wakes up.
• 8:55 Walk to the bus stop to get picked up for our ATV adventure. Another Lindt chocolate bar for breakfast 😊
• 9:00 Drive out of town to where the ATVs are. Get helmets, choose our vehicle, and get acquainted with driving it.
• 9:30 The rest of the tour shows up- 100% American college guys, probably a sports team.
• 9:50-12:30 We’re on the road! We switch drivers: Tammy (flat roads) —> Mazie (flat roads, medium rocks and bumps, lots of mud) —> Tammy (Terrifying, INSANE patches of rock, mud, gravel) —> Mazie (flat roads and gravel back down). Stopped for beautiful panoramic views.
• 12:45 Drive back to the Old Town area. Dropped off near Airbnb, so stop in for water and another bite of chocolate.
• 1:00 Walk to Old Town
• 1:15 Burek- possibly Mazie’s favorite of the trip- for lunch. We found another bakery selling the pizza shaped one!
• 1:30 Gelato at Peppino’s. Both Tammy and Mazie indulge in the Peppino’s Maxi King flavor- hazelnuts, nougat, salted caramel 😋
• 1:45 Really quick stop in a museum. They have another dungeon.
• 1:56 Buy tickets for the Lokrum Island ferry, then literally jump on board as the ferry is pulling out of the dock.
• 2:00 Ferry ride!
• 2:15-5:30 Explore Lokrum Island. It’s a nature preserve with a stunning coastline, peacocks, and hidden natural features. It used to also have bunnies.
  • Walked around the fort (another fort!)
  • Walked the coastline
  • Blueberry juice at a café on the island
  • Peacocks are amusing and make such interesting noises
  • Wander through the Botanical Gardens
  • See the “Dead Sea”
  • Rush back through the forest to catch the 5:30 ferry
• 5:40 Board the ferry. Turns out it was late and that’s the only reason we made it on!
• 5:50 Back on the mainland. Walk to dinner
• 6:00 Dinner at Art Restaurant Renaissance. We shared sporki makaruli, sea bass, bread, and tiramisu (surprised?). The outdoor ambience with live music was lovely and felt like we were two mice in Ratatouille sitting in an Italian alleyway.
• 7:45 Second gelato of the day at aROMA Gelato. Mazie got peanut butter and Tammy got more salted caramel.
• 8:00 Final evening wandering around town. Bittersweet.
• 8:30 Head back to Airbnb
• 8:45 Stop at a bakery to buy one last round of burek for tomorrow morning.
• 9:00 Pack, pack, pack. Listen to Marco Polos on the couch.
• 10:00 Tammy goes to sleep
• 12:00 Mazie goes to sleep.

• 6:00 Tammy wakes up
• 8:00 Mazie wakes up, pack
• 8:20 Tammy walks to buy a spinach burek and Lindt chocolate bar for breakfast (don’t judge, it was good).
• 8:55 Check out of Airbnb and walk down the pier to meet our ferry to Dubrovnik!
• 9:06 Board the ferry
• 9:10 Ferry leaves. We make several stops at islands along the way, but it is a smooth and pretty ride.
• 12:30 Arrive in Dubrovnik. Uber from port to Airbnb just outside the Old City.
• 12:45 Another puzzle to figure out exactly where the Airbnb is, but we meet our host and check in without too much confusion. It is a beautiful, modern place with an amazing view of the sea.
• 1:15 Leave to explore the Old City. Walk down five million stairs to get there. Beautiful water views.
• 2:00 Chicken burek from Holy Burek. Very popular place.
• 2:15 Buy special Dubrovnik passes granting us access to the city walls, museums, and free public transport.
• 2:30 Walk the Old City walls! Gorgeous panoramic views from what felt like very high above the old city. It is really cool that the entirety of the wall is still intact.
• 3:30 Back into the Old City
• 3:35 Gelato stop at Molõ. Tammy had the salted caramel and Mazie tried dark chocolate orange, which she managed to get all over her fingers.
• 3:45 40 minute walk out of the city to escape room.
• 4:30 “Legends of Dubrovnik” at Puzzle Punks. Fun room! Reference my blog post or the Escaping Things website for more details :)
• 5:30 Narrow escape, walk back to the Old Town.
• 6:15 Explore
• 6:45 Take refuge in a tiny art museum because we are cold and it’s windy outside.
• 7:00 Dinner at Local Peka- our first time trying Croatian Peka, and it was homemade family style. We both LOVED the bread and olive oil, Mazie enjoyed the Peka meat, Tammy enjoyed the Peka potatoes. We smuggled our leftover bread out with us, it was that good😏.
• 8:30 Wander back to Airbnb. Walk back up the five million steps we descended earlier.
• 10:00 One last episode of Never Have I Ever.
• 10:30 Goodnight!
• 1:30 Mazie goes to bed- whoops :)