The sky started to get light while we were on the ferry, only about a 15 minute journey. Ferries always take me back to family trips to Port Townsend when I was a kid. The wind in your hair and salt on your face, it's an invigorating feeling. Unless you get seasick.
The sunrise only caught its momentum once we were on the other side of the water and from there we got going on the road to Zadar.
The plan was simple, arrive at the hostel, get settled in, walk downtown to meet with an architect/ landscape architect for a lecture, then we'd have a free afternoon. But the bus ride, however comfortable was not something I wanted to repeat. Most of the of the journey was along lovely coastline that didn't have a straight line in many miles. It twisted in and out of cove after cove after cove. Compared to even famous carsick roads like the Highway to Hana, this one takes the cake. I spent most of the trip trying to sleep and hold still.
We turned off the devil road into Zadar about 10:00 and had some time to explore the area around the hostel before we took off for our lecture. I found a beach nearby that's a part of a vacation resort; it had courts for every different sport, lawns, sand beach, playgrounds, a water slide, a giant sandbox for kids with sprayers and it was completely empty. Being the only person in a place designed for hundreds feels very creepy; like I was strolling through a post-apocalyptic beach resort just waiting for the zombies to attack. Also, parts of Zadar had flooded due to heavy rain and parts of the courts were broken or flooded out.
After getting settled at our extremely nice hostel we walked as a group along the water downtown. Many of the houses along the water got downright mansiony, with big gardens behind big wrought-iron fences.
The lecture we heard was from architect Nicola Basic who has designed some amazing and monumental pieces in Croatia. He's probably most well known for the Sea Organ on Zadar's waterfront and the light circle nearby it. But more on that later.
After the lecture we dispersed to make the most of our free afternoon. Most of us needed to find food, water and gelato as fast as possible after the lecture and crossed the bridge into the older part of town to find it.
Zadar is a bit like Rab on steroids. The tiny winding alleys and streets are still tiny and winding only much much longer. The main plazas are greater and less intimate, with ruins of old foundations still in place near the churches, but there are still little gems to be found around corners and at the end of alleys. Also, it's dirtier and has many more people than Rab, I'm guessing it doesn't completely shut down at the end of the summer.
After eating, a group of us went down to the water front, taking pictures of the sailboats going by and the wide crushed stone walkways leading in either direction. Soon, most of us made our way to the Sea Organ we had heard so much about.
The human activity around the organ gives away its position before its music is audible. People flock to it.
The organ, as Nicola explained to us is a system by which sound is created by the waves crashing into the sea wall. The water enters a different chamber for each note a few feet below the water line, gets pushed up a pipe into a reverberating chamber and the sound comes up through another pipe to a hole in the walkway. There are wide steps down from the walk to the wall that serve as seating as well as a way to get down to the water to put your feet in.
Soon we were close enough to distinguish the soft sounds coming from the Sea Organ.
I can't quite describe the way that the sea organ sounds or feels, I have a video below that was the best one I can find, but I think it might be another one of those things that you just have to be there. The best way I can describe it is that the ocean has a language of roaring foam and waves. We can understand that it is language but can't comprehend the words, we feel the connection to the sea but can't converse with it. The organ translates the words into music, a language we do understand. Though we still don't know the words we can feel the meaning more easily. Laying back on the steps, feeling the vibrations of the organ, hearing its song as well as the raw waves crashing alongside is a phenomenal experience.
I came back to the organ several times during the day, feeling how it felt through different parts of the afternoon. And though I could have spent an entire afternoon laying there I knew the rest of Zadar awaited, and I would only have this one chance to see as much as I could.
Most of the afternoon I spent doing some really high quality wandering, I entered the church and monastery of St. Francis and made friends with a very nice old nun. The church is also a museum of some religious art, and though generally it doesn't float my boat there was one very large painting in the back chapel that I found moving and was glad I got to see it.
Later I stumbled across one of my classmates and we had a coffee together, then another church, another twisting alley and that's how it went till sundown when we all met again at the organ as the best place to watch the day end.
When it gets dark enough the light circle (also designed by Nicola Basic) comes on, lighting up large patterns of flickering, flowing and alternating light. We moved over to it and somehow, I'm not exactly sure we started an improptu salsa lesson on the light circle. Everyone present from our class participated and also a few other visitors nearby. A lot of people in the program have been very interested in learning at least a few ballroom dances, a near miracle in itself, but the fact that they have actually wanted to practice and get better after the first lesson is nearly unheard of. I'm so proud of my classmates!
After learning almost an entire salsa line dance a wedding party showed up for pictures on the light circle and we left to go find dinner at a plaza on the other side of the peninsula.
I had a hard time sitting still through dinner. We had had our first little dance session at the apartments a few days before until the land lady came up and asked us to quiet down. Then with this little taste of salsa the crave had gotten going and the only way to sate it is to dance; and dance as much as possible for as long as possible. By the end of dinner I was practically vibrating with anticipation.
A few of us had been talking about going out that night and we asked the restaurant owner after dinner where he would suggest. He gave us the address of a club on the other side of the water but warned us that it was only 9:30, no one would be there. We should wait till midnight, or better yet 1:00 to go out.
I had forgotten about this part. Blog posts from my friends recounted how they had to wait to go out until at least 11:30 and even then was too early to have fun. To spend some time we went to a bar for a couple of hours and were surprised by the crappy service and rude staff, but at 11:45 we set off into the night for the club.
I should also mention that in the time between the end of dinner and leaving the bar it had started raining impossibly hard. Water was streaming from every roof down into the alleys. We walked back across the bridge passing girls in short skirts and platform heels teetering their way through the river that had once been the sidewalk to the old town. I had to admire their commitment but was still astounded by the lack of practicality.
The club we went to "Marischino" was not good. The club itself was cool, laser lights, interesting chandeliers, an ok DJ, but the place was sparsely populated by (no offense) older couples sipping drinks on the outskirts of a completely empty dance floor. Normally I'll be the first one on there, but I held back at this place, feeling the atmosphere was poignantly judgy and not inviting. Maybe it was just too early, but the waitstaff was very rude to us and we wanted to leave asap.
Two of our group scouted out another club nearby and soon we made our way over there. I admit I was disappointed and a little angry because of the other place. But by the time we reached the second club our scouts were out front saying it was a bunch of kids under 18 (again, no offense). But the bouncer there told them about a further club, this one well known for awesome dancing and occasional live music.
With this one last hope in our hearts our crew slogged the last of the way to the third club. I'm still not exactly sure where it was - pretty out of the way near a beach somewhere but when we walked in I knew we were in the right place. People around our age were milling about, still an empty dance floor, but crowds were pouring in, especially when the clock hit that magic 1:00 number.
There were flat screen tvs playing the same five music videos over the bar and we realized they were all of the same guy playing a viola. One of our number said she had seen him on a poster outside the club with Saturday's date, so maybe he was playing?
After waiting a few minutes we made our way out to the edge of the now full, but almost completely stationary dance floor and started moving. A few minutes later, a very tall person and a very sparkly person got up on the small stage and there he was. The God of Electric Viola.
His name is Mario Rucner, he plays the electric viola. Nuff said. He also has a very long braid out just the back of his head but we can forgive that for his violas shredding skills. He, accompanied by a DJ and an extremely sparkly GoGo dancer got on stage and performed one of the best live shows I've ever seen. He did some covers of pop songs with beats and other instruments from the sound boards and also some original songs I've never heard. The performance was awesome and we were right up at the stage for dancing. It was also a little weird, like when they played an LMFAO song the dancer would put a box with eye holes cut out over her head and dance with it on.
Toward the end of their set she pulled me up and I danced with her and The God of Electric Viola for a part of a song before jumping off back to my friends.
Speaking of, we made a few friends on the dance floor, especially after everyone there had had a few drinks and were inclined to be more friendly. I don't know what the stingy attitude can be, maybe it's the whole competing for mates theory so everyone has to be stoic and perfect. I don't know, but luckily for us that broke down pretty quickly and all that was left were people having a good time.
Dancing felt so good. expelling some of the stress from the previous week, getting some endorphins going, and having a silly and fun time with friends was just what I needed.
I was ready to dance till the club closed at 6am but a few of my more practical friends wanted to leave around 4:30. We caught a cab back to the hostel and slept for two or so hours before getting up to start the second day in Zadar.
So great that you found people interested in dancing with you! and ballroom! what are they, nerds? ;) Sounds like a fabulous time.
ReplyDelete