As students congregate for the welcoming party at the start of this year’s Croatian Language and Culture Course on Vis, Julia Molden, never backwards in coming forwards, can’t quite say the same for our noble leader….or can she?!

Follow My Leader Backwards!

Today once again started bright and early – or at an ungodly hour depending on your viewpoint.  It had been agreed that we would meet Linda and John at the port in Split ready to board the 09:00 ferry to Vis.  As it happened we kept playing overtaking on the way.  Having driven up behind them and overtaken at one point, they raced past us at the pay station on account of their having an ENC pass while we had to queue up in the normal queue.

A couple of hours later landing on Vis, we rolled off the ferry after them and proceeded to follow, which involved turning down a narrow dead end searching for a parking space to visit Konzum.  As it proved unsuccessful to find one, let alone two spaces, we were obliged to back out of said dead end to continue the search further on.  At Tommy’s we had more luck, parked, picked up our bags and a shopping trolley and ventured in.  Once again, the game of follow my leader involved a lot of blind alleys and reversing, as we strived to collect all the shopping for tonight’s welcome party as well as food for the week.  Eventually we managed to extricate ourselves from the shop with bags and boxes bulging with bottles of wine, cheese, pršut, bread and lots of other goodies and finally we set off again.

We had a couple more occasions of following the lead car into roads and tight spaces, from which we subsequently had to reverse out, and finally found the road leading to our school home for the week.  This could well have proved another tricky moment, had it not been for the fact that the lady in charge of the house lead us all the way there, which was lucky indeed.

The house is lovely, set as it is practically in the middle of nowhere with views down to the coast and across open land.  It is very homely, fits our bill very well indeed and felt almost immediately like a real home.  But even then, climbing up to the top bedroom involved a bit more backing out, as it was far easier to come back down the stairs backwards because of the size and steepness of the steps.

After a lovely lunch, we came back to rest and prepare for the evening party, which started at 18:30.  Using a mixture of plates and bowls, we set up a spread of food which was really pretty good, stood all the bottles up ready to pour, and then awaited the appointed time.   Bit by bit all the expected guests arrived and all were really complimentary about our summer school and its location, even if it did take a bit of finding.  Everyone sat around eating, drinking and chatting, getting to know each other and setting the scene for the week ahead.  There was lots of laughing and fun and everyone appeared to enjoy themselves.  And then it was time to leave and once more we were left alone to clear up, check the excursion money and try to link our phones to the internet.  All was finally successfully achieved and we were ready to fall into bed ready to get up early for tomorrow’s first excursion, which starts at 07:45.  By the end of a week of all these early starts, I shall have become a rana ptica rather than my usual night owl!