escape the little hooligans

A quick update. We just arrived in the city of Split (a name full of oh so much punning potential) after a grueling all night ferry. It should have been a very pleasant trip, but ended up being in the middle of a rather energetic and immature junior high crowd. We got ourselves the cheap "deck" tickets, rather than the ones for a bed, and found out this means that you are actually on the deck, as in outside on whatever bench you happen to find. This was actually shaping up to be a good thing as the weather was beautifully warm, the sea calm and we were in plenty of good company with backpackers of all ages rolling out their therma rests and sleeping bags for a good nights sleep under the stars. Check out this set up. The guy actually pumped up this giant air mattress for a night of sleeping in style.Things were going well, even had a little supper...

... until the junior high kids showed up, who I may add, all had sleeping bunks in rooms somewhere. But as kids of this age will do anywhere in the world when unsupervised, they turned into a bunch of animals screaming, running around, throwing things, blaring loud music. We ignored it at first assuming there would be a curfew of some sort, and that there would be some teachers around the corner eventually. We did eventually spot the teachers. they were sitting on an opposite bench from us trying to sleep, chatting loudly at 1 am, oblivious to the absolute chaos around them. Now I am not one to complain about teachers, being one myself....but really the situation was crazy. Perhaps it was some bizarre psychological experiment we wandered into. Eventually we had no choice but to pick our stuff up and head inside where we found all of our fellow "deck" passengers seeking refuge from the children gone wild on the restaurant floor. So we pushed a few chairs aside and joined the crowd. In the morning we even saw people who had brought their bedding (mattress and all) from the cabins to try and escape the little hooligans. We did manage to get a few hours sleep in, and arrived in Split this morning.

Tired.

We decided to try our hand at private accommodation rental as this seems to be the thing to do here. This entails haggling with elderly women at the ferry dock, looking at pictures, walking to the house to take a look, haggling some more, etc. Eventually, after looking at a few places we got a little apartment in the old town for a good deal. So we plan to explore this area for a few days before trying our hand at the ferry again as we head to the islands and further south.

Will keep you posted. Gotta split.