i am still alive!

hi all, i am still alive and kicking, no posts recently because ive had no internet access!
after my one night in the croatian town of split, i've been on a croatian island for the past few days learning to scuba dive.
the island is called korcula and i was staying in a gorgeous little place called vela luka which is a small harbor town of 4300 people.
im now a certified padi open water diver :-)
met up with some really cool irish guys who took me under their wing for a 'few' pints, and also been on the diving course with them.
ive been quite surprised really, as anyone who knows me knows i've had bad experiences with a few of our irish cousins and their england hating antics, but these guys were sound!
so i have a few more to add on the hero list;
brina
pheluna
jj
will
and most of all a big up to the galloway divers especially sadhbh (pronouced sigh-ve)
shes an absolute hero of the state, a female diver travelling croatia on her own who unfortunately lost her debit cards and camera last night and was my dive buddy for the night dive.
the weather has been gorgeous here, except for yesterday when all hell broke loose, and the biggest most immense thunderstorm broke.
i've never seen anything like it at all!!
me and sadhbh stayed up and watched it all night, and the hills around us got pounded with lightning and it was still flashing away at four am.
other than getting my certificate, we havent been up to much, just taking advantage of the gorgeous weather and cheap(ish) beer.
did a night dive the night before last, and i absolutely shat myself.
jumping off a boat into pitch black water with only a torch to see by was quite an experience, but once we were under i kinda calmed down a bit :-)
saw a sea hare and a few octupi and a few crab, and loads of fish, was a very surreal environment to be in, felt more like i figured space would, hovering almost weightless in pitch black.
i turned off my torch and turned away from everyone else and you could literally see nothing, just black, and only hear the background crackling of the sea life and the darth vader noise of your regulator. if you waft your hand in front of your face when its like that, all the microorganisms in the water give off a phosphoresence of millions of different colours, figure its like an lsd trip or something :-)
had a bit of a rush today to get the ferry back to split, finally decided on a plan of action. i'm heading to ancona in italy on the overnight ferry today, to arrive there for eight am, then work my way back to ljubljana (again!!) via rome and trieste.
approaching the last week of the trip now, kind of a scary thought though i'll deffo be glad of a nice big bacon banjo with proper ketchup (by that i mean heinz, none of this daddy's rubbish)
and water with no gas.
and a sunday roast mmmm....
but first, to the land of pizza, ferraris and people who can't queue. italia.

dodgy intel

after bohinj and the paragliding and kayaking i realised it was going to be a bit of a nightmare to get anywhere without having to double back on myself, so i did the adventurous thing and asked for help, though the bus i was told to get on was blatantly not the right one!
well i ended up in kranjska gora (a ski resort further in the mountains) which is completely the wrong direction to where i wanted to go (nova gorica) but never mind.
kranjska gora was beautiful, even higher in the alps that bohinj.
alas, im not kitted up for anything more than i've already done so i decided to have a wander and get an early night and prep for a long travel.
the place is very picture-esque but its all families and couples so i got on the net and looked at my options;
italy or croatia.
croatia it is.
so i jumped on an early bus and ive spent the day milling around ljubljana awaiting my train to split via zagreb, which i'm doing first class again, this time its about 12 quid.
been up to the castle today, met up witha bunch of guys from nottingham which were pretty cool, but ljubljana is a bit dead today, being a sunday. hopefully see it better in two weeks time when i return for my flight.
ive heard a lot of good things about croatia and the dalmatian coast, so should be good. maybe get a ferry to dubrovnik and train to sarejavo if im feeling really adventurous.
thats all for now..
more soon..