Our second day in Korcula was epic; although that was not really the plan. We decided to rent bikes and ride to a little beach village, Lumbarda, about 3 miles away at the end of a little road. Well, apparently 3 miles in Korcula is actually about 100 miles in my world. It was damn far, but a pretty ride through forests and along coves. We got to the beach and it was perfect, a little café serving cheap and delicious beers right beside the very empty beach. We partook of both beers and beach, until “the group” arrived. About 75 kids between the ages 8-12 rolled in and took over. As it turns out the group is a peace initiative started by a woman from Hawaii, named Bambi (no I’m not making that shit up, its her name). She brings volunteers from the US to run camps for very poor kids from Bosnia, Croatia, Serbia, and Montenegro. The purpose of the camp is to help teach these kids that the hatred from the Balkan Wars of the 1990s can be overcome. They never discuss the war, unless a kid specifically brings it up, but they do ethics, morals, and humanitarian activities. Almost all of these kids were orphaned by their parents who were too poor after the conflict to care for them. The people we met that day were incredibly giving and inspiring. I’m hoping to get some of my students involved as volunteers next year. I also decided through my beer induced haze that I needed to move to Hawaii and teach at Bambi’s school, Punahou Academy, obviously it’s the name that caught my extremely immature attention. I know I promised to try to keep it more sophisticated this year, but really?
This is where it all began
Perfect peace when we got to Lumbarda 
Perhaps the best photo I've taken this entire trip! 
The invasion of the kids
our 8,000th Ozujsko
So after about 8000 tasty Ozujsko beers, no food, swimming, and getting sun burns, Liz and I had to ride our bikes back to Korcula town. Sober, this was a mess, especially because my bike was not healthy and would only operate in 1 gear. That made bigass hills fun. Drunk, this was anyone's game. Liz took the lead and I swear to god she almost ran into a kid sitting in a chair and then actually did run right over his flip flop (thankfully it wasn’t on his foot). The ride home went much quicker, I can only assume because we were bombed. Once we returned the bikes, a miracle in itself, we were starving. There was a great little pizza place in the middle of the square in front of St. Mark’s Cathedral; we housed 2 Hawaii pizzas. I’m not really sure if the pizza was so damn good because it was just so damn good or because we were so damn drunk, but it gets recorded as one of the best pizzas I’ve eaten; and I’ve eaten a load of pizza! As Liz would later quote from Animal House, “fat, drunk, and stupid is no way to go through life,” we fully disagreed and decided that our day of all of the above was AWESOME!!!
Moments before almost killing a kid and maiming a flip flop
We made it back after too many beers. It was not a guaranteed outcome. . . 
St. Mark's Cathedral
Square where we ate damn fine pizza.
6 comments:
Well I'm glad there were no accidental crashes into the water with those bikes. Now that would've been funny.
That is fortunate. However, I cannot say there were NO crashes at all. Stay tuned for a future post where it all unravels. . .
I didn't know you know how to ride a bike.
Not only do I know how to ride a bike, I know how to ride a bike completely tossed. I am a girl of many many talents!!
But can you ride it backwards and completely tossed?...
Anon: I would need verification from someone who was not blind drunk, but I'm pretty sure that's exactly how I did ride it.
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