I started the day by scrounging some food from the kitchen. I found some bread and some sort of mystery meat that tasted a lot like deviled ham, though the bread turned out to be someone else's that was mistakenly placed on the free shelf. I didn't admit to having eaten it. I few minutes later, I started talking with an Australian (how many times have I said some variation of this now?) named Andre who reminds me almost of a more genuine version of Rachel Fried - incredibly bubbly and outgoing to a degree that I find almost shocking. She invited me to join her plan of hiking up to a hill on the west end of the Split peninsula. We started walking over but got distracted by a wide variety of gorgeous landscapes: first, we had to work our way through Diocletian's palace, which is incredibly well preserved and people actually still live in. There are some later Venetian buildings on top of it, but the palace itself makes up the heart of the old town. Andre had done a tour of the palace the previous day so I was able to get some cool info. We started walking along the water, and I came to appreciate just how astonishingly beautiful Split is. The water is an incredible shade of blue, the bay is surrounded by mountainous islands to the point that it appears almost to be a lake, and the peninsula itself is covered in olive groves and quintessentially Mediterranean flora. We walked along the water until coming to a beachy area full of very friendly cats that came right up to us. This became a theme as the day went on - lots of cats everywhere on the peninsula. Stopping for the cats made swimming seem an enticing option, so we swam for a while. Andre thought the water was cold but since she lives in Cairns that's to be expected; I thought it was perfect. I guess it's comfortable around here year round. After that we made our way up the coastline through olive groves (I tried one and found it inedible) until we started to climb this network of trails in a cliff face. The trails went up to some incredibly impressive churches that were built directly into the rock of the hill. Eventually, we made it to the top, where there was a huge fire tower that had incredible views of the whole region. The colors cast by the setting sun were amazing.

I'd been warned that Split is a tourist trap with annoying British tourists that are only trying to get drunk everywhere. While I'm sure that's true in the summer, right now it certainly isn't despite still being shorts weather. There are a few people on the beaches but I never felt like there was ever anything resembling a crowd anywhere. The one place this really showed up was in restaurant prices - in the evening we went out to get some food and drink and it was somewhat more expensive than it should have been. At least the hostel is pretty cheap. I got some decent seafood, but this came back to bite me late in the night. I woke up around 4 and spent much of the night thereafter vomiting in the bathroom. Even now I don't feel great, though I'm hopeful that the worst has passed. Oh well. Not sure what's on the agenda for tomorrow, but I'll play it by ear. There's still a lot to explore in this city and I'm really curious to see what else it has to offer.