Hvar, Croatia

Growing up, you always remember or wish you had a summer romance. Many films (both European and Hollywood) show teenagers or young adults who either have a fling or meet their significant other during their summer holidays. Well when I was in my mid/late twenties, my friend Katie and I thought we would never have a beach fling. So during our Croatian trip where we would go from Dubrovnik to Split via Korcula and Hvar, we would joke about meeting Mr. Right while taking a ferry.

Since we were staying in Hvar for a week, this opportunity actually presented itself in more than one way! It started with our neighbours who were 4 Sicilian guys who decided to ruin my quiet soul searching looking at the stars. Needless to say, they were not our type since they did not speak English very well. And more importantly, their ethics were a bit shady. More specifically, one of the guys who was an engineer kept saying that he was a priest and how he would like to join me in the shower. Then, there was his friend who came to the balcony 10 minutes late as he was blow-drying his hair. He had a style that most shampoo commercials would only dream about and it took us 2 days to realize that our room did not have a hairdryer and he brought it with him from home! They may have been our types if we were not so annoyed by them waking us up every night at 4 am as they would get the room numbers confused!

So we were off to a great start already… but the next day it got even better. We were sitting in the central square of Hvar trying to digest the big Italian meal we had (most restaurants in Hvar cater to the Italian tourists making the majority of the food Italian). A young guy who turned out to be from Naples, Italy and who did not speak a word of English and was a lawyer, started to talk to me. Since he did not speak English, he asked his friend in Italian and would try to repeat what his friend said in English. After he explained that he is from Naples, the best city in the World, and that he was studying to be a lawyer. He invited me to watch movies in his hotel. When I declined he said maybe tomorrow… and I never saw him again. Katie was having a fun time laughing at my ability to pick them up but to my defence, he was very good looking!

Sailing in Croatia

I got my revenge the next day in the same square. This time we were trying to get over the wine that flowed at dinner, and we saw a guy who looked a bit drunk and a bit homeless approach. He started to talk to Katie who was too nice to ignore him. He asked her if she was sleeping alone. To which she replied “sort off”, after all I was also in the room! It did not end there, he then continued to ask her to come join him at the bar that he was heading to when she said maybe later, to be polite. He asked what more can he do, I can’t make you come but I wish you would come. This lasted a few minutes after which he proceeded to tell her how he knows Australia and he lived there but when asked in which city he said, you know the large one. He also mentioned that it was his last night on the island but we saw him every night after that.

The final possible summer fling happened on the beach. I saw a guy who was totally my type reading the book, I had wanted to read called “Three cups of Tea”. Without even realizing it, I asked him if it was good, and we ended up talking for about 45 minutes. He turned out to be an engineer for Audi, was also Italian but lived in Bavaria, Germany where only Audi employees and families lived making it hard for him to meet the right person. As we were both staying in the same hotel, we made plans to see each other again next day. However, in all my excitement, I forgot that we were leaving the next day!!! So it was not meant to be. However innocent this romance was, it was the closest me and Katie ever got to having a summer romance and decided to say that it was exactly that; a summer fling!