Back That Month Up | Split
The people, places, and things that made Split the perfect place to kick off Remote Year
The concept of time on Remote Year is weird.
Our first month is over, and for the life of me I cannot decide whether it was the fastest or the slowest month of my life. The reality is probably both, depending on how you break it down.
In terms of the four weeks as a whole, it feels like they flew by so freaking fast. Any time that I travel, I always have a moment on the departing plane before takeoff where I think to myself “watch, in what’s going to feel like 5 minutes, I’m going to be back on a plane heading back home with a bad case of Post-Vacation Depression (PVD).” I then will have a complimentary moment on the flight back where I’m sitting in my seat with a bad case of PVD and think to myself “yep, it happened again.” I wasn’t shocked to realize that I had a similar moment on the ride to the Split airport, except there were three big differences: (1) the time between these moments was four weeks instead of a couple days, (2) I wasn’t going home — I was going to Prague to continue this journey, and (3) there were zero traces of PVD in my system.
On the other hand, everything that happened in between those two moments felt like it went by much slower. I feel like I spent way more than four weeks in Croatia and I feel like I’ve known these people for way longer than that too. They (RY) told us at the start that life here is “life concentrated”, and I think that after four weeks, I’d have to agree.
Well, now that you are well versed in my theories of time on RY…
…I’ll dive into what specifically made month 1 so special.
The People
Kaizen
I wrote this in my first post, but I continue to be impressed by the people within the Krew. We’re now 52 strong (53 if you count a certain cardboard cutout) and each week, probably each day even, I learn something new about someone that I find fascinating. The support within the group is really strong and I hope it stays that way as we go through the inevitable challenging times throughout the year.
City Team
Each RY city has a City Team comprised of local people who help make our transitions to each city go smoothly and provide a ton of support throughout our month there. They do stuff like coordinating our accommodations, to planning our local experience tracks, to telling us how to not piss off the locals we’re living amongst.
The City Team in Split of Helena, Tamara, Mate, and Katja set a really high standard for the future City Teams we’re going to meet. It was really sad having to leave this group on our travel day.
Locals
Honestly, I didn’t meet a lot of locals. The way that the workspace and accommodations were set up, along with the fact that it was month 1, I ended up spending most of the time getting to know the people within the group. However, there were a couple of All Star locals that I want to give a shoutout to.
Lady Uber Driver: I don’t know her name, but she provided me one of the funniest Uber rides of my life one night after a night at Irish Bar. This lady was the perfect amount of eccentric and pretended to have magical powers that would turn red lights into green ones. My roommate Zach and I quickly joined in on the fun and the ride turned into three lunatics shouting and making weird hand gestures at every street light. The weirdest part of it all? It worked.
The Ladies of Fast Food In: There were three main ladies who worked at FFI and your experience largely depended on who was working when you went (which was always). Two of the ladies spoke decent-to-good English and generally gave you a pleasant experience. The third, on the other hand, was a little bit more of a wildcard. She was known to give you death stares that pierced your heart if you don’t pay in exact change or she straight up wouldn’t let you put ajvar on your Tortilla Mexicana because, according to her, “it doesn’t go with it.” She was the kind of tough that made you want her to like you that much more. Needless to say, I miss all three of them and their propensity to lather your food in tartar sauce and corn.
Jonathan Lipnicki
Well, this got out of hand quickly…
What started out as a joke, rapidly turned into a year-long goal for Kaizen: to have Jonathan Lipnicki meet up with us at some point.
Let me explain.
It all started when our Program Leaders, Silvia and Jen, teased us with a big secret that they would be announcing the following day. The group quickly began to guess what the secret would be. Ideas ranged from a change in the itinerary to adding a month 13 to a new Remote joining the group. Jen would send out a clue every couple of hours that was intended to help us guess the secret.
One of the guesses, which was proposed by Alex in a conversation with a handful of us, was that some C-List celebrity would be joining the group. I believe his exact words were along the lines of: “you know, like Jonathan Lipnicki or someone.”
I lost it.
This was too brilliant to not make it a thing. I quickly shared it in our Slack group and a few others latched onto the idea. The rest of the morning was spent making J-Lips jokes in Slack and it was genuinely one of the most fun afternoons of the month.
Flash forward a couple of weeks and we had a life-size cardboard cutout of him created, we made first contact with him on social media, we created a website to document the ridiculous pictures of said cutout, we got the real J-Lips to give us a shoutout from his IG account, and we brought him with us to Prague — where he is currently sitting at my dining table (which has resulted in getting the sh*t scared out of me every time I walk into the kitchen).
Like I said, out. of. hand.
The Places
Split, Croatia
Home base for the month. I will miss its sea, its promenade, its Old Town, and its affinity for tartar sauce and corn.
Highlights include: sailing, daily TRX sessions in the parking lot, meeting Kaizen and the City Team, the birth of Kai-razy Wednesdays, the creation of the J-Lips phenomenon, seafood + wine dinners in Old Town, Irish Bar, Pelinkovac, and the general convenience and comfort of our living and working situation.
…Ok, fine. I’ll miss Fast Food In too.❤
Dubrovnik, Croatia
First RY side trip was to the location of King’s Landing from GoT. This place was so beautiful that anyone with an iPhone felt like they were a professional photographer because every single picture looked good. Fun fact: Dubrovnik has the most Irish Bars per capita than any other city*.
Highlights include: walking along the wall #views, kayaking around the fortress to a secluded beach, cliff jumping, Irish Bars, overusing the “Shame Bell” app, Jace owling from a closet(?) 8 ft off the ground, and a club inside a castle.
*A made up (but probably true) statistic
Kotor, Montenegro
A small group of us extended the Dubrovnik side trip and spent Easter weekend in Kotor. A smaller, sleepier town nestled in the mountains along the Bay of Kotor. Took approx 10M photos of the same mountain from our AirBNB because it was the Mystique of mountains and changed its appearance every 10 minutes.
Highlights include: my first real digimad experience, hiking to the fortress, a family Easter dinner, and the picturesque scenery that surrounded us at all times.
Zadar, Croatia
Only spent a couple hours in Zadar, but it was long enough to know I wish I had more time there. We spent our limited time wisely and were able to see the end of a beautiful sunset, listen to the sea organ, and see the solar-powered astronomical light show on the promenade.
The Things
WiP
The incredible RY-owned coworking space in Split. This place was amazing to work from for the month. It’s filled with coffee, tons of different tables and couches to work on, and several prime napping locations. RY has just opened another WiP workspace in Lisbon, so I’m excited to see how that compares.
Game of Thrones
Seemingly everywhere you go in Croatia is a shooting location for GoT. I swear, you could probably stop at a gas station to use the bathroom and there would be someone telling you that you were sitting on the toilet where Tyrion shot Tywin with the crossbow.
Besides Dubrovnik, my favorite GoT location was the Klis Fortress, where they shoot scenes for Meereen.
<insert Khaleesi/Mother of Dragons joke here>
Waterfalls
Croatia is the most naturally beautiful place I have ever been (and I’ve been to Ohio, so…). The two most beautiful places I saw were the Krka and Plitvice waterfalls. Both were within driving distance from Split and made incredible day trips.
In conclusion…
Croatia was a tremendous intro to Remote Year and this awesome, weird new lifestyle. It was a four weeks incredibly well-spent, but now its on to Prague!
Živjeli, Split!
Before you go, don’t forget to back these months up, too!
- Europe: Split, Prague, Lisbon, Sofia
- Asia: Hanoi, Chiang Mai, Kyoto, Kuala Lumpur
- Latin America: Lima, Medellín, Bogotá, Mexico City
