Semester 10 Chapter XIII: Rabac Czech-in

What’s good y’all. Here we go again. Another day, another country, another story to tell. My departure to Croatia had been postponed several times which gave me some extra time in Brno. I spent nearly 3 weeks over there. The city is my hometown but it doesn’t really feel like home anymore. Not in the sense of a base. I still can’t see myself living there long-term. I did enjoy it tho. Shout out to everyone I managed to catch up with and major shout out to my sis, her fiancée and the nephew. It’s all love.

Last week was pretty normal. Loads of work, lots of running and workout, some hangouts with my dad’s gf, some hangouts with my sis… We did a goodbye evening at their spot on Friday and one of my best friends joined us for that. It felt a bit less sentimental because this time around, I don’t travel half the globe. Rabac is around 600km away from Brno which makes it pretty accessible by road or railway and lot of my people are planning to visit. My sis being one of them; they should arrive in about a month. So one of the easier goodbyes.

 

Saturday morning, I packed my shit and waited for a call from the dive guy. He picked me up with his van around 10am just outside my building and then we hit the road. Shortly after we got joined by his wife who drove another car all the way here. The ride was swift, we didn’t do any long stops and the conversations in the car were pretty entertaining. I don’t see any major issues emerging between the two of us on personal. This might just work. Oh, and no issues with the border, covid and shit… All went extremely fast.

 

 

We made it to Rabac around 7pm. Let me tell you a bit about the situation here. The dive shop is basically on the premises of a 4 star hotel. It’s a bit hidden but I can imagine that when the season kicks in, it could work quite well. The place is relatively big; there’s a reception, room for all the gear, room for a compressor, showers and toilet and two extra rooms (and solid wifi). The one all the way in the back is mine for the foreseeable future. It’s super basic and since it’s all the way into the hotel, it has no windows. Given the fact I literally only sleep there it’s actually not too bad (I enjoy the dark). There’s quite a lot of cool shit coming with this place tho. Food being one of them. As a part of our deal, I have breakfasts and dinners secured in the hotel. Both buffet-style, plenty of vegan options. Those fuckers even have like 4 kinds of plant-based milk for breakfast. It has a certain appeal – you wake up in your dungeon and then you go up to eat with people who spend minimum of 90 EUR a night per person. I also get to use the hotel’s gym and pool. So today, I got myself back to the gym after more than a year on resistance bands. Generally, I feel quite comfortable with the set-up. Plus the spot is like 50 meters away from a beach.

 

 

When it comes to diving, we are in the stage of setting everything up. I haven’t been in the water yet but it’s coming. There’s really very few people around. The hotel has around 1500 beds and currently, there’s 80 people in it. When I was walking around this morning around 10am, I barely met a person. You get the idea. So I’m just getting familiar with the spot, trying to understand the local vibe and hanging out with the boss and his wife. Both turned out to be really cool people. See, when you deal with Czechs, you never know. But we can have a good convo and I haven’t ran into a red alert in regards to the key topics like veganism, feminism or racism yet (and trust me, I brought all of them up like light-speed fast). Everything is going smoothly. Since there’s very little traffic, I’m keeping all of my classes for the time being. There’s absolutely no need for me to be on stand-by 24/7 at the shop so there’s no reason to cut any of my main source of income. I’ve also started working on the translation of the shop’s website and I got some proofreading gig on top of that. Keeping myself busy.

 

As for Rabac, I haven’t seen much of it (and I’m not sure how much is there to see). It a small town spread across this little bay with plenty of hotels of various sizes, restaurants and shops. Today I located a supermarket as I forgot to pack my nail clippers. So there’s that. Covid restrictions are relatively loose. People mostly don't wear face masks outdoors, outdoor areas of restaurants and cafés operate and respirators aren't really a thing here. The temperature is pretty good. When it’s sunny, you can walk around in a tank top but evenings totally call for a long-sleeve. I’m curious about the upcoming season. How many people are gonna be here? What kind of people? How are the dive sites? Shit, there’s a lot to be unfolded over the next couple of weeks. But it’s good to be here. I feel good just being in a new place with new things to discover and new memories to make. Sending love to all my readers. One!

Highlights:

• Rabac.
• Breathing the sea air once again.
• Gym. I still got it.