July 16: Diocletian's Palace and Our Final Concert

Today was our first full day in Split, our final Croatian destination. The night before some of the rooms had lost power causing some slight inconveniences but everyone was recovered for the 8:30 meet up time in the lobby of the university dorms where we are staying (they basically function as a hostel in the summer). After a short bus ride and walk we arrived at the 4th Century C.E palace/fort/retirement home of Roman Emperor Diocletian. I was so excited for this since I have been wanting to go to this site since I was in 5th grade. The palace is a UNESCO world heritage site and is really big. We took a walking tour of the palace and saw all the gates as well as the smallest church in the world and the skinniest road.

Walking through the streets of the Diocletian's Palace

Maddy and friends on the skinniest road!

We also saw some gladiators at the gold gate who asked us to sing so we sang them the 3 South African folk songs. A few feet within the gate, at the antechamber, we were asked to perform again with a traditional music quartet, and we performed some of our Croatian folk songs. After our tour of the palace finished, we went back to the bus.

Somachi, Kevin and Derrick with Gladiators

A huge sculpture by artist Ivan Mestrovic was quite a popular one with Sarah, Cora, and Luke

The bus took us to a small cafe on a hill above a beach in a neighborhood. It was so good. It was cleansing and delicious and it didn’t have chicken. We had beans, salad, hummus, a peanut-tahini sauce and home fries and beets, a type of yellow rice, bread and the best tomatoes ever. It was my favorite lunch of the whole tour and many people even put extra food in the cups to save for later and purchased delicious juices. After this scrumptious lunch we went to this beautiful beach with very clear, blue water, which was very picturesque. Almost everyone got in and we swam all over and played frisbee standing on rocks. The water was very deep and several people were able to touch the bottom. It was so much fun and it was beautiful!

Perfect day for the beach!

After the beach we drove back to the dorms and cleaned up quickly for our last concert. The concert was super bittersweet and fun. It was outside which meant khaki time! We performed Asimbonanga with Siveny as doing the solo one final time and many other songs that we all really enjoy. At one point Kimani got some of the audience to come dance during World Rhythm Ensemble.

Our final concert!

After the concert, there were a lot of tears and smiles and we went and sat on the seawall to eat and watch the boats. Some people dipped their feet.

Good times on the seawall

We sang Happy Birthday to Cookie and she got a small cake. After cake we went to a gelato stand and all got gelato (also for Cookie's birthday) before returning to the dorms to write donor appreciation letters and hang out.

-Maddy

Cookie and Alexis with birthday ice cream