Monday July 16, 2007
Day 7 –  Duga Resa     &  Plitvice National Park
By: Maddie Haben 
Northern Lights 16-1

This morning we got up at 8:00.  The team went downstairs to eat an interesting breakfast of sliced bologna, bologna pate, warm yogurt, and bread (most of us just ate the bread).  After we finished eating, we got onto the bus and headed out to Plitvice National Park.

Plitvice National Park is the number one national park in Croatia.  When we arrived we could see beautiful waterfalls.  The landscape was so pretty that it looked fake.  The water was a gorgeous turquoise color and many fish swam up to greet us as we walked on the boardwalks. Steph and I were very tempted to “accidentally fall in” but we refrained ourselves.  The fish in the water were seriously calling to us.

One of the highlights of the park besides the great scenery was getting to eat hamburgers for lunch.  I personally was going into hamburger withdrawal and that burger really hit the spot. 

After the National Park, we headed back to the hotel to get ready for the match.  Today we played the same team that we had played yesterday (Croatian Youth National Team).  We played really well the first game (won) and then we sort of fell apart the next four.  Even though we lost to the Croatians again, the match was a lot of fun.

After the match, we all took showers and headed over to the restaurant to eat some dinner.  There we traded shirts with the Croatians and then ate the appetizers.  At the tables, we talked endlessly about random things and told many funny stories.  Most of the girls were very fluent in English and talking to us came easy for most of them.

Finally after dinner was over we headed outside to say our final goodbyes.  After two days of getting to know each other, saying goodbye was kind of hard.  We all got along great and all of us had experiences of a lifetime.  I will never forget the nice hospitality and kindness that was given to us these past couple of days.