Shopping

I’ve done a bit of shopping lately, setting up house. Initially I thought temporary thoughts and had decided that I would just live with the things in the apartment¸ but the juice glasses are small, not so good for a long rum (domaci) in the evening, so small that I drink it before I realize and then feel guilty for pouring a second one.
And I’ve been pretending that I don’t mind drinking wine from a small juice glass (same guilty comment applies, see above), so I have bought tall glasses and wine glasses. I’m filling my kitchen cupboards up.

Oh, and a small paring knife before I do something lethal with the large bread knife in the drawer. Oh, and a rucnik za plazu, a beach towel, and a local phone. I had initially limited myself to a local SIM card but the swapping over of the cards with missed texts and phone calls was frustrating. Goodness, there are so few calls, I don’t want to miss any!
But I couldn’t find a plug for the kitchen sink, at least not in the three shops that I tried to mime out what I needed – I didn’t have my dictionary with me, and was not ever very good at those charade games. It seems that a plug is not the norm.
In the winter season which applies until Easter I think, shops are open at 8 in the morning, and most likely to be closed by 2. One of the three supermarkets is open until 8 but the others close earlier, especially on a Sunday. Not much is open on a Sunday afternoon – the pecara (baker) and the butcher are open though, great for bread on the way back from the beach.
I love the delicatessens in the supermarkets where you can buy a few slices of cheese or prsut or salami. They fold it into a lovely square in old-fashioned white paper. A few times I have been caught out not having my fresh produce weighed and priced before going to the checkout. And there is no eftpos, cash only. I won't be able to stop converting into NZ$ for a while, quickly dividing kuna amounts by just under 5. Muesli for example is 22 kuna, a dozen slices of salami is 4 kuna and a bag of delicious dried figs are 15 kuna and last me a week or so. I guess the cost of things is comparable if not slightly cheaper. The long drinking glasses (for 6) were 35 kuna, but the phone was 275 kuna. Coffee (small cup of coffee with hot frothed milk, and comes with a glass of iced water and sometimes a ginger biscuit) is between 7 and 9 kuna depending on which café. Reasonable enough to justify, particularly as I take an hour or so in the café drinking it.
There are no obvious fashion stores in Makarska really, apart from United Colours of Beneton – and then two are for children and babies, and one is for adults. I tried the sports stores to find a replacement top for running, but there was very little of that variety for women. And the shops aren’t obvious – not much advertising, no real window displays - functional is the key.

I bought my new Mountaineering Pants in a shop called Mana, which turned out to be huge by hadn't even noticed it in the street.

Split is the place to go for a shopping fix, and only 1 ¼ hours away by bus! And they have those shoe shops that I love walking into and just smelling….