An email popped in my inbox "Ryanair 24 hour sale" at exactly the same time I was thinking how tired I was from relentless work that was coming my way. Thinking 'no way can I have time off at this busy time', I still had a look. I was after a short weekend stay from Newcastle at a cheap price.
Majorca, Cyprus, Faro all ruled out because of flight times and prices, then Zadar BINGO. 17:10 Friday night flight out. Coming back landing landing before 8:00 on Monday morning, all for under £50 return - booked for me and Sienna (as a treat for her third birthday). My wife can't do last minute holidays because of visas, hopefully we are on the last lap towards sorting that out.
With a bit of creativity I could get away with zero annual leave for a three night stay in Croatia. I'd travelled to Croatia 'back in the day' maybe 15-20 years back, Zagreb, Split, Hvar, Dubrovnik very good it was too, so I was looking forward to getting another Croatian coastal city in.
As time was a premium, i booked a hostel (private ensuite room - I did have a 3 year old) bang in the middle of the old town. It wasn't cheap ~£75 per night including magnificent breakfast in the attached restaurant.
With the time difference it meant it was a 'late' arrival, so much so, I had considered getting a taxi from the airport - €25-50 depending on how gullible you looked. A few people were milling around outside the terminal, when a bloke rounded us up, put us in his minibus and charged us €5 (Sienna was free) to take us to the old town, perfect.
The old town was typical of the Balkans, shiny (some say slippy) stone floor, rabbit warren like side streets and pleasant squares. My trusty friend Google maps lead me the way.
Everything was going well, whilst waiting for dinner in the hostel restaurant - Sea Bream, potatoes and spinach (€25) to share, we video called my wife and my parents. Despite the late night Sienna was in good spirits and I had the luxury of sampling the local brew Pan.
Next day, again was going to plan. We did a self guided old town tour using my phone, whilst Sienna chased pigeons from one square to the next, and back again (repeat x20).
After an ice-cream break all that pigeon chasing had tired out my travel partner, "daddy pick up" wasn't what I wanted to hear before lunchtime. For a few minutes all was not well with Sienna, her favourite hat and sunglasses got frequently thrown to the floor, so I was juggling Sienna, her hat, her sunglasses, her bag, whilst navigating using Google maps.
This is when the travel took an unexpected twist. The little girl stretched out her foot with just sufficient force to flick the phone from my hand and it landed face down on the slabs. Oh dear I said, never mind as I picked it up and noticed the phone had zero exterior damage however the screen had gone green.
All my years working in IT taught me how to fix this, turn it off and back on again. It did turn off, but never came back on. I went back to the hotel to charge it and think - I couldn't find it, I didn't remember which alley to take.
Eventually finding my way back I loaded up Sienna's Amazon Fire tablet, switched to Dad mode and logged into my Gmail account, to prove it was me, I had to click to say it was me in the app on my broken phone, oh dear. Facebook was the same. At this point I had no way of contacting home, nor could I check in for my return flight without the booking reference stored in my Gmail.
My backup Gmail recovery plan was my wife's phone, but she was at work even if she hadn't have been she wouldn't have read/noticed the recovery notification, even if she had I had no way of telling her it was number 34 she had to press.
I had no phone numbers - yes they are all stored on my phone! I managed to set up a new Gmail account and messaged my Mum, Dad and Thuy but the messages went to spam and went unnoticed.
The receptionist sent my wife a friend request on Facebook with a message it was from me, no answer (she had been working overtime).
Oh dear.
Several hours later, my mum randomly checked her spam, saw a message from me (a new email address) and thought it was a scam. I put enough detail in the email so she would know it was from me, but she didn't know how to reply.
Late that night my niece helped my mum reply with phone numbers and my wife accepted the Facebook request from the receptionist so we went to bed knowing that by borrowing the receptionist WhatsApp we could make contact the next day.
Tech issues over, I unlocked my Gmail talking my wife through the process and printed off my boarding pass. Time to enjoy Zadar, old school without apps or camera. Paper maps and memories were the best we could do. We had a great time.
Sienna liked the Sea Organ, where the waves play the music, a few more pigeons were chased before an island hopping tour over the crystal clear waters of the Adriatic Sea. What a beautiful place.
The tech experience made me realise how much our lives are run by our phones. It was quite liberating to not have it. None of that 'I'll just check what people are up to on Facebook nonsense as Sienna eats her third ice-cream'. I got to look at her, see her smile - I don't need a camera for memories like that.
Zadar, great place, Croatia significantly more expensive than 15-20 years ago. Next time we'll come back with my wife and explore more islands and national parks.
Oh the downside to the perfect flights was a 06:00 return flight, so it was the 04:00 bus, Sienna was such a good girl. Another adventure for her, she is catching me up on 16 countries.
Traveling with Sienna is full on, the phone incident caused a bit of trouble, but I can honestly say I never thought about work once during that weekend.
