Split, Croatia, Hotel Split, Tuesday 1995-11-14 11:30 local (Z+1)
Yes, the name of the city is really Split. It's a seacoast town (the Adriatic Sea I think but I'd have to check a map to make sure). I'm dead tired, and I'm only going to get about 7 hours of sleep, but I wanted to drop a note from Croatia. It's a new country for me, and for the first time in a long time I feel a little bit of the excitement I used to feel at every new country. Plus, I just stepped on on the balcony and breathed the fresh smell of pine—quite a change from the fecal fragrance of Bombay.
C.J., I just tried to call you but without success. There is an AT&T USA Direct number for Croatia. I picked up the phone, succeeded in getting an outside line, but after dialing the number I got a recorded message in whatever language they speak here. I haven't the slightest idea what the message was, except that it meant I obviously wasn't going to complete the call.
I had been led to believe this whole Split trip was a real bummer, that the town was terrible, the hotel terrible, the runway short. It is true that the runway is short. It's not a place that regularly sees 747s. However, though I have only seen the area a little on a drive in during darkness, it seems quite pleasant. The hotel is very nice, more to my liking, really, than the fancy hotels we normally stay in. There's no bar and no room service, but it's modern and clean. Of course, the lack of a bar and of room service makes it a bummer in the minds of most of our pilots, but I use neither of those facilities.
I have a number of things to relate, but I'll save them for a later message as I need to get some sleep. They're really running us hard. My next 3 layovers are less than 15 hours on the ground—just enough time to eat and sleep.
Oh, yes, there's no problem here with getting shot at. The Croatian army is facing the Bosnian Serbs in the eastern part of the country. Split is in the western end. However, the NO FLY ZONE is only 29 nautical miles away. Our route of flight took us past the area to the boot of Italy and then north to a point 123 miles east of Split. We then turned west for the approach. I'd have to check the map, but I think the Bosnian border is about 30 miles south of here, but it's the part of Bosnia controlled by the Muslims, which (at the moment) are allied with the Croats.
Reading the paragraph above over two decades after I wrote it, I see that I was guilty of ambiguity. Should that first sentence be interpreted as: it's safe here, you don't have to worry about being shot at. Or did I mean it sarcastically as in: if you want to get shot at, this is the place to come. Obviously, Tower thought it safe to dispatch the airplane to Split, but upon clearing the runway, I asked ground control for progressive instructions to where we should park. The controller replied that he was unable to do that because he was in a bunker and couldn't see us, explaining that the tower had been evaculated because of sniper activity. He did describe the parking area, though, and we found it without difficulty.
Everybody take care...Terry