There were 4 of us on the journey taking turns driving my German friend’s car. It was during my shift that we decided to stop in Zadar for a look around. We parked in the city center parking lot and took a couple hours to hit the main sites and walk through the old town. The story of Zadar begins off the city’s main thoroughfare, Kalelarga, at the ancient Roman Forum. The brainchild of the old forum was from Roman Emperor Augustus two millennia ago, which was used as the city’s main meeting place and still serves the same purpose today.

Coffee-drinking Croats catch up with friends in the local cafes beneath the Venetian style bell tower of St. Anastasia’s Cathedral, while families hang out on the steps in front of St. Donatus Church from the 9th century. Everywhere you look the modern is blended beautifully with the ancient.

Stop in one of the last remnants of ancient glass blowing in Croatia at the Museum of Ancient Glass, which is brimming with artifacts from an earlier chapter of Roman times. On the second floor, you can watch artisans work in front of a furnace primed to more than 1,300°C molding hot glass into all sorts of vases, jugs, and souvenirs. You can even have a go at blowing the glass for yourself if you’re brave enough.

In addition to the myriad of architectural masterpieces and ancient things lies another strange oddity; the world’s first sea organ. The musical Sea Organ (morske orgulje) on the shores of Zadar is the world’s first musical pipe organ that is literally played by the sea. Simple and elegant steps, carved in white stone, were built on the quayside where there lies 35 musically tuned tubes with whistle openings on the sidewalk. The movement of the sea pushes air through, and depending on the size and velocity of the wave musical chords are played. The waves create random harmonic sounds which you can hear while enjoying the surrounding natural beauty and one of Zadar’s famed sunsets.

It was at the Sea Organ that I made my fatal mistake. There’s a jumping off point next to the steps so we decided to take a dip and jumped into the Adriatic Sea. Little did I realize at the time that I hadn’t accounted for the car keys. Before we got in the water we met a really cute local Croatian gal right there and I may have become a little distracted. After a swim and solid conversation with the local we decided it was time to leave and headed back to the car. As we approached the car I reached into my zipped pocket and realized there was nothing there. My heart stopped. I felt around the other pockets and there was nothing. I calmly set my bag down and looked inside. Surely I must have put the keys in my bag sometime before we jumped in the water. After a thorough twice over I began to fear the worst. The keys were at the bottom of the Adriatic Sea.

My friends noticed something was wrong and asked me where the keys were. I didn’t answer until I was sure they were not on my person or in my bag. “I don’t have the keys.” I said. “I think they may have fallen out of my pocket when we went swimming.” At first they thought I was joking but when it became apparent that I was not joking they became angry. I told them not to panic and I ran back to the Sea Organ to look around on the ground. There was nothing. I kept looking. Nothing. I even jumped back into the sea to see if I could stumble onto them as it wasn’t too deep right there and we didn’t swim very far. Nothing. After nearly an hour of this my friends and I began to worry. Everything we had, including our passports and money, were locked in the car. And to make matters worse there were no spare keys as my friend had just bought the car recently. So we were up the proverbial creek without a paddle.

My friends walked back to the car to see if there was any way of prying a window open to at least get our belongings or something, anything. I stayed to continue looking for the keys as I was unwilling to give up. After another 30 or 45 minutes I slowly walked back to the car with a sinking feeling that this was going to ruin the rest of the trip. We would have to call a tow company, but where would we even tow it as we were 1,000 miles from my friend’s home in Germany and there was no chance of getting another key shipped from the dealership in time. Plus, the money and passports were locked in the car so we would have to break a window to even get what we needed to survive. It was not a good situation.

I got back to the parking lot to see my friends standing around confused in the spot where the car had been. My heart leaped as I just assumed they found the keys and moved the car. “Where’s the car?” I asked. “We don’t know” they replied. Oh my lord what did that even mean? Apparently, when they returned earlier from looking for the keys the car was just missing. They met a Canadian couple that had just parked to the spot next to ours and they said there had been no car there for a little while. After we told them what happened they seemed genuinely worried which made my own worry and anxiety go up even further. Did I leave the keys out and someone just took them while we were swimming? I thought.

This was turning into a nightmare. The couple told us there was a police station around the corner and they could give us a lift to report a stolen car. As calmly as I could I said “Let’s go” and as we were walking to the car my friends started bursting out laughing while pointing out the car parked way across the street. “What!” I exclaimed. Apparently, I put the keys in my shoes just before jumping in the water and when I ran back to keep looking for the keys I left my stuff there including my shoes. My friends picked up the shoes to move them out of the parking lot and when they did the keys dropped out. Then they decided to play a little prank on me with the stolen car bit. So we had a good laugh, I threw up a few times, and we continued on our journey!