Hi all, hope this finds you happy and well. It's overcast and kind of cool here in Costinesti... so perfect time to write another blog. I thought I would just write some observations and tidbits. There are not alot of sights here in Costinesti, just the beach and BOOBIES!! yeah for boobies! Seriously it is sort of like one big carnival on the beach, it has everything, fast food, tattoos, carnival rides, cheap beer, casinos, the whole deal AND... BOOBIES. OK moving on.
I've noticed this everywhere we've been, sidewalks are not for walking on, they are for parking on, I've looked for signs saying no parking or green P signs, nope not a thing. On the other hand I have seen cars getting tickets for what I'm guessing is being illegally parked...HUH?! WHAT? I have no idea. OK gather round people, settle down, settle down, take your seats, today we are going to ticket all the green cars, got that? the green ones, not the blue ones, that was yesterday. Hold on, hold on! remember be safe out there! ( thank you hill street blues)
So in my last post I was wondering if people would be more friendly once we got back into Romania. First a little detour, so we had hired a taxi to take us from Cahul, Moldova to Galati, Romania, about a half an hour over the border. So we call the guy in the morning and he says I'll be there in 3 minutes, honk, honk there is some dude in a late model Mercedes waving at us, not a little yellow subcompact, but a black Mercedes, Hmmmm. We get in, no talking, put your seat belt on and away we go. Pretty much silence until we get over the border and about 20 minutes into Romania, when he looks at me and smiles, points out the window and says Romania, I smile back and say Da, it's not really any less weird, but I don't think he's going to kill us now and dump our bodies on the side of the road.
OK this is where it gets fun, KGB guy drops us off at the bus station and the 1pm bus is full, so we have 3 hours till the next bus at 315pm. OK I'm not sure if we had signs on us saying we just came from Moldova or what, but these next few things happened over the next couple of days. While waiting for the bus, the guy next to us starts talking to me in romanian, which means he's talking and I'm nodding my head... something about are you north Korean, do you work here? and we are going to Mangalia. The conversation lasts alot longer with more nodding. We are at the bus station, but actually it's all locked up and everything around it looks pretty much shut down. So looking for a toilet, Carrie asks the woman who seems to be in charge of the Constanta bus and is just sitting in a car on the side of the road, where the toilet is. She gets out of the car, waves Carrie to follow her, takes her around the corner to a local bar, gets her to pay the bartender to use the toilet, checks to make sure there is no one is in there, there is, gives him the romanian what for and then tells Carrie to go ahead. This happened the next day, we were walking down a side street in Constanta, when we came upon a small store, so I went in to buy a coke zero, I couldn't find a cold one, but wasn't really worried, we had a fridge in the room. So I'm lined up at the counter, and the woman behind the counter comes around, puts her hand on my coke, and proceeds to a back fridge to get me a cold one, I almost cried. So yes people have been very friendly here...well except for Mama here in Costinesti, we used her kitchen this morning, that didn't seem to make her a happy girl! I can hardly wait till I use it this afternoon to make a salad...I might wait till tomorrow.
That's all I got for now, we have to sit down and figure out where we're going next. Love and warm thoughts from Costinesti.
Carrie and Glen
Saturday, August 23, 2014
Wednesday, August 13, 2014
Romania
Hello everyone, well it's been a rather busy couple of weeks and there is lots to get to. So it seems we start these things this way now, so here we go...I'm sitting in the gazebo outside of Kate's place in Cahul , Moldova, who thought you would ever use the words gazebo and Moldova in the same sentence. Anyways that's where I'm writing this from and as always it's stinking hot, again I think I mentioned this before, I brought too many clothes.
OK so we have taken trains all over Romania and we have worked out a system..we look online and figure out if there are trains where we want to go, on the days we want to go and write it all down before we get to the train station to board our next train. Then we go to the ticket window and buy tickets for our next leg of the trip. This is for 2 reasons, one, it cuts down on the amount of verbal communication that needs to take place and second, we obviously DO NOT know how to pronounce the names of the towns that we want to go to, stupid americans.
Let me give you a brief run down of where we have been, you should get a map out for this, I'll wait....Ok so from Oradea we went to Timisoara for 2 days, Timisoara is the birthplace of Romanian independence and the name of a beer. Then it was off for 3 days in Sibiu, I think the guide book called it the most cultural city in Romania or something like that, It's definitely had the most tourists so far and the most new looking buildings. From there we headed off to Sighisoara, try saying that to the girl at the ticket counter, for 3 days. This is the birthplace of Dracula, I'll talk more about Vlad later. So from there we headed to Brasov for 5 glorious days, OK some of you may think I'm talking out of my ass here and more precisely...whining, but after travelling here and there for awhile, it gets exhausting and we need a break. It gives us a chance to do laundry, catch up on the mundane stuff like bills and correspondence. For us it also gives us a chance to cook for ourselves, eat a little bit healthier, don't get me wrong, eating out is great but after a while you just want to eat some comfort food. From there we headed off to Moldova, but before I get to that, I of course wanted to talk about a few things.
There are 3 different kinds of trains in Romania; Regio, this train stops everywhere, there are no different classes and is ridiculously cheap, think $6US per 100 miles. Irregio stops at big towns, has 2 different classes and seat assignments, which are more like suggestions really and is twice as much and then there is Intercity, which stops only in major cities, but otherwise like Irregio in every other way.But to be honest, paying for the better class cars doesn't really seem to mean better quality or cleaner, just seat assignments. OK a slight detour into poo land...trains here don't even pretend that the contents of their toilets go anywhere but straight onto the tracks, some may flush, but when you do you can see the tracks going by. the worst is sitting in the train station waiting for your train and somebody in another train flushes right in front of you, close your eyes and listen, now shiver.
It's been a while since I've lived in small apartments, but still, these apartments are small and obviously things have evolved to be the most space efficient as possible. There has been a fair amount of washing machines in bathrooms or kitchens, fold out beds etc. but for me the cutting edge of space efficiency has come in the washrooms. So I have a space of about 4x5, how do I fit a sink, a toilet and a shower in this space? First the walls are all frosted glass and the floor is tiled with a drain in it, then you put up a movable glass panel that can swing in front of the toilet when you take a shower. So when you take a shower, water does get all over the bathroom, hence the glass and tile, and you do have to wipe that up when your done of course. The best however is, if you want to save time, you can leave the glass panel against the wall while you are on the toilet AND take a shower at the same time...I love travelling.
Ok onto Vlad, let's face it, it's a marketing tool, so why not use it? So he was born in Sighisoara, and you can actually go in the house where he was born, or I guess more appropriately, eat there, as it's a restaurant now. He actually only lived there for 4 years. He was at a castle in a Brasov for about 10 months. Actually the longest place he stayed where we have been is in jail while he was in Budapest, 10 years. Hmm.. that seemed like a fairly boring piece of bloggishness, oh well enjoy!
Onto Moldova, we decided to take the overnight train from Brasov to Chisinau, in total about 15 hours on the train with a 2 hour layover in Plioesti to change trains. Our biggest question was what was going to happen when we hit the border? And at 4 AM we found out, first the Romanian guys come on, take your passports, someone asks the usual questions and then when it seems they might not be giving you your passports back, they come back with them, stamped. OK lights out, train moves for maybe 5 minutes and stops again. OK Moldova time, someone comes on and asks the usual questions, looks under the beds and THEN! this guy with a laptop comes on and scans our passports right there! WHAT the hell is happening? stamp and away you go, enjoy your stay. OK I could go on and on, but I'm not going to, let's just say a couple of things, poorest country in eastern europe, not enough drinkable water, inefficiencies everywhere, but the goverment decides to invest in wireless passport control technology that even Romania doesn't use, for all those tourists coming to visit? There are no tourists here. Even when we were booking tickets to go to Moldova, the girl at the ticket counter in the train station in Sighisoara was like..umm really! nobody wants to go to Moldova, I've never done that before.
OK so we get past the border and go back to sleep for about 15 minutes and then it sounds like they are adding train cars or something, and really this goes on for quite awhile, but neither of us wanted to get up to see what was going on. What was going on was they were changing the wheels on our train cars because the tracks in Moldova are a different gauge than? the rest of the world ? I don't know. Anyways 3 more hours on the train and BOOM we are in Chisinau and Kate is on the train platform waiting for us. We spent a couple of days in Chisinau and then Max came to meet us and went up to Balti for a couple of Peace corps functions. I really enjoyed meeting Kate's friends and co volunteers, I came away thinking, none of these things they are doing, or trying to do, is by any stretch of the imagination easy, I wonder if I could do this? probably not. So now we are in Cahul with Kate, it seems like a fairly nice small town, not the friendliest people ever, I'm not sure if that is because people identify with Russia more here than the US, or they are just not very friendly. We plan on moving onto the Romanian Black Sea coast after this, it will be interesting to see if they are more friendly there.
OK well I think that does it for me for now, best wishes and warm thoughts everyone from Cahul, Moldova
Love Carrie and Glen
OK so we have taken trains all over Romania and we have worked out a system..we look online and figure out if there are trains where we want to go, on the days we want to go and write it all down before we get to the train station to board our next train. Then we go to the ticket window and buy tickets for our next leg of the trip. This is for 2 reasons, one, it cuts down on the amount of verbal communication that needs to take place and second, we obviously DO NOT know how to pronounce the names of the towns that we want to go to, stupid americans.
Let me give you a brief run down of where we have been, you should get a map out for this, I'll wait....Ok so from Oradea we went to Timisoara for 2 days, Timisoara is the birthplace of Romanian independence and the name of a beer. Then it was off for 3 days in Sibiu, I think the guide book called it the most cultural city in Romania or something like that, It's definitely had the most tourists so far and the most new looking buildings. From there we headed off to Sighisoara, try saying that to the girl at the ticket counter, for 3 days. This is the birthplace of Dracula, I'll talk more about Vlad later. So from there we headed to Brasov for 5 glorious days, OK some of you may think I'm talking out of my ass here and more precisely...whining, but after travelling here and there for awhile, it gets exhausting and we need a break. It gives us a chance to do laundry, catch up on the mundane stuff like bills and correspondence. For us it also gives us a chance to cook for ourselves, eat a little bit healthier, don't get me wrong, eating out is great but after a while you just want to eat some comfort food. From there we headed off to Moldova, but before I get to that, I of course wanted to talk about a few things.
There are 3 different kinds of trains in Romania; Regio, this train stops everywhere, there are no different classes and is ridiculously cheap, think $6US per 100 miles. Irregio stops at big towns, has 2 different classes and seat assignments, which are more like suggestions really and is twice as much and then there is Intercity, which stops only in major cities, but otherwise like Irregio in every other way.But to be honest, paying for the better class cars doesn't really seem to mean better quality or cleaner, just seat assignments. OK a slight detour into poo land...trains here don't even pretend that the contents of their toilets go anywhere but straight onto the tracks, some may flush, but when you do you can see the tracks going by. the worst is sitting in the train station waiting for your train and somebody in another train flushes right in front of you, close your eyes and listen, now shiver.
It's been a while since I've lived in small apartments, but still, these apartments are small and obviously things have evolved to be the most space efficient as possible. There has been a fair amount of washing machines in bathrooms or kitchens, fold out beds etc. but for me the cutting edge of space efficiency has come in the washrooms. So I have a space of about 4x5, how do I fit a sink, a toilet and a shower in this space? First the walls are all frosted glass and the floor is tiled with a drain in it, then you put up a movable glass panel that can swing in front of the toilet when you take a shower. So when you take a shower, water does get all over the bathroom, hence the glass and tile, and you do have to wipe that up when your done of course. The best however is, if you want to save time, you can leave the glass panel against the wall while you are on the toilet AND take a shower at the same time...I love travelling.
Ok onto Vlad, let's face it, it's a marketing tool, so why not use it? So he was born in Sighisoara, and you can actually go in the house where he was born, or I guess more appropriately, eat there, as it's a restaurant now. He actually only lived there for 4 years. He was at a castle in a Brasov for about 10 months. Actually the longest place he stayed where we have been is in jail while he was in Budapest, 10 years. Hmm.. that seemed like a fairly boring piece of bloggishness, oh well enjoy!
Onto Moldova, we decided to take the overnight train from Brasov to Chisinau, in total about 15 hours on the train with a 2 hour layover in Plioesti to change trains. Our biggest question was what was going to happen when we hit the border? And at 4 AM we found out, first the Romanian guys come on, take your passports, someone asks the usual questions and then when it seems they might not be giving you your passports back, they come back with them, stamped. OK lights out, train moves for maybe 5 minutes and stops again. OK Moldova time, someone comes on and asks the usual questions, looks under the beds and THEN! this guy with a laptop comes on and scans our passports right there! WHAT the hell is happening? stamp and away you go, enjoy your stay. OK I could go on and on, but I'm not going to, let's just say a couple of things, poorest country in eastern europe, not enough drinkable water, inefficiencies everywhere, but the goverment decides to invest in wireless passport control technology that even Romania doesn't use, for all those tourists coming to visit? There are no tourists here. Even when we were booking tickets to go to Moldova, the girl at the ticket counter in the train station in Sighisoara was like..umm really! nobody wants to go to Moldova, I've never done that before.
OK so we get past the border and go back to sleep for about 15 minutes and then it sounds like they are adding train cars or something, and really this goes on for quite awhile, but neither of us wanted to get up to see what was going on. What was going on was they were changing the wheels on our train cars because the tracks in Moldova are a different gauge than? the rest of the world ? I don't know. Anyways 3 more hours on the train and BOOM we are in Chisinau and Kate is on the train platform waiting for us. We spent a couple of days in Chisinau and then Max came to meet us and went up to Balti for a couple of Peace corps functions. I really enjoyed meeting Kate's friends and co volunteers, I came away thinking, none of these things they are doing, or trying to do, is by any stretch of the imagination easy, I wonder if I could do this? probably not. So now we are in Cahul with Kate, it seems like a fairly nice small town, not the friendliest people ever, I'm not sure if that is because people identify with Russia more here than the US, or they are just not very friendly. We plan on moving onto the Romanian Black Sea coast after this, it will be interesting to see if they are more friendly there.
OK well I think that does it for me for now, best wishes and warm thoughts everyone from Cahul, Moldova
Love Carrie and Glen
Wednesday, July 23, 2014
Hungary
Hello again, lots to get to,so... here we go! We're sitting in the pub of our hotel as I write this, I'm not sure why I feel the need to tell you where I'm writing these things, guess I just do. So, we are currently in Oradea, Romania, we've been here for a couple days now. Maybe we were trying all the wrong things, but it seemed really hard to get into Romania from Hungary, you know like, sorry only one bus a week to Romania or you will have to go back Budapest and then transfer here etc. Well we're here now and ready to see Dracula country, they do seem to play this up quite a bit. One more thing before I recap Hungary. Here it's been quite noticeable... people are staring at me, like I'm from a totally different planet and to be sure, I think, in the short time we have been here, I haven't seen 1 Asian, I did see 6 black guys yesterday... we stared at each other.
So, in Budapest I wanted to stay on the Buda side of the Danube, it had the old castle and town, I sort of had the idea it might be like Croatia, where old town was where you wanted to be, but apparently not in Hungary, old town is, well just the old part of town. The Buda castle is beautiful and all the buildings around it, but not much else happens on the Buda side.
Around this time we had been lamenting how we haven't met very many people on our trip so far and... there you go, we met 3 people in one day. One young man came up to us while we were at McDonald's, and just started talking to us, somebody has been feeding him the wrong information about America and the rest of the world, awkward conversation that was rather difficult to get out off. Next we met the owner of a shoe store that was very kind and helpful, and we both enjoyed our conversation with him. Then we met Alain, Evelyn and their son Aaron at a cafe by the mall. Alain worked for Avis, so his english is quite good. Anyways walking back to our apartment, it turns out they live in the same building! totally crazy. We ended up hanging with them for a couple of days before we left for the Pest side of town.
You know, I don't think I ever really understood the big fuss about truffles before, but we found a food and wine festival in Buda and spent most of our time at the truffle booth. I think I understand now...truffles are DELICIOUS!
OK over to the Pest side of town and TA DAH, everything is happening over here, cafes everywhere, restaurants, beer bikes, basically a bar on bicycles with a keg that you pedal around town while drinking, I think a pretty good idea, all sorts of stuff. The apartment we have is right near one of the nightspots, perfect location. Again I don't want to go into a detailed travelogue about what we did everyday, but I do want to touch on a couple of things.
We went to a jazz bar one night, there seemed to be quite a few in Budapest, we picked one that seemed to be for locals, not really the tourists. Very cool, one guy playing electric guitar and the other playing the hammered dulcimer, what!?, yes playing jazz, google that baby, again very cool.
We went to the museum of fine art, holy crap that is one big museum, we saw lots of very cool stuff and really ran out of time to see all of it. I did want to mention this before, in the first museum we went to in Zagreb, a museum of tradational Croatian art, they had quite a few paintings on glass, which I guess was popular there in the early part of the 20th century. The detail in these paintings is amazing and... you had to paint it backwards!
OK onto stuff we love to talk about...poo. I'm not really sure I understand the design of the toilets over here.Is it so you have to use that little brush they have beside the toilet? So everybody is on the same page, the toilet designs have varied, but they all hit some porcelain before hitting water, maybe that's it , no splashing. Anyways the one in Pest was really interesting, it had a little depression in the back of the toilet, so it would hold all your poo there for you to see, like this what your poo would look and smell like in nature. THEN! you flush, so it's like launching a ship out of drydock, I always made sure I was standing as far away as possible for this part.
From Budapest we made our way by bus to Eger, a little town northeast of Budapest in Hungary's wine region, famous for it's Bull's Blood. It was nice to get to a smaller town.
So we go to the train station in Eger to see if we can book a train to Timisoara in Romania. The one lady that doesn't speak english directs us to the lady that barely speaks english...and off we go! She explains in Hungarian, which we sort get, is that we will have to go to Budapest first and switch trains there and go onto Timisoara, ok no problem. Well actually problem, to get the lowest price you have to book at least 5 days ahead of your travel day, OK how much is the not lowest price ticket so we can leave on the day we want to? Double, so instead of $20 , it's $40, OK fine let's do it. You have to understand, all this time she looking up schedules in binders and booklets, not on the computer. So she comes back, OK here's your ticket...Budapest to Timisoara at 7am, Huh What WHOA wait a minute, how are we supposed to get to Budapest by 7am? Lots of buses the lady says. Yes OK but what if we don't want to get up at 3am to get the train at 7am? Can't we just get the train from Eger, transfer in Budapest and go to Timisoara? Yes you can do that!! finally Ok cool. Train leaves at 345am....ughhh. is there a later train? more books and binders...yes! one at 1pm, ok great let's book that one. Then she disappears for what seems like a long time, then she comes back and says " sorry train full" yup ok. Frustrating for all of us, oh well ended up taking a bus to Debrecen and a train to Oradea. And here we are all caught up!!
Love and Warm thoughts from Oradea, Romania
Carrie and Glen
So, in Budapest I wanted to stay on the Buda side of the Danube, it had the old castle and town, I sort of had the idea it might be like Croatia, where old town was where you wanted to be, but apparently not in Hungary, old town is, well just the old part of town. The Buda castle is beautiful and all the buildings around it, but not much else happens on the Buda side.
Around this time we had been lamenting how we haven't met very many people on our trip so far and... there you go, we met 3 people in one day. One young man came up to us while we were at McDonald's, and just started talking to us, somebody has been feeding him the wrong information about America and the rest of the world, awkward conversation that was rather difficult to get out off. Next we met the owner of a shoe store that was very kind and helpful, and we both enjoyed our conversation with him. Then we met Alain, Evelyn and their son Aaron at a cafe by the mall. Alain worked for Avis, so his english is quite good. Anyways walking back to our apartment, it turns out they live in the same building! totally crazy. We ended up hanging with them for a couple of days before we left for the Pest side of town.
You know, I don't think I ever really understood the big fuss about truffles before, but we found a food and wine festival in Buda and spent most of our time at the truffle booth. I think I understand now...truffles are DELICIOUS!
OK over to the Pest side of town and TA DAH, everything is happening over here, cafes everywhere, restaurants, beer bikes, basically a bar on bicycles with a keg that you pedal around town while drinking, I think a pretty good idea, all sorts of stuff. The apartment we have is right near one of the nightspots, perfect location. Again I don't want to go into a detailed travelogue about what we did everyday, but I do want to touch on a couple of things.
We went to a jazz bar one night, there seemed to be quite a few in Budapest, we picked one that seemed to be for locals, not really the tourists. Very cool, one guy playing electric guitar and the other playing the hammered dulcimer, what!?, yes playing jazz, google that baby, again very cool.
We went to the museum of fine art, holy crap that is one big museum, we saw lots of very cool stuff and really ran out of time to see all of it. I did want to mention this before, in the first museum we went to in Zagreb, a museum of tradational Croatian art, they had quite a few paintings on glass, which I guess was popular there in the early part of the 20th century. The detail in these paintings is amazing and... you had to paint it backwards!
OK onto stuff we love to talk about...poo. I'm not really sure I understand the design of the toilets over here.Is it so you have to use that little brush they have beside the toilet? So everybody is on the same page, the toilet designs have varied, but they all hit some porcelain before hitting water, maybe that's it , no splashing. Anyways the one in Pest was really interesting, it had a little depression in the back of the toilet, so it would hold all your poo there for you to see, like this what your poo would look and smell like in nature. THEN! you flush, so it's like launching a ship out of drydock, I always made sure I was standing as far away as possible for this part.
From Budapest we made our way by bus to Eger, a little town northeast of Budapest in Hungary's wine region, famous for it's Bull's Blood. It was nice to get to a smaller town.
So we go to the train station in Eger to see if we can book a train to Timisoara in Romania. The one lady that doesn't speak english directs us to the lady that barely speaks english...and off we go! She explains in Hungarian, which we sort get, is that we will have to go to Budapest first and switch trains there and go onto Timisoara, ok no problem. Well actually problem, to get the lowest price you have to book at least 5 days ahead of your travel day, OK how much is the not lowest price ticket so we can leave on the day we want to? Double, so instead of $20 , it's $40, OK fine let's do it. You have to understand, all this time she looking up schedules in binders and booklets, not on the computer. So she comes back, OK here's your ticket...Budapest to Timisoara at 7am, Huh What WHOA wait a minute, how are we supposed to get to Budapest by 7am? Lots of buses the lady says. Yes OK but what if we don't want to get up at 3am to get the train at 7am? Can't we just get the train from Eger, transfer in Budapest and go to Timisoara? Yes you can do that!! finally Ok cool. Train leaves at 345am....ughhh. is there a later train? more books and binders...yes! one at 1pm, ok great let's book that one. Then she disappears for what seems like a long time, then she comes back and says " sorry train full" yup ok. Frustrating for all of us, oh well ended up taking a bus to Debrecen and a train to Oradea. And here we are all caught up!!
Love and Warm thoughts from Oradea, Romania
Carrie and Glen
Friday, July 4, 2014
Family Fun
Hi all, it’s
been a while since I wrote. I did have a pretty good excuse… having lots of fun
with family. So let’s see, since I last wrote we had just moved to Milni , just
south of Dubrovnik. A very nice small seaside town, apparently a favorite
vacation spot for the Croatian army, so it saw , and you can still see some damage to buildings from the war here 20
years ago. Actually almost everywhere we have been , you can see evidence of
war, it’s sort of hard to wrap your mind around the thought that people were
dying here just 20 years ago in a bloody
civil war.
Ok this is how it
started, this is so fantastic to me, I am just amazed and glad that we were
able to pull it off. On Tuesday June 17th,
Carrie and I went to the Dubrovnik airport to meet our nephew Tyler Williams
from New Zealand, via Portugal and
France. 2 hours later, David arrived from Nicaragua via Norway. The next day we
moved to a house in Dubrovnik and Maggie, Sean’s mother from New Jersey met us
at the house and finally…. Later that night,
Sean, Erica , Cora came in from
California via Moldova where they had been visiting Kate for a few days, and then
hopping on the same plane as Sean, Erica and
Cora, Kate also made her way to Croatia. So here we are 8 adults and a
baby, together in this beautiful country, ready to have some fun.
I don’t want to go
into great detail about what we did for the next couple of weeks, and we have
posted a lot of pictures on facebook, which I think will give you a pretty good
idea of what we were up to. I do want to talk about cooking and eating though.
Since there were so many of us and some of us, actually most of us were tryng
to stay on a budget, cooking was a good option. Not all the restaurants were
expensive, just like anywhere, and you could do some baked goods and a
cappuccino in the morning quite inexpensively. All 3 of the houses we stayed in
had pretty good kitchens and of course they all had the world’s dullest knives,
my total pet peeve. I think we all agreed, the nights we cooked, and everyone
cooked, we made better food than we could have gotten at a restaurant for at
least half the price. Mushroom risotto,
pasta carbonara ( oh my god the Pancetta here is amazing and well… cheap and
the Feta! BOOM!) Gyros, chicken with
gremolata, etc. we all ate very well. For me, to have all our family around the
dinner table, eating, drinking and having a great time together, means a lot to
me.
So I am sitting on
the upper balcony with Carrie in the house on Vis, and I see a gentleman walk
out onto his balcony in the house adjacent to ours. I go to say good evening to
him and then stop, because I realize I don’t know if he’s a local or a
foreigner, so what language do I use? Meanwhile he is no longer looking at me,
so I have lost that opportunity. Carrie, who is sitting with her back to the
man, has no idea what is going on, she is talking to me and by this time my attention
has wondered slightly, this never happens by the way. So imagine Carrie is
sitting at the table, talking to me and I am watching the man on the other
balcony, take his shirt off and hang it on the line, look at me..I smile,
Carrie is still talking to me. He takes his shorts off and hangs those on the
line, no looking this time, I look at Carrie and wonder if I should interrupt,
and decide not to right now. I look back just in time to see, yes of course,
the man taking his underwear off and hanging those on the line…Ta Dah , naked
man on the balcony across from us, does it get any better than that? An
emphatic NO Then he looks up at me, smiles , waves and goes back inside, waving
back never even crossed my somewhat astonished brain…so I did not…love travelling.
We did do some diving on Vis, I have
to say it was kind of disappointing, I was looking forward to diving in Croatia
( OK let’s be honest, I look forward to diving period) It was cold, but we knew
it was going to be, it was expensive, but we hoped we could get some sort of
deal … we didn’t. We dove 3 times and went to the same dive site all 3
times..lame. We max depthed or close to it all 3 times…again lame. OK I ‘m
getting depressed just thinking about the whole experience, only think happy
thoughts, only think happy thoughts…so yeah we did some diving in Vis.
As I write this.
we are going through passport control on the train into Hungary. We have
decided to spend a lttle or maybe long , time in Budapest. Last night we took
the train from Split to Zagreb and we decided to spring for the sleeper car, an
extra $40 each. We got a room to ourselves and of course beds! Neither Carrie
or I had been on a train in years and the sleeper car was a nice surprise for
us, we thought we would just have a bunk bed in the hall somewhere. We left at
10 last night and got into Zagreb around 630am, we stashed our packs in a
locker and walked around town for a bit. Walking through the mall by the train
station, I found a McDonald’s, OK before you get all whatever, yes I did want
an egg mcMuffin.. and I got one, but the nice thing about McDonald’s, when you
travel, is that, they all have free WIFI and outlets so you can plug in your
stuff before going on a long train ride to Budapest. OK so the train station is
great, and it was built in something like 4000 B.C. , but they didn’t have
electricity back then, so they didn’t think back then to run conduit through
all the rocks and bricks, for all the electrical outlets they will need, so
Carrie and Glen can plug in their Ipods, so they can listen to music.
We both loved
Croatia, the country is beautiful, especially
all the little towns on the coast. It is getting kind of sloppy messy
with tourists, so going inland for a while, might give us a respite from all
the hoardes there vacationing. On the other hand, we are going to a pretty
touristy city, might have to start rethinking our plan if we want to get away
from the crowds. Well I think that’s enough for now, we should be getting to
Budapest in about 4 hours and well it’s past noon now, so….it’s beer time.
OK, one more thing.
One day while walking back from the beach
in Split, I was thinking about what to make for dinner and thought maybe some
tsatziki might be good and that I should remember to pick up some dill if I can
find it in the fresh green market. Finding fresh herbs other than parsley has
been close to impossible. Literally 3 steps later, there was some wild dill
growing out of a crack in the pavement by the side of the road. Hmm guess I can
check that off the grocery list. This place is cool…love travelling.
Love and Warm thoughts from Hungary
Carrie and Glen
Sunday, June 15, 2014
Dubrovnik, sort of
Hello all, We're in Mlini now, about 8 km south of Dubrovnik. We got here after an 8 hour bus ride from Zadar and then another 1/2 hour on the public bus to here...and well it's been raining here ever since. When we got to our room, the family had welcome shots of brandy for us, I love this country, by the way did I mention you can basically buy alcohol everywhere, for example, the gas station, it's like the anti = Indonesia, where we couldn't find alcohol anywhere. Well since it's raining and we're sitting at a restaurant drinking, I thought hey it's a good time to write something.
Even though the room thing in Plitvice didn't really work out , I think in the end, it was the best. By staying in the park we only had to buy a one day pass, instead of 2. We didn't have to take a bus back and forth to our other room out of the park and well we were right there. So.. according to Glen math, everything was a wash, a little high on the financial side, but way high on the happy scale...ohh ok I forgot about the food, the food in the park is horrible, really??!!! boiled pork chops in some sort of oily saucy thing...Yum?? no I think not, something masquerading as a hamburger, good? NO! OK I think you get it.
The park however is ABSOLUTELY beautiful, really probably the most amazing place we have ever seen, I mean we haven't been everywhere, by any means, but I think that's saying something.We posted some pictures on facebook, they only give you a small idea of how beautiful this park is, I could go on...and I will, only on a slightly different tangent.. cause that's what I do.
So we had been walking around the park for 5 or 6 hours and we decided to go back to the hotel for a beer and a rest. From to the lake to the hotel is about 500 metres, almost all uphill. The park is also filled with people on tours from all over ( and most of these people are older than us, or at the very least look older than us) OK so we are walking up the steps on the way to our hotel and we are behind one of these tour groups, slowly we are making our way through the group until we reach 4 ladies spread out across the whole width of the steps. So imagine the blocking wedge they have in football on kick off returns, this is the same thing and just as effective, they are not going to let us get around them. I started thinking... maybe if we just chucked one of them off the trail the others would get scared and let us pass or maybe if we separated one from the rest of the herd, they would sacrifice the one for the benefit of the rest of the herd...so we started looking for an older, slower tourist the herd might sacrifice, when, I think,sensing our intentions, opened a hole for us to pass through.
We grabbed a bus to Zadar on Wednesday, have I mentioned it's been stinking hot here, I am not complaining, but I did make an error in packing, it's been in the low 90's since we got here.So.. Zadar, lots of what I am assuming is communist era ugly apartment buildings, but really that has been everywhere we have been so far in Croatia. Old town in Zadar is just great, the stones on the walkways are shiny from the centuries of people walking on them. This is my first time in Europe and this may get old, but for me, it was beautifully old and choatic, crammed with people from all over, speaking all these different languages, these amazing old churches, small hole in the wall shops, the predictable and tacky tourist souvenir shops, the families out for the day, the women all dressed up in heels and nice dresses and the men dressed. The sea organ and the sun salutation are definitely very cool, in our mind a perfect example of a city supporting the arts and in turn that art creating a tourist attraction that benefits the city.
Ok well I'm running out of gas here and well... the wine is starting to work, the wine so far has been pretty good, is mostly served cold and it won't probably win any awards, but it tastes ok and it's 2 bucks a glass, so who's complaining, not me!
Hey the sun's coming out, yup definitely time to go.
love and warm thoughts from mlini
glen and carrie
Sunday, June 8, 2014
Here we go!!!
Ok so.... for a little recap. We have sold almost everything we own and put the rest in a small storage room. I quit my job at the winery, so I think that means I am now retired. We each have a backpack and a day bag and that's all. The plan really is no plan, the next month or so with the "kids" is more or less planned, can't really travel with your own baseball team without plans. After that though is sort of whatever we feel like doing until our return flight in October. We haven't been freaking out or anything so far, so I guess having no house and travelling the world, is OK for now. We have been asked a few times how long we plan to do this, and well my answer is ...until I tip over and can't get up. I think Carrie's answer is different, but maybe not.
We arrived in Croatia this past Thursday, after 24 hours, from home. Pick your expletive here, although it was less time to get here than going to Indonesia, we were crushed. I think I made it for 2 hours after we got to the apartment in Zagreb before I started experiencing total system shutdown. I think we fell asleep at 5pm and slept for 12 hours. Zagreb what we saw of it, is a nice city, somewhat eclectic maybe, but with a nice vibe. Just a small note about Croatian.... is not pronounced the way it is spelt, I'm just saying, not trying to be judgy. There is alot of graffiti here, I don't know if that means jack, but it seemed a little curious. So it seems the major food groups in Croatia are coffee, beer and cigarettes.....another curious thing, the streets are clean, we saw street sweepers, but they don't pick up the cigarette butts, not sure why. We wandered around town for a couple of days, did touristy stuff...another thing and I don't know why, but I was suprised to see so many of my tribe in this part of the world. OK one more thing, if your dressed like your going to comic=con but your not actually going to comic=con, then you look stupid.
The big public market in Zagreb was great fun and the amount of bars and cafes is mind boggling. We figured out how to catch the tram to the bus station this morning because we couldn't figure out how to call a taxi, or flag one down for that matter. We did figure out how to get a bus to Plitvice national park, although we didn't figure out that our room we booked, wasn't actually in the park. So we decided to splurge a little and get a room here in the park. This is us so far, stumbling around in the world but slowly getting our feet under us... yup that's me , mister profundity!
Love and warm thoughts from Plitvice
We arrived in Croatia this past Thursday, after 24 hours, from home. Pick your expletive here, although it was less time to get here than going to Indonesia, we were crushed. I think I made it for 2 hours after we got to the apartment in Zagreb before I started experiencing total system shutdown. I think we fell asleep at 5pm and slept for 12 hours. Zagreb what we saw of it, is a nice city, somewhat eclectic maybe, but with a nice vibe. Just a small note about Croatian.... is not pronounced the way it is spelt, I'm just saying, not trying to be judgy. There is alot of graffiti here, I don't know if that means jack, but it seemed a little curious. So it seems the major food groups in Croatia are coffee, beer and cigarettes.....another curious thing, the streets are clean, we saw street sweepers, but they don't pick up the cigarette butts, not sure why. We wandered around town for a couple of days, did touristy stuff...another thing and I don't know why, but I was suprised to see so many of my tribe in this part of the world. OK one more thing, if your dressed like your going to comic=con but your not actually going to comic=con, then you look stupid.
The big public market in Zagreb was great fun and the amount of bars and cafes is mind boggling. We figured out how to catch the tram to the bus station this morning because we couldn't figure out how to call a taxi, or flag one down for that matter. We did figure out how to get a bus to Plitvice national park, although we didn't figure out that our room we booked, wasn't actually in the park. So we decided to splurge a little and get a room here in the park. This is us so far, stumbling around in the world but slowly getting our feet under us... yup that's me , mister profundity!
Love and warm thoughts from Plitvice
Sunday, March 24, 2013
No good title for this
Hello from Gili Air , yup we have moved again, we're in the Gili islands off of Lombok and more specifically we're at a restaurant named Scallywags and I'm eating tuna sashimi in a third world country... could be a bad culinary choice, I'm sure we'll find out.
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