Aaah, back to England. I love this rather dismal, rainy land. We're in Bath for tomorrow, and then London for the last 4 days of the trip. I can't even believe that it has come to an end so fast... I can't imagine the world outside of this trip, but I also can't wait to get home to the new kittens, my sweet kitties, and as ever, the family.

I have a song to polish, and I'll post it here for your amusement.

A little bit of Barcelona

My favorite thing of the day was listening to a street performer singing "The Girl from Ipanema" and watching Air and Danielle's faces as they looked at the staggering view afforded those who take the time to get to Gaudi Parc. Otherwise, I manages to sprain my knee and we've collected Air's cousin for the next week and a half. She's so excited it just becomes infectious! I'll post more later, and I know that in my neglect of my blog I've let you all down a bit, but it's my vacation and I'll do as I please ;P

the first two weeks of August are Europe's vacation weeks. There are just so many people travelling right now that it boggles the mind.

Dubrovnik again

Well, back to Dobrovnik and then off to Spain tomorrow. It is nice to be moving once more, I think we got a bit stir crazy at the end, despite a desire to kick back and relax. But now we will have Danielle to shake things up, and only 20 more days. How did the time pass by as fast as it did? I seem to not remember the days just whizzing by, but that is how it seems now. I can look back at all the crazy things we have done and said and eaten and laugh and sigh and I can already feel myself missing all this. Maybe I can come out again next year (but I wont hold my breath...)

I know, I know....

How rude of me to be so spotty and inconsistent with my postings, but it can not be helped. And this kezboard is so strange, the z is a y and the y a z. Oi. But, mine followers, I just wanted to update you in the affairs of CroatiaČ mostly, reading. Reading and lazing about on the beaches. Wećve gone snorkeling and found some interesting seashells and such. Even an urchin shell!

As for updates, I have a few I have written up but I need to get wireless to get them to you, so donćt hold your breath for it. I think the next place with wireless is Barcelone, another 5 days out. However, dont despair! I will drown your sorrows with a flood of information you never knew you wanted!

Now, there is a pizza with my name on it...

More Croatia

Well, we decided to stay in Croatia instead of going to Greece- slightly a travesty, but honestly, more beach time is probably going to be more fun and better for us than the stress of hopping around Greece. And cheaper. We're planning on stocking green stuff for the next week, real food and good for us, as opposed to the rather thin fare we've had as of late. Or as of most of the trip, really.

It'll be nice, I think. Give me time to write and we'll probably read till our eyes bleed! I think it'll be fantastic.

Croatia, July 20-26

I like Croatia, as I might have said in a previous post. The people are, for the most part, fairly friendly and helpful, the air is clear and the weather is fantastic. We flew from Amsterdam to Split, a much easier way to get here than our previous ideas (some of which involved two to four hops). Our plane was supposed to leave at 6:40, but as per EasyJet (and the massive storm system over London) that was a joke. We ended up sitting in the waiting area for two hours longer than we expected, just sat there, staring at the board. We even had to get food while we were there, expensive airport McDonalds. The burger was eh (there was something I can only describe as bacon-flavored mayonnaise/thousand island weird sauce on it) but the fries were hot and delicious, and I got a coke with (gasp!) ice in it. *Ice*. Like heaven in a cup. So we waited and waited and waited, and finally we got to our gate and then we waited some more. The flight was about two hours, and I mostly slept for that time, but the lady next to me ordered a coffee, and Air was listening to music on the other side of me, so it might have been more of a "don't talk to me, I'm not happy right now" thing than sleeping...
We got in at 11pm, and we tried to figure out if there was a late bus headed out to the place we needed to go. First though, was the Croatian passport control. Now, for the most part (unless you're France, see the France post) this takes a little patience, but it goes pretty quick. This went quick as well, but it was kind of scary to be stared down by a very large Croatian woman in uniform. I shudder to think of what a Croatian jail would be like if they all looked as intimidating as that one woman. Anywho, Air and I were happy to get more passport stamps (which you only get by flying nowadays, they don't even check your passport on pan-EU trains) and we hauled butt to get our bags and find a bus. It turns out that there's only one bus that runs at that hour from the airport to Split proper, and from there only one bus that passes through Split headed in the right direction. The first bus had us in Split by 12, and the next one wasn't until 1:30, so we killed time staring at the harbor and plotting out some more of the trip. When the bus came by, it was a real hassle trying to figure it out. The bus was headed (fairly non-stop) to Dubrovnik or somewhere, and we had to pay a little extra to have it stop in the pipqueak place we needed, but it was well worth the 25 kuna to not pay for a taxi ride out. Interestingly, there are generally two operators on the bus: the driver and the ticket guy. Now, it was 1:30 am and the ticket guy took our money and bid the driver goodnight, while we were moving. Then he took off his shoes and disappeared. Turns out there's a tiny berth under the seats for long hauls like that, and they take turns getting sleep while they drive through. That was entertaining though, trying to figure out where the tiny man had stashed himself. The driver was nice, though, and made sure we got off in the right place, even got our bags out for us. By then it was 2:30ish and we had to find our hostel in this tiny place in the dark. The most amazing sky was overhead, though, you could even see the milky way it was so dark and clear out that night.
We ended up finding the place, but (as seems to be the trend here) there wasn't any type of reception, and we were unsure as to where to find someone to let us in. The doors to the floors of rooms were open, and the kitchen was too (the kitchen was on the bottom floor, and there were two stories of rooms) but no sign of anyone to greet us. Just as we were resigning ourselves to a night in the yard, the woman came out and greeted us, and showed us the facilities and told us to check in properly in the morning. So, exhausted by then, we fell into the king-size bed in our private room (a huge, wonderful bonus) and slept like the dead until 11. Then we checked in and went to the beach! We stayed there for hours, soaking up the sun and swimming until we felt ready to collapse from exhaustion. The beaches here are rocky, not sandy, but the water is clear and there were fewer people in Lokva Rogoznica than there were on the beaches of Split. The next day we went to Split to use the interwebs to book flights and hostels and such, and we wandered around Diocletian's palace- a place that is now mostly little shops and a few museum bits. We didn't take any tours or pay to see the museum bits, but we did look around and wander through the winding nooks and crannies. We bought masks and a snorkel for the beach, and then spent the rest of the evening reading and relaxing by the beach. We spent the next two days doing much the same, and it was just an absolutely gorgeous, wonderful time.
The trip to Dubrovnik, however, sucked. I woke up sick (Air had done the same two days before that) and was all sorts of not happy to be stuck on buses for 5 hours. Thankfully it was mostly just a headache by that point and the rest of me was fine, but it made for snappish times trying to find our hostel. The directions to it were bad, and when we got here we were not too impressed. Mattresses on the floor and a single bathroom for the lot of us, but there's a pool and the beach is just a few minutes walk away. It rained something fierce last night (apparently; I slept straight through, after the long day of being sick on the bus) and it's kinda cloudy and chilly today, but we're headed to Old Town and whatnot in a bit.

There's still some catching up to do, but I think that I've gotten you caught up for the most part ;)

Amsterdam, July 11-20

I know, what a long time in Amsterdam. To be fair, we had to extend our stay because our flight wasn't on the 17th like we thought it was, it was the 20th. Great job, EasyJet. So, Amsterdam.
Our train was PACKED to the brim going to Amsterdam. Everyone wanted to get there for the finals, and there were many a vuvuzela blast to be heard, and there were even guys dressed in milkmaid outfits drawing flags on everyone's cheeks. The city was just one big, happy, excited party. It was also wall-to-wall orange, and as we walked around trying to find the right trams and our hostel, we agreed that we needed to find something orange and quick! The tram ride into the outskirts, where our hostel was, was absolutely horrendously packed. There were so many people on the trams that we, with our big bags and lack of pride colors, were very much unwelcome for the time being. We got lost, got on and off trams, and finally, as we were really losing our tempers at each other, a nice random Netherlander biker gave us directions to the road our hostel was on. The two obviously lost backpackers we were, it was so nice of him to stop and help, especially on such a big day.
We wandered into the city for the game, and food. Every bar, every house, even the boats in the canals had tvs on and people crowded around in a sea of Orange. We found some food and wandered around from tv to tv. We couldn't understand the language, so it was more the people we wanted to watch than the game. Our hostel was just seconds away from the main showing, Museumplein, where they had six screens and over 20,000 people crammed into every available space. We wandered that was towards the end of the game, but we left pretty quick when the mood turned sour, hoofing it back to the safety of the hostel. There was a balcony in our room, so we watched the people stream away after their defeat, and the sirens and shouting carried on well into the night.
The next day, when we wandered past the now-empty square, we found it piled high with rows and rows of trash. People were using leaf blowers to pile it up for cleaning, just so much trash. We were over there for the grocery store, which was hilariously hidden underground, but it was one of the better grocers we'd been to in a long time.
Not that day but the next they had the screens still up, and we found out that the team was coming home, so the whole city was pretty much shutdown and back at museumplein to welcome their team back. The mood was happy, even through defeat, because hey, how can you be mad you lost when at least you made it to the final? That party lasted well into the evening as well.
The next few days were spent wandering the city from museums to parks to interesting little eccentric shops. We had fun trying to take a nap in every park in Amsterdam, it was like a game. There were three days of rain, cold, grey, heavy rain which had us inside reading or playing cards with the hostel people. We had a lot of fun wandering around with the people we met as well; we went to museums and churches, and we even had fun going to chip shops and falafel.
We visited the Van Gogh museum (crowded but cool) and walked past the Anne Frank house (too crowded and expensive for us to go into, but it was so small to see, and it really struck a chord in everyone, I think, to see how small a space it really was for them to be hiding in). There were huge cathedrals as well, most of which were free to enter.
The best (and most frustrating) part of Amsterdam were the canals. Great because they're so beautiful (for the most part) especially the ones in the outer city. Quiet little residential "streets", they had ducks and geese and lots of families who took evening boat trips just like evening car trips. The real setback to the canals is that you could so easily get lost because they all look the same! All the architecture resembles itself, so finding your way was really more like discovering a place you'd been lost in before.
Only once did we have anything big happen, that was when clumsy Air decided to bite it on a tram track. We were walking past this tram stop, and a biker(the bikers in Amsterdam are vicious, vicious creatures who take pleasure in knocking over tourists and unwary locals alike) whizzed past us too close, tripping up Air and knocking her over. She kissed the bike curb with both knees, skinned 'em up good. But otherwise we cam out with no injuries. We lost the only other platypus water bottle, though. Someone stole it when we accidentally walked out of the kitchen without it. I cam back down not 30 minutes later and it had disappeared. I was pissed, asked the reception guy if he had it, or who took it, and to no avail. I'm really unhappy about losing that bottle! Three of them, all int his trip!
And then came the flight to Croatia...