What a beach vacation is SUPPOSED to look like

Whew! It’s been a while, where did I leave off? Oh yeah, my ridiculously long bus ride. We took a night bus and both got very little sleep and then once we arrived in the city of Zagreb we immediately got on a bus (or was it a train, hmmm, Lena?) to Zadar, a city on the coast, and then another bus to the small fishing village where our hotel was. (In total, about 24 hours of travel) We had no idea what the place would be like because we had booked in a rush in Switzerland, but it was in the middle of nowhere.

We got there, got false directions, walked a mile with our bags in the wrong direction (curse you watering you garden lady, you do not know the area within 800 meters of your house) walked back to the bus stop, asked at a restaurant and walked past said restaurant around a corner and there it was. It was a cute set of beachy, whitewashed buildings and we immediately dropped our bags donned swimsuits and went down to the beach. We had our own private gravel beach and the water was sooooo warm because of the little cove we were in. we decided within about 20 minutes of arriving that instead of staying for two days and then moving on we would stay 6 days and make this little hotel home base.

The driveway down to our little beach, there's a little red umbrella there where one of the most leathery tan women usually sat ALL day every day we were there

This is a shot of our spot on the beach (before we put our stuff on it, we're NEXT to the awesome umbrella, it's not actually ours)

We stayed in the hotel room two nights before moving to a little studio with a kitchenette, it had air conditioning which was lovely, but Lena was convinced I was freezing her to death with my polar bear like constitution, eventually we worked out a temperature that worked for both of us but there was one night where I stumbled in to consciousness to the sound of her trying to turn off the air conditioner with a remote without glasses in the dark…

For a day or two we just sat around on the beach although the gravel kind of hurt our feet so we didn’t spend much time in the water. We went to Pag one day because it was a cute beach town and the water was supposed to be nice. (There is an isle of Pag cheese that is supposed to be amazing, we must have missed it) We got some decent food including delicious meat pastries but the beach was so crowded that we were there for about 10 minutes before we decided to catch the next bus back to our oasis.

These are both from Pag , which is an empty ghost town during the day because it is so hot. and everything is white stone, so the sunlight just reflects directly to the back of your eyeballs. Gelato was a very, very necessary part of life for the two hours we were here.

This was the beach in Pag, you can't see it from here but it was super crowded and the water was colder than our little oasis, we didn't last long here.

One day we went to Zadar to look for new books for Lena (she hated short stories and some depressing novel I had brought, and the hotel only had books and magazines in German and Italian. Italian Cosmo, by the way, is hilarious.) Sadly, there are no English books except for in two cities in the entire country. We ended up doing so many internet errands and things that we completely missed the sea organ we had planned on visiting but maybe we’ll catch that the next time around. We grocery shopped a bit and made it to the bus station about 3 minutes to late for our bus, and the next one was in 3 hours. We ended up passing the time in the bus station by planning out a screenplay idea; people watching (highly entertaining), drinking coke, and having some sort of lamb burger thing.

This was the bus station where we spent about a 1/4th of our time in Croatia. I loved the signs for all of the different restaurants that sell basically the same thing.

Aside from those trips and our daily walk to the corner store (of sorts) to get ice cream or pasta to cook we led a simple life of beach going, movie watching, restaurant eating, and napping that was very relaxing. We even got a raft and some water shoes so we spent as much time as possible floating around. The only downsides were that there were only a few families on our beach and they were boring to people watch in addition to having annoying repetitive noise toys and that I got sunburned. I put on sunscreen, I don’t know what to tell you; I think maybe my body went into shock after going from the UK to the sun so fast.

Movies we saw that Lena had on her computer:

-Horton Hears a Who: loved the book, the movie not so much
-A messed up movie about the life of bob Dylan that I don’t remember what it’s called. Cate Blanchett was awesome and so was the kid in it, but it was way to artsy and made no sense
-The beginning of Four Rooms, a Tarentino movie about a hotel, but it was way weird. Seriously.
-Also the beginning of some very creepy movie where one girl was captured and tortured while the other was going to sleep listening to the backstreet boys. We turned it off at the first sight of blood
-Also don’t remember the title but it was the Cuban version of the godfather with Andy Garcia and every Hispanic actor ever, except S L O W
-Coupling, the series basically the British version of friends, it is hilarious and you should watch it as soon as possible

Anyway, after a very relaxing time in Croatia, with very little sight seeing and a lot of sleep, we moved on to Budapest.

This picture was taken in Zagreb by one of Lena's Friends from school. We were very hot because we were tossing a frisbee in the sun, and the random guy took a lot of pictures of us without asking, we may be Croatian celebs.

The train was hot, but we got a compartment almost to ourselves so it wasn’t too bad, and we watched coupling and ate snacks. When we got to Budapest we stayed in Lena’s apartment from when she was studying there and met the new tenant, Monica, who was really funny. We ended up going out for gyros and drinks and instead getting a Hungarian street food that is basically a savory funnel cake covered in sour cream and cheese, it is gigantic and heart attack inducing and delicious.

By the way, I have no pictures, but this apartment was EPICALLY amazing. It had huge ceilings and a balcony and Lena’s room alone was the size of half of my current apartment. It was a huge old beautiful building and it was so fun to stay there even for a few days.

The next day we went to this huge market in the morning to get food for dinner one night and we got pastries and fresh squeezed orange juice (so good) before buying chicken and bulgur and stuff for dinner. The market itself is train station size, it was made during a time when the city was booming and the government built a bunch of new buildings so its old and incredible, plus it has the usual draw of fresh produce and tons of bright colors and cool textures. It is something of a tourist draw, though, so I ran into a lot of people who suddenly stopped in the middle of a walking area to take a picture. In the end, we got stuff to make a pretty sweet tabouli with cilantro instead of parsley and cranberries and then chicken, man I am getting hungry. We ended up eating it later with Monica and Lena’s mom in the apartment kitchen, which was also very cute.

Lena went to pick up her mom from the airport and then that night we went out for a walk around town. (Her mom was such a sport to go out right after a 10 hour flight or however much) I forget the order of things but we had some pretty great meals (mmmm, duck) and saw a palace and walked across a bridge. There was a celebrate the EU fair going on so there were lots of stands with jewelry and things, Lena got me a ring for my birthday that was green and white enameled copper and really pretty. (She has a matching red one so we have Budapest memory rings) aside from the huge number of people it was really fun.

Budapest by night, VERY pretty from the top of our hill

The next day we went to the baths. The baths are an experience, let me tell you, imagine a water park with heated water and no slides and a huge yellow building and you will be close. There were different heat levels of pools and ones with jets and ones with lazy rivers and wet saunas and dry saunas. We were thoroughly pruny by the time we got out. Highlights were the lazy river pools (how many times did we try to make our own when we were little? I think baths should exist in the US too) and the massage by Lena in the dry sauna, very nice.

The city itself had a lot of history and I loved how easy it was to get around and sort of fell in love with Lena’s apartment. I left Budapest early in the morning for the airport and flew to London for a day and a half to wait for my flight home. I shopped and went to the British museum and watched TV in my tiny room in a B&B right by Victoria station. The British museum was incredible, but very crowded so after seeing most of what I wanted (I skipped the Rosetta stone and some of the mummy stuff because of a large horde of Asian tourists, but I didn’t feel a huge loss) Then I went to Gatwick airport and flew back in to Atlanta and then took a shuttle home finally. The funny part about the flight was I was next to two teenage boys and their mom, who ended up having very personal serious conversations about, whether they should be having sex before marriage RIGHT next to me. I do not want to hear that people, can’t you wait the 5 hours that it will take to get you not right next to me? Clearly the subject has waited for years, just a little longer? But no, alas.

And that was my epically huge summer vacation. It was a lot, and probably more that I will EVER tackle again, but it was a wonderful experience.

Things I will miss from Europe: easy transportation, easy access to good food (basics like cheese, yogurt and bread), laid back people, free museums

Things I missed about the US: stores being open after 5 pm, our money, yes it is all the same color but it is lighter (no one and 2 dollar coins) and it FITs in my wallet, sigh, little things, barbeque, Mexican food (oddly enough in Budapest I had a gyro that tasted exactly like a taco, it was the closest I got to Mexican food in about 6 months and it was trying to be Greek!), movies coming out on time, less expensive everything, seriously the US is soooo much cheaper than all the rest of the ‘civilized’ countries in the world.

Tune in next time for updates on my new apartment and the great big California adventure that was my brother’s visit: