Day 76: Dubrovnik => Oslo

We were awarded with some nice views of the old town during our bus ride to the airport...


Originally, the Northern Europe portion was going to start in Helsinki and move back west, but after extensive airfare and train-fare searches, it turns out the least expensive route is actually
Dubrovnik
=> non-stop flight to Oslo
=> train + boat to Bergen (mode of transport on this leg was non-negotiable)
=> non-stop flight to Copenhagen
=> train to Stockholm
=> overnight boat to Helsinki (non-negotiable mode of transport)
=> day-trip to Tallinn
=> non-stop flight back to Zurich

It's super-nice that all our flights turned out to be non-stop! ^o^

I actually managed to book reasonably-priced accommodations in Scandinavia, "reasonable" meaning 600 NOK (70 EUR) a night in Oslo, which was a lot better than I'd hoped. We're staying in a three-bedroom apartment and it turns out the other two rooms are going to be empty during our stay, so we get the whole flat to ourselves ^o^

The flat is a bit out of center, 15-20 minutes by tram, but it's not too bad. And K speculates that we might be one of the first tenants in the seemingly-recently-renovated flat. We paid the landlady and she told us where to leave the keys when we leave on the last day and how to contact her if we need anything. Otherwise, we probably won't see each other again.

Aside from settling in and walking around a bit, we didn't do much else today.

While we were in Dubrovnik, K commented that he feels we've been in our comfort zone too much during this trip. When we were planning, I wanted to visit Sarajevo and travel further into Eastern Europe, but he wasn't interested. There really was just too much to see.

There's sort of two perspectives to it. In one respect, we are already entirely out of our comfort zone -- moving every week and sleeping in new beds, dealing with each new environment, the changing language "barrier", thinking about the next meal, talking to strangers all the time. But, in our long travels, these discomforts have become part of daily life, and we've gotten "used" to them so much that we feel the need for even more "raw" experiences.

Neither of us would have changed this trip though (we don't think). Each place and experience has left their impression on us. But we did start talking about our *next* trip. The K that previously said he had many more places in the world he wanted to travel to before checking out South America is now saying he might want his next trip to be South America.

Here we are, the final part of our short-of-four-months travels starts in Oslo!

I did manage to somewhat keep up our twitter. One post a day? It's probably not how twitter is intended to be used but oh well.

Twitter post for today:
10pm and it's still bright out. Sunset today is supposedly 10:45pm! O_o

Day 75: Dubrovnik, Mostar day-trip

It was an early morning day. We had to be outside the old town gate by 7:30am! It was cool to see the Stradun (main street) devoid of tourists though...


A little minivan picked up us and another group of four and shuttled us to the actual day bus, a full-size coach filled up with 50 tourists =/ We were hoping we'd get lucky and have less people for the day (we'd heard stories about only half-full buses and such) but no such luck for us. Apparently they were also running a French tour that day, which seemed slightly less crowded, but we were on the English one. Despite being bused with forty-eight other tourists, it turned out to be a pretty good day.

There were three stops on the way to Mostar.
1. For people to buy a snack and stretch their legs,
2. At the Bosnia and Herzegovina border so our passports could be examined by the border guards, and
3. At the small cute town of Pocitelj, where there were a few women (and one kid) holding baskets filled with cones of fresh [good-quality] fruits, dried fruits, and nuts.

We had two guides, one for the bus and another who took us around Mostar. Actually, we really appreciated the information; it's nice to have additional context to what you're seeing, and both guides were local residents, the bus guide being Croatian and the town guide being from an area near Mostar. On our way in, the Croatian bus guide told us many stories and a bit of Croatian history, but she said she would leave the story of the war for our way back.

Supposedly, of all the clashes during the split of Yugoslavia, the Bosnian War was the deadliest/bloodiest, and these traditionally-divided ethnicities are trying to co-exist peacefully in Mostar. Many buildings still had their unpatched bullet holes from the war. The strangest contrast was seeing these and other ruined buildings standing right across from (or next to) shiny, newly built ones.

Some older buildings...


The town itself is still relatively poor and the many beggars are a fact of life here. Our tour guide frequently greeted them and sometimes chatted with them as she passed them. This exchange was then followed by the rest of us passing them and them switching roles from friendly chatty local to beggar asking for money. It sometimes felt sort of odd.

After the few hours walking tour with our guide, we had an hour and a half to ourselves. K and I ate a really yummy cevapi (meatball-like things inside a pita-shaped fluffy bread) and explored a bit more. Aside from the ruined buildings, the next saddest sight was probably the cemetery. Everywhere we looked, we saw tombs with pictures of youths with a date of death in the early-to-mid 1990's, during the war.

Our bus tour guide told us her Croatian-biased story of the war, emphasizing the empire tendencies and wrongdoings of "big Serbia"/"bad Serbia". For someone so young (I think around our age), I was surprised by her statement that, "Of course we do business with Serbians but it will be at least twenty years or more before we can try to be friends." Regardless of how it looks on the surface, there are still many deep-rooted feelings resulting from the war.

After the big bus, we got picked up by our minivan driver from the morning to bring us back to the Old Town. The other group of four also got picked up. We were surprised because it was evident that only one of the group spoke some English, but they all attended the English tour. We ended up chatting with them for a bit after getting back to the old town. It turns out they were on the English tour because they're leaving tomorrow and weren't able to hit a day when a Spanish tour would be available (they're from Barcelona). They got a kick out of me trying to revive my Spanish. The happy medium was them speaking Spanish to me (and me translating to K) and us speaking English to them -- both parties got the most complete thoughts across this way.

The old port at night...

Day 74: Dubrovnik

One of the side streets. Apartments all the way up. Many with AC units. Clothes hanging out to dry. Lots of steps.

The skies didn't look friendly, but still, it's looked the same way the last couple of days. So, we thought we could beat the rain today since it seems to usually start in the afternoon. But you can never predict the weather. Not even a quarter of the way into our wall walk, it started!

As the downpour picked up, we took shelter in various places. First, it was under a kind girl's shop umbrella. The second was in one of these little pods (the round-topped thing in the picture... I think we managed to squeeze about ten people in there!). The third was this little overhang portion of the wall. The lightning, thunder, and downpour certainly made for a very unique wall walk experience ^-^ Even though we'd only gotten through maybe half of the wall, we eventually decided to return to our room and see how the rest of the day's weather would turn out. The rain couldn't hold out for the *whole* day!

I think I generally believe in the good in people, which K says contributes to me being gullible. (Makes me wonder if I should ever go to China, but that's a another story.) One of the problems with traveling so much within a short period of time is that all the human evils of the world compound themselves. It's not the biggies that are the problem -- war, poverty, etc. -- which you may see, but have a different kind of affect. It's the small every day slips in character, people purposefully taking advantage of each other, sometimes for seemingly no personal benefit! And, being a non-local, people *will* try to take advantage of you. I know that, but every time, it still hurts me to see or experience it first hand.

As I was filing away the receipts from yesterday, I noticed that I was charged twice for the tomato sauce I bought at the grocery store, which coincidentally was also the most expensive thing I bought. Intentional or not, I don't know. K thinks it was probably intentional. Either way, as a matter of principle, I had to see if I could get my money back. We went back to the grocery store, but then were told we had to go back when the particular clerk who checked us out yesterday would be there. So, we went back again later. She was there, and after a long time of checking inventory and this and that, she did eventually give us our money back. I'm sure in China, I wouldn't have gotten my money back, but that's another story, right? Anyways, I felt better afterward. But should I have even felt so hurt by it in the first place?

The rains did go away and we were able to go back out. First, before continuing our wall walk, we wanted to go up to the highest point near the old town. There was supposed to be a local bus that goes up, but we waited at the bus stop for quite a while and, no bus. The schedule indicated there would be one, but we waited through multiple "ones". And it seems we weren't the only ones either! Ah, silly tourists. Oh well. >_<


Yes, this sunny, blue skies picture of the old port really is from the same day as the gray rain picture above. Of course, we did complete the rest of our wall walk ^o^

Day 73: Dubrovnik

Today was an exploring-the-city walking day. Despite the main old town center being full of tourists and the city's economy probably heavily relying on tourism, the side streets are surprising quiet (where are all the tourists?) and they still have their own local charm and character. I loved all the side streets!

We came across some cute cats during our walk. In the first pic, the kitten's just a black ball of fur all curled up against one of the other cats, but it came out for the second pic ^o^


We stopped by one of the main Croatian travel agencies to look into a day trip to Mostar for tomorrow. It turns out they don't do the trip every day, but we're lucky because even though they don't have one for tomorrow, they do have one for the day after, which happens to be our last full day here. Actually, we wanted to go to Mostar on our own, but there was absolutely no schedule of buses that would work for a single day trip; we'd have to at least spend one night there >_< Most independent travelers apparently stop by Mostar on their way to Sarajevo. Well, I did want to visit Sarajevo, too... but that never made it on our itinerary. As much as we try to avoid tours like this (50-person bus!), we decided we'd rather visit Mostar than not, so we signed up for Wednesday's day trip.

We also wanted to walk the wall, but shortly after getting up to the wall, the rains started again! Isn't there supposed to be something like only ten days of rain in the whole *year* here? Why do we seem to be hitting all those days >_<

Day 72: Split => Dubrovnik

Yay, the rains gave way to a morning of mostly blue skies =D Since our bus wasn't until early afternoon, we spent the morning walking along the harbor and promenade, which we didn't really get to do yesterday because of the rains. We also walked up a not-too-far-away hill (Marjan Hill) for a gorgeous view of the harbor and city. I rarely post pictures of us here...


When we asked about places to eat, the receptionist at the hostel pointed us to this place near the hill. She said she usually ate at home but whenever she does eat out, that's where she goes. It was a bit too far for out of our way yesterday, but we passed by it today walking back from the hill. Too bad we weren't hungry yet. I still wanted to stop by though.

What I really wanted to eat was fish stew, but they were out of it =/ So, I got the fish soup instead. After the soup arrived, I realized why our server seemed to have an odd look on his face when we said that was all we wanted. It turns out it's basically just broth with a bit of rice! Still, yummy! And if just their broth was this yummy, it really makes me wonder what their fish stew would have been like.

We took the 1-something bus from Split to Dubrovnik, taking about 4.5 hours. The coast was beautiful, even with all the gray clouds (and then rain).


Arriving at the bus terminal in Dubrovnik, we had to take another bus, a local one, to the old town. Lots of locals at the terminal had pictures of accommodations and tried to offer us rooms, but as usual, we already had arrangements. Stepping into the main drag of the old town, the difference between Split and Dubrovnik is immediately evident. Tourists everywhere! I suppose it's expected though. But even the many tourists can't take away from the pretty, white marble covering the street.

The place we were staying at was actually a very convenient side street right off the main street. We got to the door, rang the doorbell, and, no answer. Then, one of the waitresses at the nearby restaurant came over and asked if we were looking for Ana. Yep. She said she would phone her for us and then came back to say she was coming right away. We waited for quite a while, but the wait was an interesting experience. Various neighbors poked their heads out from their apartment windows and started chatting across the street or chatting with the waitress person or chatting with a person passing by. One of the people passing by as well as the waitress assured us that Ana was indeed on her way. It was kind of funny. When Ana finally arrived, they all seemed to tease her about taking so long ^-^

Ana was one of our most helpful hosts on this trip so far. She told us basically everything we would want to know, where to eat (and not eat), which tourist info office to go (and not go to, apparently one's fake), what to do, where to buy groceries, etc, etc. She even told us that if we got stuck on a nearby island (if we were to visit it) to just call her and she would have her husband come by in a boat to get us.


Dinner was a really yummy seafood risotto, right next to the old port.

Walking through the streets at night was absolutely beautiful. Everything was really well lit!

Day 71: Split

The day started with a trip to the market, and this was certainly one of the most 're4nao4' markets we've ever been to! (Vibrant? Lively? Not quite the same image in our minds, but they're probably the closest English words to 're4nao4'.) The market happens every day of the week. After all, Split is a living city. Incidentally, the market is called the "Green Market". When you look at it from above, all you see is just greenery from all the trees ^-^



Just like we'd already seen in Zagreb, there were plenty of old-style scales.


I love 3-D models! You can make out the palace walls and then from there, the city continues to sprawl out.


The cellars beneath the palace were pretty cool, too. Was this really all built in the 4th century??? Those Romans really knew what they were doing!

The girls saw us while we were listening to some a-cappella guys in the entry vestibule (great acoustics!) ^o^ It's been fun continuously crossing paths this past week, but sadly, this will be our last meeting. They're going to the islands while we're going to Dubrovnik, and they'll be arriving in Dubrovnik after we'll have already left it.

The St. Dominus Cathedral bell tower is one of the most frightening tower climbs we've encountered, and definitely not for people scared of heights. Yes, there are bars here and there, but still... Oh, and the wind doesn't help either.



Looking into the various shops within the palace walls, it seems all the palace floors are kept as it. Very cool.


There's a lot of cleaning every day after the market closes.

We had wanted to go back to the hostel for a bit and then head back out at night to see the palace lit up, but it started pouring! It seems we had managed to finish our walk just in time. So we only rushed back out to get food. Maybe I should have braved the rain even more? =/

I made a soup for dinner to eat with the cold cuts we bought. This Asian girl came up to me towards the end of my cooking and asked me how to make it, remarking that it looked and smelled "just like something her mom makes"! It was a simple tomato and egg soup to which I also added noodles. I felt kind of awkward telling her how to make it because I've never had anyone make that sort of comment before. The compliment was kind of nice though ^-^

Day 70: Plitvice Lakes => Split

After looking at our bus options last night, we realized the 2:30pm bus was the only "short" one, four hours. All the other buses to Split would take six hours or so. So we ended up taking the same bus as the girls did yesterday. Since we had the morning hours, we decided to go out and see the Lower Lakes in the different lighting and less crowds. So happy we did ^o^

At the bus stop, we met a South African couple. I don't think I've ever met anyone from South Africa before, and it's sad to admit, I actually don't know that much about the country. They said Prague and Budapest were their favorite destinations in their travels thus far. Prague, for all the old architecture and marbled streets and evening lighting of the buildings, and Budapest for the baths and also the evening lighting. Interesting. I don't think I can say x, y, and z are my favorite overall places in the world, but there certainly are ones that I would probably return to sooner than others ^-^

The bus was a bit late; better than being early ^-^ I was surprised -- it stopped at an eatery on the way for about 30 minutes for people to get food.


There was also a snack place next to the eatery where K bought a bag of some sesame goldfish. The goldfish bag had nine different languages on the bottom of it! My guess is that many of them are spin-offs of Serbo-Croatian.

I was in awe when I first stepped into the remains of Diocletian's Palace. We were heading to our hostel, but we decided to make a stop at the tourist office to pick up a map and bus information. It's not that I haven't seen ruins before, but this is the first time I've seen modern shops, cafes, etc. built right within the old palace! They say that Split is a living city rather than just a tourist spot and my first impression certainly match that statement.


A cafe with outdoor 'seating' right on the steps of the main peristyle.

Hostel. We've been lucky so far; we're more than 2/3 into our trip and no lodging mishaps yet. Well, until now. It's not really *that* big of a deal, but we made it out to be anyways. We had booked a 3-bed dorm, but apparently they had overbooked the 3-bed dorms by accident. So, when we arrived at the hostel, they informed us we would be in a 4-bed dorm instead. I'd gotten the 3-bed because both 3-bed and 4-bed dorms were the same price and I figured the less-people room was better (less noise, slight chance we might have the room to ourselves ^_~, etc.). I guess I also just don't like people changing things last minute on me like that; they could have contacted us to let us know! So we made it out to be non-trivial. There was a discussion with the manager on the phone (he wasn't at the hostel). In the end, he did tell the receptionist to give us a discount on the 4-bed room and we were to move to the 3-bed one for our second night (since it was going to open up). Not bad.

Day 69: Plitvice Lakes National Park

When I had first mentioned Plitvice to K, he wasn't really interested. I guess I didn't explain it well. But then we saw it on an RS episode and he changed his mind, and happy he did!

We ate a yummy breakfast at the hotel with lots of fruit -- cantaloupe, pears, pineapple, and kiwi -- and made the first tram, 8:00, from the entrance to stop 4 on the Upper Lakes. It was before any tour groups were out and for a good couple of hours we had quiet with just ourselves and the lakes and waterfalls.

This place is waterfall overload! Crystal clear lake waters at varying levels flowing into each other, with meandering wooden pathways cutting right over the water. K called it "M heaven". It wouldn't be too far off. Give me my friends, family, K, and give us a place like Plitvice. Maybe also a bi-weekly market of fresh fruits and veges and a well-stocked library. Then I'll be pretty set ^-^





Just about everyone says the Upper Lakes are better than the Lower Lakes, but we loved both. They're different. The Upper Lakes has great at-your-level up-close waterfalls. The Lower Lakes is more serene and has really nice big-picture views.

We explored the Upper Lakes in the morning, took a late afternoon break for lunch, and then explored the Lower Lakes in the afternoon. RS said one hour for each -- maybe for some people, but not us. We saw the girls again during our break; they were on their way out to their 2:30 bus to Split. Haha, maybe we'll bump into them in Split, too!

We also saw the Frenchman we met in Bled! He was hiking with his firemen friends in the higher part of the Upper Lakes. Actually, I didn't see them. At the time, K and I had split up, me heading back to a certain spot and he going further ahead to explore and see if there was anything more to see. Apparently I was so absorbed in the trail and my mp3 player that the Frenchman didn't want to disturb my concentration when he passed me! That's what he told K when they saw each other.

Day 68: Bled => Zagreb => Plitvice

Our host offered to take us to Lesce to catch our train this morning; bright and early at 7am to catch the 7:27am train! When he dropped us off, he even wanted to give us some strawberries since we'd be missing breakfast!

I started early on my language switch, listening to my Pimsleur Croatian on the train. I think the Slavic languages are starting to sink in a little bit, enough for me to remember the basic phrases a bit more. It helps that there's similarities ^-^ The timing is kind of silly though -- Croatia is the tail-end of our travels in Slavic-speaking countries.

Zagreb. People say there's nothing in Zagreb; get out to the coast, they say. Of course, the coast is beautiful, but I think the city gives you another vibe of the country and I'm happy we made this stop.

Yay for ATMs that work!! Actually, the first ATM we tried didn't work and made us worry that our ATM troubles were going to continue here in Croatia, but our subsequent transactions all turned out just fine. The one that didn't work had a helpful message: "Your transaction has been denied for the following reason: transaction denied." ?_?

They still use the old manual scales at some of the market stalls here. It was the same as Slovenia about touching the fruit; at least I didn't see anyone touching the fruit so I assumed it was probably also considered rude here. I bought some bananas, peaches, and cherries though (inspected the cherries *very* closely before buying them!).

We saw the pair of Asian girls we saw yesterday in Vintgar Gorge. Up at the church at the top of the funicular area. We wondered if they recognized us.

After all these months of traveling throughout Europe in 2007 and this year, Zagreb is the first time we've ever been part of a random ticket check on a tram. It's a hefty fine if you don't have a ticket on you, but I do wonder whether it's better to buy tickets or not in the long run haha.

We caught the 2pm bus to Plitvice. It wasn't quite dark yet when we got to the park and checked in, so we thought to go out and explore a little. The entrance booth no longer sold tickets though and said the park's trams and boats were on their last rounds for the day. You *can* just walk in the park by yourself after dusk, but it's a lot easier and much, much faster to take the trams to a starting point inside the park and then walk back rather than doing the round trip or out and back entirely on foot. Especially since we're both sort of injured now, we decided to save our legs and feet until tomorrow to explore. Even though we couldn't see it, just hearing all the moving water was exciting ^-^

We saw the girls, again! We were walking back up from the Jezero Hotel (the more expensive lodging that we're not staying in) to the self-serve restaurant and they were walking the opposite way! And then, they ended up eating at the same place we were eating. K really got curious about their travel itinerary, so we walked up to their table and started a conversation with them. Turns out they're also going to Split next, but only after spending a partial day at Plitvice tomorrow. They're from Hong Kong, but refreshingly different from my internal stereotype of HK girls (based on D's experience).