This post was contributed by my sister Kim. I saw her taking some notes while she was here and she compiled them after returning to the states. I took a couple of liberties to edit them to fit with the overall tone of the blog (hey, it's my blog!).
Now, from Kim ...
Well, my trip started off not so good. After much planning to be ready on time, I got to the airport to find out the plane was delayed by almost 4 hours. The website was not updated so I only found this out when I was in line. This meant I would miss my connection from Frankfurt to Graz so I had to be booked on a later flight. I already felt like I was missing part of my vacation. As a work colleague pointed out, my ROI for the trip had already decreased.
We will skip the gory details about the ride over ... but let’s just say there was vomiting, screaming and very little sleep. The screaming wasn’t me and I didn’t actually vomit on anyone causing them to scream but I am sure the screaming added to my vomiting. We had a lot of babies and toddlers on the plane and there really wasn’t much time during the 8 hour flight that they were not screaming (this wasn’t a cry, it was like they were being squished in their small seats!) ... I think this added to my anxiety therefore causing the vomiting and lack of sleep.
So I land in Germany with low blood sugar, no food on my stomach and dehydrated. I forced myself to pull it together and get some food/liquids in my body and got on my connecting flight to Graz on time (I was really nervous I would finally fall asleep in the airport and miss my connection so every time I dozed off, I woke up a few minutes later with panic running thru my blood and checking my watch). I had a little food on the plane to Graz, caught some zzzzz’s, and felt pretty good by the time we were wheels down just in time to see Russ, Sue, Grace and Henry waving at me from the airport. It was a very quick trip over to the terminal (they shuttle you back and forth from the runway quite a bit vs. getting dropped off right at the gate like I am used too), quickly thru customs and finally, I was there!
We took the bus to the apartment where Russ made a quick meal and I quickly scarfed it down. He was super mean and forced me to stay up until 10pm which was 4pm my time at home ... a full day later. So I had been up for almost 36 hours with just a few naps here and there. Head hit the pillow at 10, was out by 10:01 and they let me sleep until 7 and I woke up feeling really, really good. So that was getting there, here is how the rest of the trip went.
Spent the 1st full day there all around Graz. We took the bus into the center of the city (I won’t even bother with all the names since I don’t know them all but you can read Russ’s blog for specifics) but we walked, we ate, we saw a lot of cool things. This was my 1st trip to Europe so I was really soaking in all the scenery and the beautiful buildings. The transportation system was really amazing too. You can really get anywhere by just walking a couple of blocks and hoping on a bus. But even with all the buses, there are also trains, trams, scooters, bikes, motorcycles and of course cars. Very little cars so that they can fit down all the narrow streets. And watch out for those scooters and bikes, they are everywhere! And people on motorcycles ... CRAZY! They are allowed to split lanes over there and I can’t believe we didn’t see someone get killed. And I just realized, this is going to take forever if I go into this level of detail so I will try a different format. So in no particular order ...
How about things that I loved about my trip:
1) The generosity of Russ to allow me to visit and even get a bed in their tiny apartment abroad. And then to plan an entire vacation for me and his family. The trip for me was only possible since they gave me a place to stay and got me around to all the countries free of charge :-)
2) The scenery, no matter where you looked, there was something beautiful to look at. Architecture, water, people, food, art, you name it, it was there. Ice cream too. They treat this as art over there so you naturally have to eat it every day since they put so much time into it!
3) The buildings, I just love the architecture and all the details that are part of everything. I bet behind some of those doors were some really cool apartments and great history of who came before you.
4) How clean and safe it was not to mention how well maintained the roads, parks, etc. were. Tax dollars at work!
5) The look of Venice when you walk out of the train station. You are up close and personal with the best view you might ever see. It just takes your breath away to see all water, the buildings, the boats. That right there was worth the train ride over (but hey, we rode 1st class so the train ride wasn’t even bad!).
6) All the in’s and out’s of the cities we visited. It is just like you see in the movies, there are very narrow “alley’s” that are all hidden behind the streets. You can get lost in them because when you are walking in them, you can’t see over the buildings so you might take a wrong turn, have to double back thru another alley. There is laundry hanging high above you, you walk right past everyone’s front door, but you might also get to duck into a very quaint café or store. It is like this maze that from the outside, you didn’t even know existed. I experienced this both in Slovenia and Venice. It was just very “European.”
7) The food! I tried new stuff like trout (raw), octopus salad and anchovies (or were they sardines ... Russ questioned this so many times now I am confused too!). And of course, we had some really good pizza, some really good pasta and who can forget the meat feast we had with Russ’s work colleague Tone in Slovenia. He wanted to treat us to a traditional meal so he ordered some platters of food and we proceeded to feast until we had the meat sweats. Which, if you don’t know what that is, it is your body reacting to all the meat and the fact that it thinks you are trying to kill yourself by ingesting so much food (glutton!). But it was so good! And we sure didn’t let it stop us from eating ice cream almost immediately afterwards and then off to Zotter’s chocolate factory where you can sample all of their chocolate bars along with eating from a chocolate fountain. I don’t even want to think about my sugar or calorie intake that day! Oh, I just remembered, we also had something (forgot the name) but it was a hotdog stuffed with cheese, wrapped in bacon and then fried. Or at least that is how Russ made them and they were fantastic!
8) The view of the Adriatic Sea from our hotel room in Slovenia. It was again ... breathtaking (sorry Seinfeld, this is how you use the term “breathtaking”). The weather was so good while we were there, not too hot, not too chilly, a nice sunny 75-85 degrees each day.
9) The laid back life. It feels simple over there, less rush, plenty of time to eat, drink wine (or Radler’s) and visit. Russ often noticed that I thought we should be moving along quicker so that was a hard habit to break. I am used to the next person in line waiting for you to get out of the way, sometimes even nudging you.
10) Time with the Meller-Hankins family! It is always nice when you get to spend time doing things with family that are new experiences for all of you. Even though some of the things we did, Russ, Sue and the family had done before, there was a lot they hadn’t so it was nice to be able to experience that with them and see everyone’s reactions, especially from the kinder :-)
Now for the stuff I didn’t really love:
1) The smoking ... there's so much more smoking in public places that I've gotten used to in the US and I didn't like going back to the way it used to be.
2) Not understanding the language. When I looked at a building and there was a sign talking about the building, I couldn’t read it so I feel like I missed out on a lot of the history of what I was looking at.
3) The long plane ride ... could they cram you in any tighter??? The only good part about the ride home was that that I was seated in the 1st row of business class (not quite 1st class but still better than economy) so I had a little extra room and they come around a little more often with drinks. I had a much better trip home, stayed awake the whole time and watched movies so that once home that night, I was able to sleep and it was like I had never been in a different time zone. Turns out I am not affected by the time zone at all both going and coming back. John, the sweetheart that he is and after getting the “meltdown” call when I landed in Germany on the way there, told my brother to help me figure out how to get upgraded to 1st class for the ride home. Russ laughed and said “you know that is about an $8k flight right?" Let’s just say, I didn’t pay to be upgraded so the “free” upgrade to business class was very much appreciated.
4) When I got back, I felt “off” for about 5 or 6 days. I don’t know if there is a word for it but my balance was off and I felt like I was always a little motion sick. Maybe it was b/c I spent literally every day either on a plane, a bus, a train, a tram, a boat or all the miles we did in a car? It was like I had a weird concussion from all the constant motion. Russ did give those brakes on our car a pretty good workout and it finally passed so I guess I am cured. Wonder if that is what I would feel like if I went on a cruise??
So, that’s is ... as you can see, a lot less that I didn’t like which makes it worth the long ride, the smoking and the motion sickness.
So, given this wasn’t a novel (an actual novel ... not just what everyone calls my emails) and won’t be published, I didn’t add all the commentary & details that I could have. I could have talked about the fact that they still take baths over there, not showers. They don’t have wash clothes ... weird huh? The women wear pantyhose with their shorts? You don’t buy an apt b/c of the apt, you buy it for the view on the roof. You can take your top off at the beach and no one cares! The beaches are rock, not sand. Makes for a not so comfy day laying out in the sun. The older women scowl at you ... I swear I didn’t do anything to provoke it, did I? And people in Croatia are very pushy when you tell them “I am just looking.” She may as well grabbed my money right out of my purse. She literally told me I couldn’t leave until I gave her money. She didn’t care what denomination either but I figured out later every time she did the conversion from Kuna to Euro and Euro to Dollar, she was robbing me blind. And this is a bummer b/c those pants were made in Italy and were really cute. But how you reward someone that just wants to rip you off?
All in all, a great trip and I hope to go back one day (with John too since he stayed home for this trip) and spend more time “learning” and not just seeing. I think I only picked up a couple of German words b/c everyone speaks English to you when they see that you are American which is good but again, you don’t learn a lot. But I hope you learn a lot from my “novel.”
Ciao~
Kim
Awesome read! Can't wait to talk to you in person or see pics :-) - Kris
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