It's Beginning to Feel a Lot Like Christmas (Friday, October 7, 2011)
Early mornings have never been my thing. But this morning we managed to get everyone up at 6 am to get on the road by 7:30-ish. We were headed to Croatia, to visit Plitvice Lakes National Park. If we got there early enough, we could still spend the afternoon at the park as well as part of the next day. So off we went. None too happy, for the most part, but packed and in the car.
We drove out of Hungary and into Croatia. We hit our first border crossing of the trip, which required stopping at 3 different booths and having our passports stamped a couple of times--once to say we were leaving the European Union, and once to say that we were entering Croatia. Okay. No hassle, and we were on our way, though the double stamping is symbolic of some of the bureaucratic nature that we have seen.
In Hungary, when we checked into the apartment, we had to pay three fees--the rent, a deposit for the key to the garage, and the cost of parking for 3 nights. I had about the right amount total for all three things. But the woman needed to write me a receipt for the rent first, so she had to make change for me. Then she wrote a receipt for the garage key deposit, at which point I gave her money for the deposit and for the parking fee. She smiled in a puzzled way, and somewhat irritatedly wrote me a third receipt for the parking fee and took the money together. Even when we had to pay for public toilets, we received a receipt for our trouble. Is that tax-deductible or something? All you CPAs, get on that and get back to me.
Back to Croatia. It started raining soon after we entered the country, which didn't surprise us. We'd been warned that the weather was turning throughout Europe and we should not expect the summer weather anymore. We drove through some cool little cities, and as we passed we noticed that we could still see bullet holes from wartime gunfire in many buildings. Quite a few have been fixed up and you'd never know the history by looking at them, but there is a ways to go. Building and reconstruction are everywhere here! Even in the rain and fog we could tell that the road from the highway to the town we'd be staying in went through some beautiful countryside.
We got to our hotel in a downpour. We had a great room, perfect for us with a wooden loft with 3 beds and nightstands--could've been Camp Roger up there! It continued to pour, hard, so we decided it was a homework kind of afternoon. The kids each did some work, Brian and I caught a quick nap, and we thoroughly enjoyed some quiet downtime. When we finally started thinking about dinner, I looked out the window to the balcony and realized that it was snowing. It snowed like crazy for about an hour. We went hunting for a restaurant, and by the time we'd eaten and come back, the snow was all but gone. At the restaurant, they had a TV on, and the news station was showing reports on the early snowstorm. It wasn't quite Storm Team 8--just a few shots of people digging out somewhere. They really should hire a few more meteorologists so they can cover it more completely--send someone to measure the snow with a ruler, have someone stand by to take phone calls from people in Hastings letting us know that it is snowing there too...oh, sorry, just a little homesick I guess. It's just not the same here.
The restaurant we chose was called Pizza Grill. It seemed a better choice than some of the others, such as Bistro Purger (sounds like some sort of self-mortification restaurant) or Bistro Slap (that might hurt). Though my favorite sign is still the store in Jos, Nigeria, curiously called "Ladies Spare Parts". Probably accessories, but you never really know. But back to the Pizza Grill. The kids had pizza for the, what, 100th time this trip? Except Andrew--he ordered shnitzel again, because he'd liked it in Austria--way to go Andrew. Also, schnitzel comes with french fries. I think it's the European version of chicken nuggets. Figuring out the Croatian on the menu is not simple, but pizza is the same everywhere, so it always seems like a safe bet.
Tomorrow is supposed to be better, from what we can gather, so we are looking forward to seeing the national park. The photos I've seen online look beautiful!
Let it snow (but just for tonight)!
We drove out of Hungary and into Croatia. We hit our first border crossing of the trip, which required stopping at 3 different booths and having our passports stamped a couple of times--once to say we were leaving the European Union, and once to say that we were entering Croatia. Okay. No hassle, and we were on our way, though the double stamping is symbolic of some of the bureaucratic nature that we have seen.
In Hungary, when we checked into the apartment, we had to pay three fees--the rent, a deposit for the key to the garage, and the cost of parking for 3 nights. I had about the right amount total for all three things. But the woman needed to write me a receipt for the rent first, so she had to make change for me. Then she wrote a receipt for the garage key deposit, at which point I gave her money for the deposit and for the parking fee. She smiled in a puzzled way, and somewhat irritatedly wrote me a third receipt for the parking fee and took the money together. Even when we had to pay for public toilets, we received a receipt for our trouble. Is that tax-deductible or something? All you CPAs, get on that and get back to me.
Back to Croatia. It started raining soon after we entered the country, which didn't surprise us. We'd been warned that the weather was turning throughout Europe and we should not expect the summer weather anymore. We drove through some cool little cities, and as we passed we noticed that we could still see bullet holes from wartime gunfire in many buildings. Quite a few have been fixed up and you'd never know the history by looking at them, but there is a ways to go. Building and reconstruction are everywhere here! Even in the rain and fog we could tell that the road from the highway to the town we'd be staying in went through some beautiful countryside.
The restaurant we chose was called Pizza Grill. It seemed a better choice than some of the others, such as Bistro Purger (sounds like some sort of self-mortification restaurant) or Bistro Slap (that might hurt). Though my favorite sign is still the store in Jos, Nigeria, curiously called "Ladies Spare Parts". Probably accessories, but you never really know. But back to the Pizza Grill. The kids had pizza for the, what, 100th time this trip? Except Andrew--he ordered shnitzel again, because he'd liked it in Austria--way to go Andrew. Also, schnitzel comes with french fries. I think it's the European version of chicken nuggets. Figuring out the Croatian on the menu is not simple, but pizza is the same everywhere, so it always seems like a safe bet.
Tomorrow is supposed to be better, from what we can gather, so we are looking forward to seeing the national park. The photos I've seen online look beautiful!
Let it snow (but just for tonight)!
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