The Latest Adventure

Not quite two years have passed since we returned from the world's greatest honeymoon and started our lives as married folks. We had hoped to start a family right away, but the universe was being stubborn and we were forced to become well-acquainted with the virtue of patience. More than a year after we pulled the proverbial goalie, the stars aligned and now we find ourselves facing parenthood in a mere 7 weeks. We're having a baby boy.

We plan to revive this blog to record our grand adventure into parenthood. The details thus far:

• I am 33 weeks pregnant, due May 7. The baby is measuring exactly on schedule.
• I was sick for the first trimester and a bit beyond. Makes me green around the gills just to remember it.
• The second and third trimesters have been lots of fun -my appetite came back, I've been energetic and our prenatal testing has been reassuring. We've both been enjoying the pregnancy since around 16 weeks.
• No, we don't have his name chosen yet. Yes, we have a list of names. No, we aren't sharing our choices. We love you anyway.
• I miss wine.
• Lloyd has thoughtfully gained some sympathy weight.

Coming up in the next few weeks: Two baby showers, a tour of our hospital's birthing suites, my mom is painting a mural in his room and we must install our infant seat. I suspect the infant seat installation will warrant its own post.

Post-Honeymoon Musings + Photos Galore

At 9 p.m. on Friday night, we fell into Lloyd’s parents’ waiting arms at the airport after an uneventful-but-exhausting 21 hours of travel. Leaving Ljubljana on Friday morning, we shared a mix of sadness and relief about coming home. While extended travel suits us both rather well, we know there are jobs, family, friends, and a little black cat back home that wouldn’t much appreciate a longer absence.

During our journey homeward, we spent some time reflecting on the whole of our trip. What was our favorite city? Favorite meal? Best accommodations? Most exhilarating experience? And in the end, we agreed that it is nearly impossible to pick one, two, or even three things in any of those categories. We simply found so much to enjoy each day in each city, and for so many different reasons. But that reality hardly makes a satisfying summary for the rest of you, so I will try to list some highlights here that might give you a good idea of why we feel our month away was perhaps the greatest honeymoon had by any couple, anywhere.

Dubrovnik highlights:
I give Dubrovnik its own category because this was the very beginning of our honeymoon, when we were feeling the greatest sense of awe about our chosen destination and the keenest sense of relief about relaxing with just each other after a week of wedding- and post-wedding celebrations. Our favorite parts of Dubrovnik included:

Our sobes with Lidija and Renata, with whom we were first introduced to the delightful concept of staying in private Croatian guest rooms.

From Honeymoon - Dubrovnik

From Honeymoon - Dubrovnik

Our walk along the top of Dubrovnik’s medieval wall, which gave us breathtaking views of the city and demonstrated the perfect marriage between the ancient and the modern, the war-torn and the rebuilt, the beautiful and the functional. No other city had an opportunity quite like this one to view it as a whole. Though it was an incredibly hot and sweaty venture, we loved every minute of it.

From Honeymoon - Dubrovnik

Cold Drinks-Buža, the amazing bar built right into the rocks just outside the city wall. We shared many a libation here, listening to Frank Sinatra, watching the sunset over the Adriatic and witnessing some of the other patrons dive right into the Adriatic below us.

From Honeymoon - Dubrovnik

From Honeymoon - Dubrovnik

Our introduction to octopus salad, a surprisingly refreshing summer mix of fresh tomatoes, onions, cilantro and tender octopus. We still can’t figure out why it wasn’t chewy like the stateside octopus we’ve had. Mysteriously tender Adriatic octopus, I guess.

From Honeymoon - Dubrovnik

Our experience with the Bravo! Vancouver chorale and the DSO (documented here and below with a couple of photos from our new friend Brian).

From Honeymoon - Dubrovnik

From Honeymoon - Dubrovnik

Day trips to pristine Mljet and lush Lokrum, two of our favorite miniscule Croatian islands. Unfortunately, we hadn’t downloaded our photos of these islands to our Picasa site before Lloyd accidentally swam with the camera, so our visual record is missing. But take this unfortunate incident as proof as to how absolutely irresistible the swimming opportunities were.

And now, the rest of the best of our memories and our favorite things:

Mostar in Bosnia-Herzegovina: A lovely river town with a sad recent history, Mostar captivated us right away with its iconic bridge, mosques, churches and cobblestone. Lloyd did a great job conveying our wonder of Mostar in his post, so I won’t belabor. But here is a photo to remind you.

From The Adventures of Courtney and Lloyd

Sljivovica: Whenever we shared the news of our recent marriage (which became often after learning what would happen), our server or the restaurant’s owner would deliver two shot glasses of a very strong plum brandy called sljivovica (slee-voh-VEE-tseh) or some similar fruit-based spirit. The first server to bestow this stuff on us called it “firewater” and assured us it would “aid the digestion.” I don’t know how much digestion-aiding it did, but it sure as heck made both of us good and goofy for the walk home.

Korčula and Apartments Lenni: Korčula was our last stop on the Dalmatian Coast before heading inland, and as I wrote in an earlier post, this little island felt like home right away. Upon our arrival we were treated to the island’s hero’s welcome for Čoda, a Croatian swimmer who had just won a first place medal at some international meet. We didn’t know that we had shared our catamaran ride from Split with Korčula’s most recent favorite son (Marco Polo is her first), but when we arrived at the boat’s dock, it was filled with schoolchildren chanting his name - Cho-DA! Cho-DA! Cho-DA! The large boat emptied with no sign of the star, and we stayed to watch the children turn dejectedly from the boat as soon as it closed its doors. Moments later the boat’s doors swung open again, and Čoda stepped forward with a grin, arms raised in triumph, with his gold medal gleaming on his chest. The children went nuts, and Čoda spent the next 10 minutes signing their shirts and shaking their little hands. Our host Lenni, who had met us at the boat, bemusedly explained to us who he was.

Lenni and her husband Periša were to become a huge part of the reason we loved Korčula. I wrote about this in my prior post and won’t expand here, except to say that meeting people like these two is why everyone should travel.

From Hvar and Korčula

Gelato, wine and pivo: Every day had three things in common: gelato, wine and “pivo,” which is Croatian for beer. Lloyd drank at least one pivo every day; I had a very good and inexpensive wine with each dinner. This region does wine very well, at least to my amateur tastebuds. And I don’t need to explain why we loved the gelato except to say that in the sometimes-oppressive heat, gelato became not just an indulgence but a survival mechanism.

From Rovinj, Poreč, Grožnjan, and Motovun

Swimming: We swam nearly every day on the Dalmatian coast. The Adriatic itself is incredibly inviting, and the salt lakes on Croatia’s tiny islands are like something out of a fantasy world: impossibly clear and secluded, calling to something instinctual within you to jump right in and stay awhile. We always did. I am now holding a grudge against Lake Washington for being 50 degrees in the middle of summer and packed with motorboats.

From Hvar and Korčula

Plitvice: How is this place not one of the 7 natural wonders of the world? Or maybe it will be, as I am just learning that there’s a worldwide poll to decide on the modern seven. Anyway, Plitvice Lakes National Park certainly gets our vote. Lloyd wrote about this one too, and though his blog is very good, you can also just look at a photo and understand why this place will stick with us forever.

From Plitvice

Not to mention one of our more memorable dining experiences occurred in a tiny village outside the park, in the cavernous basement dining room of an inn-style sobe. The cook was a thin, rather masculine woman who spoke very little English. When we asked what kind of meat was in the goulash before we ordered, she held her hands up to her head like antlers. After she had successfully pantomimed “deer” for us, Lloyd ordered the dish. His goulash was excellent, very flavorful, and he complimented her on it. She grinned, then pantomimed shooting a rifle, complete with sound effects. “Pow!” she said proudly, and then “yesterday,” pointing at his plate. Lloyd was apparently eating some very fresh venison, killed the day prior by our host. Just doesn’t happen every day in our little urban/suburban American lives.

Ljubljana
This city, like Dubrovnik, gets its own category in our memory list. We wound down our trip here, and after weeks of charming Croatian beach towns, Ljubljana’s cosmopolitan bustle surprised and delighted us both. The city was vibrant morning until night, its inhabitants were mellow and friendly, the architecture was incredible and we could truly feel the rich Slavic history here. Very quickly we found ourselves fantasizing about settling right into Ljubljana life – Lloyd taking a job at the Microsoft office there (really), our learning the Slovene language, raising our kids there for a while. On our final night, a restaurant proprietor took us on a tour of his kitchen, gave us shots of a strong grape firewater and talked to us about city life, and we learned that Ljubljana is about negative 20 degrees Celsius in the winters with several meters of snow. Now, we look forward to renting a summer flat there instead.

From Ljubljana

This epic post, despite my best intentions, doesn’t quite do the trip justice. When you experience so much fun and wonder every day, nothing ever could. So many of you contributed to this event through our honeymoon registry, and we want you to know that we savored the trip richly, loving every moment and feeling incredibly grateful for your part in it. A month-long honeymoon is quite an indulgence, and we feel so blessed that our friends and families helped us make this travel fantasy a reality – one that somehow exceeded even our highest expectations.

Thank you. Our lifelong journey together has begun in the best possible way.

From Rovinj, Poreč, Grožnjan, and Motovun	From Ljubljana

(If you'd like to vicariously experience more of our trip, click here to view our photo albums.)

The Trip to Ljubljana

This post is a bit after the fact, as we have been in Ljubljana for a few days now. But I thought it best to document this voyage for posterity.

Our trip to Ljubljana (pronounced loo-blee-AH-nah) from Istria last Saturday was full of strange happenings. We woke up to the sound of thunder and lightning striking the city of Rovinj, where we were staying in Istria. This was the type of lightning where you see the flash and immediately hear the clap. It was then followed by torrential downpours, the kind where you can't see for ten feet. That was the first rain we had seen in Croatia beyond a drizzle.

The rain calmed while we packed and ate breakfast, and we headed out for the 15 minute walk to the car. On the way, the rain of course picked up again, though just a steady rain this time, no longer torrential. I left Courtney with the bags under an awning as I ran the rest of the way to the car. I noticed people still going about their business, riding Vespas, wearing summer clothes, etc. They were clearly caught a bit off guard by the weather.

While driving out of town, we learned the hard way that Croatians don't have much experience driving in the rain. The guy behind us, in an older compact car, decided that the line of cars wasn't going fast enough. He realized too late that his car did not have the power to pass before the oncoming cars arrived, so he slammed the brakes, and skidded over to the shoulder on the opposite side of the road while the oncoming cars laid on their horns. No harm done, but a harbinger of events to come.

The same guy, not a minute later, failed to notice when the line of cars slowed. He hit the brakes again, but too late. He skidded right into our rental car, still going quite fast. It was the last day we had the rental (the last hour really), and we were hoping to return it without incident. It was not to be.

The guy spoke a bit of English, but not much. I let him know that we would need a police report, since it was a rental, and he got on his cellphone. He was upset, as were we, standing out there beside the road in the rain, but we managed to keep it civil. Our car had minimal damage, just a plastic panel out of place on the rear bumper. His car was pretty smashed up, was steaming heavily, and had lost all of its coolant as the radiator had been shoved back into the engine. At least he was not going to just drive off.

Ten minutes later, his mother showed up. This was clearly their only car, as she showed up on foot, walking along the highway in the rain. And she was clearly not happy with him.

Ten minutes after that, the policija appeared in a van. As I walked up to them, I asked "Govorite li Engleski?" to which they replied "no." Not a word of English between the two cops. The only one who spoke any English in our little party was the 23 year old kid who hit us. This was going to be an adventure!

I spent about 45 minutes in the back of that van, wedged on a small bench between a significantly overweight cop and an angry little old Croat lady. On the other side of the table sat the other cop and the kid who hit us, also known as my translator. Courtney stayed in the rental car (probably for the best). After some hand waving and gesturing, the cops pretty quickly came to understand what happened. We both blew into a portable breathalizer test, and we were both at 0.0 (it is illegal to drive with any alcohol in your system in Croatia. It will land you in jail. They are quite strict about it). It was quite a harrowing experience, but in the end the cops gave me a copy of the incident report and told me to give it to the rental agency. There should be no problems, my interpreter said.

We made it back to Rijeka an hour or so later, and found the rental agency next to the bus station. The rental car guy took a look at the damage and immediately popped the plastic part back into place. "All fixed," he said. He took a look at the incident report, made us write down a statement of what happened (in all capital letters, strange), and let us go. No extra charges or anything. It was easier than I thought it would be. I think he was just happy to have his car in drivable condition for the next guy.

The next bit of luck came in the form of a train schedule. We were next to the bus station, so we looked at the bus to Ljubljana. We found they run twice a day, at 8AM and 2AM. Out of luck (it was noon by this time), we wandered to the train station a half kilometer away. We looked at the schedule and the next train was at 11PM. Eleven hours of walking around Rijeka (an industrial port city without much for tourists) in the rain with our backpacks sounded unpleasant, considering how our day had started. We decided to ask the information guy, just in case. Yes, the next train was in 15 minutes. Two hours later, we arrived in Ljubljana, with time to explore the beautiful city in the afternoon. A stroke of good
luck!

The final remarkable thing that happened to us on this strange day was on our walk from the train station to our hotel. As we walked, the rain started picking up again. Perhaps a hundred feet from the entrance of our hotel, it started coming down quite hard. So we ducked into this little restaurant called "Le Petit Cafe" to wait out the rain spell. Well apparently that storm that had hit Rovinj in the morning had made its way to Ljubljana in the afternoon. We watched and ordered some lunch as all the people at the sidewalk tables (covered by umbrellas) frantically came inside. Then came the massive thunder and lightning strikes, along with marble sized hail, torrential rain, and wind. A large branch of a nearby tree came down on an umbrella just outside the window, due to the high winds. The hail flew in the windows and doors before people finally figured to shut them. We watched all this from our spot in the corner while munching on a lovely toasted sandwich. Our server assured us that she had never in her life seen weather such as this in Ljubljana, and that we were witnessing the storm of the century right here in our first half hour in town. Well, a few minutes later the storm subsided, and an hour later there were blue skies and a bit if sun.

We have been back to Le Petit Cafe several times. The food, atmosphere, and people were delightful. What a way to find such a hidden gem.

So that is the account of our eventful journey to Ljubljana. We have since fallen in love with this city, due to its friendliness and charm. But that is a subject for a different post.

-- Post From My iPhone

Link to photos of Plitvice

We got into an internet cafe for a bit today, and I was able to upload the pictures of Plitvice from our camera. Hope you enjoy!
http://picasaweb.google.com/lloydg/Plitvice?feat=directlink

Istria and Moving On

First, check out this album. We'd like to post our camera photos into the body of the blog, but Blogger forces us to edit the html to do this, and we HATE that on our own dime in the internet cafe. So our posts from our iPhones work beautifully for embedding photos, but the camera photos...not so much. Anyway. Onward.

Neither Lloyd nor I relished leaving Korčula, though we agreed it was time for our adventures to continue. Our stay there was close to perfect, and our incredibly kind hosts sent us a touching email after we left telling us that they would reserve a room for us and our baby on our next trip to Korčula.

Sniffle. (And no, grandparent- and auntie-hopefuls, this does not mean that Lenni and Periša know something you don't. They're just being cheerfully anticipatory, like you).

Anyway, as you can see from Lloyd's post on Plitvice Lakes National Park, we did move on to something fantastic. I told Lloyd that Plitvice is most certainly where all the world's unicorns and fairies hang out. Though our photos are lovely (and Lloyd just linked to our entire photo album, above) they don't quite capture the awe, the magic. We both feel as though we've seen one of the earth's greatest natural treasures. What a cool sidebar to our otherwise seaside-urban honeymoon.

Now we're up in Rovinj, on the Istrian peninsula - land of truffles (the mushroom kind), honey, and true Italian culture. We hear more Italian than Croatian spoken here, and this once-Venetian peninsula seems rather dedicated to preserving its Italian roots. My favorite demonstration of the Italian influence is in the food. Even our simplest meals explode with flavor - a well-applied truffle here, a perfectly dried prosciutto there. The rest of Croatia's food, while tasty, often lacks variety or a good punch of spice. Not so in Istria. During our first meal (fettucine with truffles and pork tenderloin in a wine sauce), Lloyd and I barely spoke at all - just smiled at each other between bites.

Our first day, we oriented ourselves to Rovinj and saw its one main attraction (besides the great Old Town, fascinating dual-culture and thriving nightlife), the Church of Saint Euphemia. Her remains washed up in Rovinj in a huge sarcophagus centuries ago, and they have celebrated her here ever since. The sarcophagus is on display in the church, but we weren't allowed to photograph it. We did, however, take photos of Rovinj from the bell tower.

Lloyd has forced me (he will say "encouraged") to climb every bell tower we see. Some have been terrifying. Euphemia was the was the most terrifying, with rickety wooden steps angled downward, something between an inclined ladder and a staircase. I almost died and had to engage in every self-soothing behavior I could think of at the moment, including singing the Sesame Street theme song to myself like my mom would do when I was scared as a child. But the views, admittedly, were fantastic.

The next day we went on a road trip to Poreč, to see the famed Byzantine mosaics in a cathedral there. The photos don't do it justice, because there wasn't enough light and we haven't bothered getting to know our camera well enough to photograph in the dark, but hopefully you'll get the feel for it. After Poreč, we headed to Grožnjan, a tiny artist hamlet on a hilltop. We had a wonderful meal of homemade sausages and a truffle frittata there. The frittata, oddly, came scrambled instead of frittata-ed, like our fellow diners received. I truly believe the waiter saw that we were American and thought we might like scrambled eggs instead. No matter, they were perfectly wonderful. We spent the rest of our time in Grožnan wandering around the tiny town, trying to picture ourselves in the 14th century. Not hard to do with no cars, narrow cobblestone streets and original limestone structures everwhere.

The final stop on our Istrian road trip was Motovun, another town perched on a hilltop, where Mario Andretti was born. Such perfect irony - no cars in Motovun, you have to park and hike up to the Old Town. It's surrounded by walkable ramparts, so we took a surprisingly brief stroll (due to the miniscule town) around them, admiring the pastoral scenes below.

Today is our last day in Istria and, alas, in Croatia. We're off to Ljubljana in Slovenia tomorrow for the final leg of our journey. We are still having a blast, still discovering, still having mighty adventures. We're also building in a good amount of lazy time, which I think might be the hardest to leave behind. Now, off to take a boat adventure or to swim in the Adriatic. Definitely to get some gelato.

Plitvice

Since we left Korcula and headed north, things have for the most part lined up in our favor. We took the early morning boat to Split, then were able to find a rental car fairly quickly. We headed north, up the coast for a night and a day in Plitvice, then on to Istria. We were able to drop in and find a nice cozy place to stay in a Sobe near Plitvice. We also easily found accommodation for four nights in Rovinj, a beautiful ancient town on the Istrian peninsula, which is where we are now.

Here are a few pictures and thoughts on Plitvice.


This is one of the most beautiful places I have ever seen. Due to some mineral in the mountains, the river in this valley forms natural dams. So there are a whole bunch of lakes, with thousands of waterfalls in between. I don't know the science behind it, but I know it is always changing and the water is extraordinarily blue.





It was so nice to get a bit of "green time" out in the woods. We got to the park early (around 8:30) and hiked some of the trails before most of the other tourists arrived. We did this on the advice from our Rick Steves travel guide. I am so glad we did, because in the afternoon this place gets quite crowded.

Plitvice is not large. We spent about 6 hours there and were able to see most of it. We went to the upper lakes first, along the main trails.





We veered off into a smaller trail which took us into the hills.


You can really get a sense of how blue the water is from above. These were taken from a phone camera. We will post the pictures from the real camera later.

After lunch we headed to the lower lakes.


There was also a huge 300 foot waterfall here which I forgot to photograph with my phone. Trust me it is stunning. For now these pictures will have to do.

Plitvice was exactly what we needed. We saw some amazing beauty mixed with a little bit of exercise. Plitvice was good for the body and good for the soul.

-- Post From My iPhone

Korcula. Not Leaving.

Courtney here, writing from Lloyd's iPhone. This should be an adventure in itself. If nothing else, it will force me to be pithy, which may be a relief to those of you who slogged through my last post.

Aaah, Korcula.



We love Korcula. So much so that we've decided to extend our stay here. Our hosts, Lenni and Perisa (Croatian for Peter) are absolutely delightful and we were thrilled when they asked us to join them for coffee - overlooking the Adriatic, no less - on our first morning here. They're working to find us accommodations for 2 more nights, either here in their sobe or with friends.

What's so fantastic about Korcula? It has a rich, proud history (Marco Polo hailed from here, back when Korcula was a Venetian territory), plenty of old churches, buildings, cemeteries and ruins to explore, and the incredible emerald-blue waters and rugged, mountainous interior as the rest of Dalmatia. But more than that, Korcula has a friendly, welcoming, laid- back island vibe that just feels like home to us after nearly two weeks of exploring this part of the world.

We've eaten incredibly well.


Octopus salad...



Grilled fish...



And maybe a bit too much wine.

We've also explored about a third of this island's 50 miles or so by scooter...






...and had a fantastic adventure sailing a small Laser sailboat in a channel just outside the Old Town.


Would you look at this handsome devil?

So we're definitely making the most of our time here, and perhaps doing a shameful amount of relaxing too. We love our afternoon siesta. Why the hell can't Americans figure out the siesta thing? Climate? Psssht. Not a good enough reason.

We're also pleasantly surprised by the relaxed, non-litigious nature of everything. You can touch things in the museums - no guards will snap at you for getting too close. The scooter and boat rental places asked for minimal proof that we were functioning human beings before they calmly turned over their wares. Basically, everyone seems to assume a level of good intentions of everyone else. This attitude is so rare anywhere these days, but even more so from tourist destinations. I imagine the language barrier makes some countries ultra-cautious - you can't be too careful when you're communicating complex matters such as the ones in rental contracts and "do not touch."

I failed with making this a pithy post, I realize. You're too kind to read my unedited blather thus far. Off to bed - tomorrow brings a move to our new accommodations, seeing Marco Polo's house (a suspect claim, we're told, but bound to be interesting nonetheless), swimming in the Adriatic and a possible afternoon sailing encore. Next stop: Istrian peninsula.

I miss the cat, but not much else. :-)

-- Post From My iPhone