On Monday night I got back from a vehicular jaunt around Eastern Europe. A party of three - two Americans and one Austrian - we started our journey in Linz late on Thursday evening. Well, I've already related much of the facts to family and friends so this post will be an email excerpt. I'll add certain anecdotes at a later call (I have class in about 30min).
Dear Reader...
Thursday, I jumped a packed train to Linz. I actually missed the first one because it was TOO packed. I met up with Mary, her friend Gregor, and Gregor's roommates, who are dating. The five of us drove down to Slovenia and dropped the roommates off at the dude's house. The girl was from Berlin (I had fun talking with her, you can imagine). ;)
We three continued on in the dark to Ljubljana, the capital of Slovenia. Along the way many bonfires dotted the hillside. The fires were huge and seemed abandoned; they looked vast and apocalyptic. May 1st isn't celebrated much in Austria so we got to witness a little fun in Slovenia. ;) We didn't have much trouble driving, except we passed the street for our hostel about 3 times. >.< When we arrived, there were two big guys in black leather jackets standing outside, looking quite stoned. Pedro, from Brazil, wanted us to go partying with him but we were bushed. Instead, we walked around the city till about 1am and then went to bed.
Ljubljana is a beautiful city! Our hostel was right near the "Dragon Bridge" - a bridge covered with statues/carvings of dragons. A river passes right through the city so there are many bridges, which are lit up at night in green and blue. I really enjoyed it. The city also has that 'old' kinda feel with broken cobbled roadways. On May 1st we walked around and visited the castle, walked around some more, and chilled because much was closed due to the holiday. We then drove out to Lake Bled, about an hour away. Beautiful lake with a few islands. We took a ride on this Alpine train ride thing - basically a luge down a mountain. :P That night we celebrated "Tag der Arbeit" (May Day). We played this game called "King's cup/corner", which is typical American: drink as much as possible as quickly as possible. It left me devastated because we played with wine. NO MORE wine for me. Never. :P Around midnight we went to a club and danced. We stayed out till about 3am. Pedro, the Brazilian, was our chaperon.
Next day we left for Croatia. About a 3 hour drive. Croatia and Bosnia were at war just a few years ago, ended in 1996 I believe. The only thing left over from the war were quite a few husks for houses. We went to the Plitvice Lakes National Park, which is famous for it's stunning waterfalls. This place was the best. I can't really describe it. You walk about the lakes and waterfalls, which seem to disappear and materialize throughout an entire forest, atop a wooden planked walkway. The water is emerald green and incredibly clear and there's always the sound of moving water. I could have stayed...
In our apartment, we found ourselves sharing the place with a lone Japanese girl, Atsuno, who is studying in Amsterdam. Cool girl, if a bit crazy. We offered to drive her to Zagreb the next day but she opted to take the bus. She disappeared quite early the following day so we didn't talk more. Sunday, we finished up the second half of the lakes (saw the biggest waterfall in Croatia!), randomly ran into Atsuno again, and headed out to Zagreb.
We had trouble finding our hostel in Zagreb; blame it on a non-existent sign for our hostel called: Hobo Bear. When we arrived, we found ourselves booked in a 12 person room with 9 rugby players! After some bed juggling, we were put in an 8 person room to leave the rugby players in peace. One of them had a face shaved into the hair on the back of his head. Classy. :P We dropped our stuff and hit the streets!
...to run right into Atsuno from the apartment! I ran up and shouted 'Konnichiwa'! Japanese style. ;) She stayed with us the rest of the day and had a blast. She's also an Aries and my same blood type (you know, Japanese are crazy about blood type). ;) So it was a big highlight of the trip for me to meet her and become good friends. She invited me up to Amsterdam for fun and Japanese cooking. We talked about anime, dramas, books, food, art, everything! She's really atypical for a Japanese person because she's loud and laughs a lot. But it's a laugh that makes you want to join right in! As the evening wound down, I began to feel sicker and sicker. Mary, travel buddy, had kindly shared her sickness with me. When I went to bed, I felt incredibly weak and on fire with fever. The hostel was loud so I popped in my earbuds and listened to music. I took a Tylenol and hoped for the best. The fever broke around 5am and I knew because I swam in and out of consciousness the entire evening. At 7am, I couldn't sleep anymore and got up. Mary went for a run and I went on a search for coffee. The weather was bright and the streets full of people commuting to work.
We didn't stay long in Zagreb before heading back to Austria. South of Graz, we randomly stopped at a winery and had a private wine tasting. Hey, there are perks to being American! We were 'exotic'. :P Well, I know that I said 'no more wine' but I did end up buying two bottles as gifts for my parents. ;) Then we drove back to Linz and I caught the train back here. Had to walk back to the Internat, drop my things, and get food before stores closed. You can imagine, I can barely lift my fingers anymore to type. And the annoying tickle in my lungs is turning painful.
That was my weekend. :) More crazy than I've had in a long time. The Austrian who drove works for a company selling cars so we got the gas for free! Therefore, I managed to save $$. But the dude had no sense of food/hunger. He said he didn't care about anything he ate. T.T And so he kept us running around, barely going on one meal a day!! Nargh!
And that's all for now...
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