 After our month in Slovenia, we once again hit the road and made our way to Switzerland to see our friend Franz. When we arrived he had it all made up for us - our own apartment! The kitchen had everything and there was a little table and a few air beds for us, with chocolate bunnies tucked under our pillows and chocolate bars in the fridge (all from the Lindor chocolate factory nearby - delicious!), which was 1000 times better than sleeping in Hotel Daihatsu (our car), in the Swiss Alps, with only one sweater and fleece blanket, beside the highway and a frozen pile of manure.
We met Franz's parents and had a barbecue dinner with Dad by the grill, so he is now known as both . . .
 __The next day the boys decided to walk and Mom and I drove the car to meet them - we were forty minutes late! My excuse for that is that my running shoes weren't quite dry from the day before (I'd stepped in the droppings of a dog and scraped it off in a puddle), so we were debating what to do. In the end I ended up wearing Mom's shoes and she wore her high-heeled boots (we switched later in the day and I know I won't get caught up in the fashion statement of ridiculously heeled boots too soon - give it ten years or more). Birch had gone on walking, so when we picked Dad up we had to hope Birch hadn't been hit by a car (the highway was narrow and really steep). We met up with him eventually, and arrived for our second day in Dubrovnik.
Right away we went walking around the wall - that is, after buying a ticket for the day, a pass for all the museums and such, including the wall. After that, of course we had to get some ice cream, and after THAT we set off around the wall.
The view was magnificent - every which way you turned there was another beautiful full view. The city was just . . .
 __Croata is simply beatiful - sparkly 'caribbean blue' waters, and plenty of sunshine. We were lucky; it only rains during the night, and is a really comfortable lullaby when we sleep in Hotel Diahatsu. Hotel Diahatsu is our car when we use it as sleeping quarters, Diahatsu being the brand. I can tell you, Hotel Diahatsu is not one I reccommend - but when the highway streches on and on along the coast line, and all the B&Bs are closed for winter, what choice do I have... Except complain, which I have already tried more than once.
Anyways, we didn't need to lose our sleep the first night in Croatia, and the hotel by the road (actually a health spa in the summer) was really nice - they had a . . .
 _We stayed at Zio Flavio's house for two weeks, and then transfered over to Dad's cousins house, in another tiny village. Ingrid and David had offered us there house, and they had two kids, Iris (14) and Tadej (11 - pronounced Today). Their grandparents live on the middle floor and they make the biggest meals for us, in a little room for dining benches which hardly had enough room for all the pots and trays and saucers and plates of food spread across them! Not only did it take twenty minutes to digest, it took an hour!
We had Mom's birthday there, and she is officially 51! It was the anniversary of the Big Decision! Ingrid and David had planned to go to . . .
 We are with Zio Flavio in front of his home. ___We have arrived in Slovenia to my great-Uncle's house near Koper. Uncle Flavio and his girlfriend, Mary, set us up in a spare bedroom which was heavenly and far better than the sleeper-cars we'd slept in for the last two days while traveling all the way from Turkey (with a pit stop in Bulgaria) by train. The only problem with staying there was that they didn't speak english, only slovenska (the language belonging to Slovenia) and italian... So Mom and Dad could communicate by italian, but Birch and I were left stranded, waiting for translations. That was the only downside to our stay, and the rest was very enjoyable. We liked to take short walks through . . .
 _Well, it's the first day on continental Europe and Mom got pick-pocketed. We really have let our guard down, thinking we were safe in Europe. But every place has it's ups and downs, even home-sweet-home. In India and Africa, we were always on the look out, and I guess Mom's small, loose purse was just too tempting. Mom's perscription sunglasses were stolen along with her wallet - the thing is, both were useless to the person who took them. First of all, Mom's sunglasses have special lenses for people who need glasses. Odds are, whoever stole them doesn't. And the wallet didn't have any money, only personal stuff like post addresses and e-mailing IDs, plus a bunch of brochours and buisness cards. Besides that, Sofia is . . .
 Cappadocia! Wow! Sabia, a volunteer in Uganda, had told us to go specifically to Cappadocia, where the 'fairy chimneys' are. Cappadocia is another ancient town, this time not with ruins, but with caves, carved into volcanic rock! The towers are all tall, some with hats on top of them, which are the ideal chimneys. This time a guy named Effe was our guide. Not only were there dwellings above ground, but our first stop was . . .
 Wow! I'd seen the Pamukkale calcium pools and geo thermals in pictures, but - Wow! We had Gul as our tour guide again, and she showed us some other Greek ruins, like one of Apollo's temples. Gul told us how a hole in the ground released a toxic gas if you got too close you'd get intoxicated. The oracles used to do that for only a few seconds, and they pretty much got so high they lost consciousness and then told a prophecy. Interesting. Mom, Birch and I went. . .
 Ephesus! At last, Ephesus! Ephesus, glorious Ephesus! Glorious Greek ruins, glorious underground city. The remains of the Greek Empire, who once ruled over Turkey!
Our tour bus pulled up in the parking lot. Boy, did I feel like a full-on tourist! Our guide, Gul (pronounced Gool) already had our tickets. We went through, and she started telling stories about the Greek Gods and Goddesses. Thanks to the Percy Jackson series (by Rick Riordan), I knew most of their names!
The ruins were gorgeous, and Gul explained how the archeologists had to dig down, trusting only a few columns sticking out of the ground! 250,000 people lived there! Wow! They knew the size of the population because. . .
 In front of the Blue Mosque at night wearing warm jackets that Sibel had generously given to us During our stay in Istanbul we visited the Topkapi Palace and The Blue Mosque. Also, in my Uganda blogs, I forgot to mention going to the Kadafi Mosque and Baha'i Temple.
Blue Mosque:
The Blue Mosque is beautiful, especially the outside, in my opinion. It has three blue domes on two sides of the big top one, and none on the other sides. It has a courtyard and six towers, which is considered an insult to Islam, because that makes it more important than Mecca.
The inside is nicely hand-painted with tiny floral designs and has good arches (Dad's noticing arches all over now). The floor is carpeted with soft red carpets and there were many tourists milling around.
In a way it reminded m of a zoo. A rope . . .
|
RSS Feed