Accidentally in Albania (and in Montenegro, but that's not a pseudo-alliteration)

At last entry, I was baking in the sun in Dubrovnik, Croatia, impatiently waiting for a bus to take us to Kotor, Montenegro. Presently, I am hiding from the sun in Tirana, Albania, as we patiently (because there is air conditioning) wait for a bus to take us on an easy thirteen hours overnight to Saranda. The word easy is, of course, an utter farce, but we are pretending that not having to pay a night’s lodging is exactly what we were intending. In all reality, of course, we bumbled through a conversation with five Albanian men on a random Tirana street who were highly amused as we attempted to use our little English-speaking heads appropriately to indicate yes and no. Conveniently, Albanians shake their heads for yes and nod for no, so this conversation was a total Monty Python skit and it resulted in us agreeing to bus tickets to Saranda instead of Drymades, which is all fine because we don’t care where we go, except that this particular bus is going to take thirteen hours overnight and put us at a party beach town at five in the morning (just in time for the walk of shame).

It’s ok, though, because Tirana has this massive iguana sitting in a cage on the street and we’re best friends.

            

Needless to say, our trip itinerary is entirely haphazard. Take, for example, our three day stint in Montenegro. From Dubrovnik, we did indeed intend to go to Kotor, a gorgeous Medieval town with cobblestones and battlements and fortified castle walls and accompanying religious iconography and everything else that makes a European town “charming”. We even had a private room in a hostel overlooking the main square with green shutters that opened over a gelato shop. Charming. 

There was even a precious little high school choir singing and dancing in a style not unlike Medieval Glee. Charming charming charming.

After Kotor, though, things got a little…accidental. At the bus station in Kotor, we kind of just got on a bus to Podgorica, the capital of Montenegro, intending to simply get on another bus upon arrival and head straight to…Serbia? We didn’t know. Of course, upon arriving at Podgorica, we found it to be an authentic European city where tourists do not ever go, which meant that there wasn’t a bus anywhere, let alone to Serbia, until the next day (and the bus station toilets were just well caulked holes in the ground). Temporarily stranded in Podgorica, we took a room where the proprietor kept trying to convince us that we wouldn’t both fit in a twin sized bed. Later that night, squashed in said bed watching Animal Planet (in English!), Chris revealed to me his underhanded (i.e. secret from me because he knew I’d bop him in the head) interest in going to Kosovo. I then revealed to Chris Serbia’s equally underhanded interest in going to Kosovo, and after extensive googling led by me and Travel State, it was decided that Serbia and Kosovo had best be left alone by these two Americans (and perhaps more extensively investigated by another set of Americans with a bit of an upper hand with these kinds of things). Albania it was! Of course, when we returned to hole-in-the-floor bus station the next day, we were convinced to take tickets to Ulcinj, unless we wanted to take a taxi all the way to Albania for 100 euro. We did not. Off to Ulcinj (wherever that was) we went.

As with any Chris and Lauren experimentation, it was only after getting on the bus that we realized Ulcinj wasn’t even mentioned in the guidebook. Anticipating spending the night in a goat barn in a Montenegro coastal village, we were pleasantly surprised to arrive at a relatively well developed bus station staffed by relatively friendly, non-English-speaking workers. Still stuck with the problem of sleeping, Chris ventured out into the streets to mime his way into some housing, a feat that usually takes a bit of time and effort. I was confused, then, when he came almost immediately back and asked if I wouldn’t mind staying with “this kid” at “his house”. Strangely, I did not, and off we went to meet the Montenegro version of my own brother, Alex, who took us in his bungee corded car towards a beautiful, mountainous beach town with stacks of somewhat well-maintained stucco apartments. It had crossed my mind that we had just been kidnapped, a thought that was more solidified when our driver stopped to have a chitchat with some other raggedy gentlemen advertising their own “apartman sobe” for visitors. By the grace of Christopher, though, we were merely driven to a lovely apartment block, where “this kid’s” mom greeted us warmly and gave us a private room with air conditioning. A child even came and gave us a plate of green squishy fruits that Chris tried to refuse, only to have her swat his hand and leave the whole plate on the top of our mini fridge, where I sat and waited for them to hatch baby aliens and eat us. They did not.

To make matters even more hilarious, Ulcinj had the first sandy beach we had seen on this trip. We swam and snorkeled quite a bit in Croatia, but the entire experience was marred by the fact that the beaches were pebbled, which actually means covered in sharp, jagged rocks that are excruciating to walk through on your way to have a float. To arrive in a mysterious city in Montenegro casually noted on the map without any further mention, only to find it to be a pristine (read: untouched by American backpackers) beach community with real sand and clear water was the most outrageous of treats. This is why Chris and I are hesitant to change our ways and make a plan. Ulcinj was not in any way the plan. It wasn’t even in the book.

 And I got to sit in the sea as the sun started to set and listen to the wailing of a muezzin from a series of whitewashed minarets that unceremoniously hovered above the city streets, a haunting song that carried up and over the ramparts of a Medieval Catholic fortress and out to the blue horizon.

            Take that, plans.

                                                                                     And that!

In the morning, we had to rouse Montenegro Alex at 11:30 to take us to the bus station, where we could finally take a bus to Shkodra, Albania. However, when we arrived in Shkodra, we found it to be unpleasantly Guatemala City-esque, save for a massive, silverly mosque that was designed, truly, like a Star Trek mothership. So, we got off the bus, put our stuff on the ground, and immediately started to barter. Some shuttle bus driver arrived and helpfully suggested taking us to Tirana in his air conditioned van, and when I turned to communicate this to Chris, I found him on a cabbie’s cellphone talking to an unidentified man about many different topics, from housing to tickets down the coast. I wish I could describe the scene that led up to Christopher talking on a strange man’s cellphone to an unidentified individual in broken English, but alas I was in my own bartering situation and missed the key details of this most ridiculous of moments. Perhaps the mystery in itself is what makes that scene my most favorite part of the trip so far. Only to my boyfriend would this ever happen… I told Chris to say hi for me and that we should get in the air conditioned van for five euro each. Off to Tirana (unplanned) we went.

Chris and I have a working knowledge of many capitals around the world, and what we have learned to expect is that capitals are gross and expensive. We had low hopes for Tirana. There is something special about Albania, though. The people are generally nice here and Tirana proved to be a somewhat decent place, as far as big cities goes. The stucco buildings are painted cheerful reds and yellows. A massive Orthodox church dome glints gold in the sun across the street from an aged mosque with Eastern art scattered across its shabby façade. Many men doing many manly things are emblazoned in bronze in various green parks dotted with what Chris jubilantly called “picnickers” and I quietly recognized as homeless guys having lunch. The streets are lined with trees and flower boxes, and did I mention the giant iguana in a cage! Tirana is pretty cool and Grandma Gina, another nice lady that found us in the street and gave us a clean private room, is adorable in her blue-and-white nautical fifties dress. It’s been nice. We have high hopes for Saranda and the Drymades beaches down south, which is where you will find us next, if perhaps you’ve been looking.

           

            

My Awesome Blossom Family Man

The most important fact about travel is that it is really hard and, if done correctly, it makes you feel like going straight home and watching reruns of Dexter for the rest of the summer while eating saltines and losing all connections with the outside world. True statement. For every incredible moment that we have earned on this trip, there have been approximately ten micro-disasters leading up to said incredible moment that have made me wonder why people (read: these two teachers) even bother venturing outside of their brand new luxury apartment (with a brand-new Dexter-watching couch) to sleep on the ground in Eastern Europe with a host of new and strange biting insects that have left me swollen and pock-marked with itchy bruise/bump/nodules that look disturbingly similar to pictures of blood-poisoning from the Civil War. Nitty gritty backpacking is not a vacation, which can be stressful when you realize that you are using up all of your vacation time to not have a vacation, and I cannot tell you how frustrating it is to be strolling down the Roman streets of Dubrovnik on the way to a ferry for a romantic, highly au natural frolic on Lokrum (no cameras allowed...google it, unless you're related to me), only to look up and realize that you look like a homeless person with smallpox and unkempt eyebrows. Europe, for the record, is utterly teeming with unnaturally attractive women. Not useful for a female backpacker (me) trying to maintain some semblance of pride after a wealthy American hag with a painted-on face offered me some change in Split because she thought the girl (ME) sitting by the backpacks on a side street was a beggar. True statement.

This trip has not been easy. Clearly.

Chris and I have both been having a hard time with certain aspects of this adventure. See, we're active people, and by active, I really mean that we are almost always moving, doing, touching, singing, wiggling, going going going. Meet our dogs and you'll know this to be true. Europe, meanwhile, does not appear to be about going. Quite the opposite, actually. Europe appears to be all about idling, as in, Chris and Lauren sitting at a table at a "fast food" restaurant for forty minutes wondering why we had to finish our whole drink before the waiter would bring us some chicken nuggets (with mayonnaise, because nobody's judging). We are terrible at luxuriating. Chris has gotten more quizzical looks than a guy running naked with a pet tiger on a leash because he just swallows his thimble of espresso instead of sipping it like a real coffee drinker. We don't want dinner to be three hours. We want dinner to be five minutes and snorkeling/sea kayaking/avoiding sea urchins with our bare feet to be three thousand hours. Central America was good to us in that regard. They slapped a meal in front of you, you ate it, they snatched it out from under you, and then you paid twenty bucks to go swim with sharks and rent a canoe with a hole in it for ocean explorations. It was like our brain had created an entire region of the globe as our own personal playground. Europe, meanwhile, cannot understand our pace, wishing instead that we would just slow down and purchase a pair of $500 pumps with massive orange puff balls on the ankle. Chris was almost sold, but would he ever really wear them? We're having a harder time adjusting. It's very grown up here. Like, wine and cathedrals grown up. We were meant to roll around in the forest...which is probably why that wrinkly old bag wanted to give me cash to go to the soup kitchen.

What is really important for me to note, though, is that Chris is the better one at dealing with the waiting, the watching, the shopping, the staring, the utterly blase nothingness that we have sometimes been a party to. I, meanwhile, have been a total nutjob. When Chris gets bored over waiting for eight million years for a Coke, he suggests we play cards or plan for our year, like a regular person would do. When I get bored over waiting eight million years for a Coke Zero, I whine and say I want to go home and canoe at the Gorge, like a nutjob would do. You can see who the champion is, and it is decidedly not me. This is why I fell in love with my big Gumby of a guy (yep, it's one of those posts - my blog, my topics). If there is anything I can rely on in this world, it is Christopher being unreasonably optimistic and gung-ho about a stupiddumbboring situation. For every second I have spent pretending to perish on a particularly hot, nauseating bus ride, Chris has been composing speeches the likes of which Obama could use to actually get the Republicans to do what he wanted. Every grumbled, sardonic bit of fluff that has fallen of my mouth has been swept up and away by this man's zest for anything he decides he wants to be awesome. It's like mixing Mr. Roger's Neighborhood with Dick Van Dyke and a little bit of E. I call it Roger's...well, you get the idea. When we were trapped in stinky sewer town (i.e. Split), I seriously wanted to change our flight plans. Across the table from me, where we were again waiting, Chris' eyes were wide and he was already launching into a planned presentation on the importance of "allowing travel to become a part of your mental map, so you have a broader understanding of the world around you, even if it isn't always positive, and we can stick anything out and make it fun, you know this, so have a little faith in me..." and on and on and on. (It's like dating the UN, but a UN that cares and gets things done.) Half the time, I don't have any idea what he's talking about because I just want to go on a dangerous excursion involving outdoor activities, but it's the earnestness, the pure hearted wonderment that sticks with me. This kid knows what it means to really be joyful and open. If he were a Hindu, his third eye would be the biggest one around, and in it would be all of the wisdom of the universe I've ever wished to have. I was reading How to Achieve Total Enlightenment when I met him. It took me two seconds to realize that the book should just open and have a picture of him inside.

Specifically, this one:

Chris is so Zen, he doesn't even need to maintain his motorcycle.

And I get to be with him. Awesome Blossom.

Scientific Exploration

I'll start with an apology. I have a series of ridiculous snapshots I would like to pepper throughout this post, but you'll have to live with mostly words until I can find a location that will support a downloading action. That place is not here. 

I kind of hate that I know what a "downloading action" is...but I also kind of love that "downloading action", according to Chris, is not a real computer term.

Via bus and “ferry”, a word in Croatia that actually describes a massive cruise ship with a booth filled salon where one can lounge about and pretend to be Zelda Fitzgerald on vacation with her boozy husband, we have landed in Hvar Town, Croatia, at Camp Kira. Camping in Europe is just like staying at a resort, except it’s $30 a night instead of $200 (which is nice).  The campsites have real showers with actual hot water, private beaches/lounges/what-have-you, silly mini golf courses, and grocery stores. Right now, as I write this, I am attempting to avoid listening to a man having a very serious, highly uncomfortable business conversation (without a shirt on) about broken contracts (poor Dave) and “more than adequate” time via Skype…at a campsite. It’s all slightly unreal. (And the conversation with Dave needs to stop. He doesn’t want to work for you. He’s not signing the contract. Let it go.)

What is extremely appealing to me, though, is the group of kittens lurking under a tree just above our campsite. I startled one last night on my way to the showers and it leaped away in that maddeningly cute kitty way, streaking off with all four kitty legs hyper-extended. In pursuit, I stepped on a cactus, which was unpleasant, and was unable to snatch up my new (forced) best friend. In the morning, though, I found that a band of evidently sneaky kittens had chewed through our food bag and eaten all of the salami and cheese. Consequently, I have decided that a Croatian Kitten Salami Stakeout will be in order.

Chris disagrees.

Hvar Town itself is unexpectedly lovely. The buildings are all white stucco and sun-bleached roofs; everything smells like the Adriatic and spaghetti. Unfortunately, Chris and I look particularly dirty in comparison to the multitudes of extremely wealthy American travelers, and we are probably an unwelcome sight against the background of pebbly beaches and the rigid lines of elegantly named sailboats. Somewhere in Hvar Town Palace, a woman named Rita is Photoshopping BiggieSmalls (i.e. us) out of her sunset seascapes and wondering how the homeless populations have migrated from the mainland.

Outside of a Gregorian monastery over 500 years old (complete with dead monks cemented in crypts in the floor), Chris picked us up some snorkel gear… because we weren’t weird enough. We are now the proud owners of two sets of masks and air-blower-things that I use mostly to inadvertently suck in copious amounts of sea water. We have delighted in slapping around the little inlet beach by our campsite. We are joined mostly by twelve-year-old boys with matching gear and have logged crabs, shrimp, snails, and little schools of fish in our scientific explorations. A particularly pleasant duo is a blonde and brunette set of brothers that have been paddling around the sea in an inflatable raft. Huck Finn and That Nice Guy Jim have a sense of spirit with which Chris strongly identifies and I sense that it’s only a matter of time before I am also the proud owner of an inflatable raft.

I don’t know where it will go in my pack yet. Perhaps by the snorkels…

As Wyomingnites, we had forgotten the sea’s rather disturbing ability to utterly exhaust you in a matter of minutes. We have been finding ourselves peering blearily at one another in the hot sun, wondering which one of us will be the first to suggest that perhaps we should stop reading for hours at a time and actually move ourselves from a prostrate position in order to continue our scientific exploration of the camp inlet (i.e. snuffle around with masks on like doofuses). Thus far, both of us have proven to have acquired sloth-like dispositions that are not conducive to concentrated marine biology research.  Though we may not have contributed anything substantial to the field of science today, we have produced measurable gains in the field of literature appreciation. I have been reading Finding Everett Ruess since finally finding the book at a BLM station in the Lake Powell area on the Arizona/Utah border (remember when Chris and I were trekking Antelope Canyon?). For anyone out there with an interest in anything, I highly recommend absorbing yourself in this little gem and also going to http://www.npr.org/search/index.php?searchinput=everett+ruess for the public radio take on an adventure mystery spanning over 70 years now. We’re talking a teenage John Muir/Edward Abbey/Henry David Thoreau/Jonas Brother traipsing across the American Southwest alone, befriending/belittling Navajos, riding burros, imposing himself on Ansel Adams, having Dorothea Lange take pictures of him for fun, and writing some of the most ridiculous, melodramatic, awe-inspiring, powerfully human nature musings that are out there (everettruess.com). It’s awesome…so awesome, in fact, that Chris (a man that pretends to be illiterate when the feeling strikes him) has been stealing the book from me throughout the course of this trip and falling equally in love with the timeless, strange little hero.

We’re naming our first child after him, regardless of gender.

Of course, there is a problem with sharing books – you really can’t. I read fast. Chris does the opposite. It’s a problem. Thankfully, I found Suite Francaise in London, and am now trapped in France during the German occupation. Love problems ensue. It’s a bit like a sweeping Russian war novel, except a bit more readable and with less alcohol. Invigorating, but likely only because I’m presently in Europe (wanting more Everett Ruess and desert lore).

Also, Chris is working on a lovely series featuring Hvar Town. Here's a taste of that splendor.

I’ll close with a conversation I was subjected to on the bus from Plitvice to Split, where the ferry was waiting for us to dirty up the place.

Blonde Teenage Aussie Boy: Yeah, well, my sister’s friend was eaten by a shark.

Blonde Teenage Canadian Girl: Oh. My. GOD. That’s, like, my worst fear EVER. Was he alone?

Blonde Teenage Aussie Boy: He was diving with his mate, but then the shark came and ate him.

Blonde Teenage Canadian Girl: Oh. My. GOD. That’s, like, the scariest thing EVER. Did it eat all of him?

Blonde Teenage Aussie Boy: Well, it only ate half of him.

Blonde Teenage Canadian Girl. Oh. My. GOD. Did he die?

Lauren: No, no, there’s just half of a shark victim going about his daily business in Australia right now.

Chris: Shut up, shut up, shut up, shut up.

Blonde Teenage Aussie Boy: Uh, yeah, he died. He got eaten.

Blonde Teenage Canadian Girl: Oh. My. GOD. That’s, like, the super saddest thing EVER. What did they do with the other half?

Lauren: Oh. My. GOD. You must be kidding me.

Chris: Shut up, shut up, shut up, shut up.

Blonde Teenage Aussie Boy: Well, uh, they buried the other half. Because he got eaten.

Blonde Teenage Canadian Girl: Saaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaad. So, did you guys party in Zagreb?

Lauren: (pretends to die)

Chris: Yeah, ok. You’re right. (also pretends to die)

Potty On, Wayne and Other Stories

Potty On, Wayne: A Vignette

At rise: Curtain opens on Plitvicka Jezera bus seats. Three British Star Wars fans type gentleman are seated in the very back. They have taken great care to wear thick black socks that travel from the top of their extreme hiking boots to the middle of their calves. In front of them, an American couple is evidently listening to their conversation. The man is stoic, but the woman is beside herself with silent mirth.

Brit One (in a highly stereotypical accent): Remember, remember? It’s in Wayne’s World. Remember? Potty on, Wayne.

Brit Two (evidently imitating a key line from the film): Brilliant! Brilliant!

Brit Three (guffawing): Heh. Heh heh. Wayne’s World, Wayne’s World.

Brit One (encouraged by the shared laughs): Right, right! Potty on, Wayne. Potty on, Garth.

Brit Two (seeking attention from ringleader, Brit One): Yeah, and then he’s like, “I killed him with my own shoe.” Remember? Potty on, Garth. I killed him with my own shoe.

American Man (to American Woman): Shut up, shut up, shut up, shut up.

American Woman (laughing riotously): Potty on, Wayne. Potty on, Garth. Foxy!

Brit Three (still guffawing): Heh. Heh heh. Ten million dollars. (Brings pinkie to lips)

American Man (to American Woman): Shut up, shut up, shut up, shut up.

American Woman (struggling to breathe): Potty on. It’s…not…even…all…Wayne’s…World.

Brit Two (confused by parts of Wayne’s World that he doesn’t remember): Heh… uh, yeah! Heh heh. Brilliant! Brilliant! Ten million dollars.

American Woman (to American Man, still laughing): It’s…Gold…Member. They mean…Austin…Powers. (holds fingers above head like fox, begins to sing foxy song and waggle her fox ears) Foxy.

American Man (to American Woman): Shut up, shut up, shut up, shut up.

Brit One (emboldened): Potty on! Oh, look, boys, we’re almost there!

American Woman (still sporting fox ears, highly aggravating American Man): Oh, look, Chris, we’re almost there! Excellent! Excellent! Or is it…

American Man (severely): Don’t!

American Woman (with great glee): Brilliant! Brilliant!

American Man (sadly): Just get off the bus.

American Woman (under her breath): Foxy!

Also, here’s our laundry tree. We gots bugs in ours drawers.

Today at Plitvice, Chris and I accidently took a very arduous, highly satisfying hike up and into the mountain forests surrounding the jezera (lakes in Croatian!). Here is an example of how Chris and I decide to do the super cool things that we do.

Chris (leaving main trail for rugged dirt path to his right): So, after we go home today, we’ll plan our route to Krka, ok?

Lauren (leaving main trail behind Chris for rugged dirt path to her right): Let’s just stand on the road until a bus comes.

Chris (hiking steeply uphill on a rock littered trail): Ok, but we need to make sure it goes to Zadar.

Lauren (hiking steeply uphill in her only pair of shoes, sport flip flops): How far is Krka from Zadar? Wait! Freeze! A huge lizard!

                *Half hour interlude during which time Chris and Lauren closely examine a green lizard whose head looks distinctly like that of a garter snake.

Chris (resuming exhilarating, challenging hike): Maybe in Greece we should go to a nude beach.

Lauren (highly enjoying exhilarating, challenging hike): My beluga white body has been banned from all nude beaches, USSR or otherwise.

And so it goes for another hour of hiking through amazing forests, the likes of which can only occur at very specific altitudes and are non-existent anywhere else in Croatia, until…

Chris (sweaty and grinning): When does this trail stop going up?

Lauren (sweaty and grinning): Where does this trail go?

Chris (shaking his head): Where does anywhere go in this place?

Lauren (pointing): Hey, look! A gigantic snail!

And thus the conversation about where this mysterious trail into the middle of a dense forest might go started and abruptly stopped in less than ten seconds. For the record, the hike was incredible and it did eventually take us to the biggest lake in the park…at least a mile away from where we thought it might go… Anyway, here’s my snail.

 

What I am trying to get at here, in my bizarrely scripted way, is that travel is a happy accident. Since announcing what our next summer had in store, I cannot tell you how many different ways we have been asked the following question –

How do you do it?

My automatic mental response is, “How do we do what?” Chris tells me it’s rude and a bit unnecessary, but, frankly, my question still stands. As far as I can see, today we climbed up the side of a mountain and caught some views of a lake that has been nestled comfortably away from the rumble of the outside world for many thousands of years. We aren’t the first, and thanks to the nature of life, we won’t be the last.

And we did it with our feet and a little bit of cash for the ticket.

The world is this huge place full of countless ways for everyone to feel right at home. When it boils down to people being people, we are all of the same ruffled breed. Several times, when I expressed to curious colleagues our excitement about Eastern Europe and delving into more untouched landscapes here, I was looked upon with genuine concern, as if I had just suggested that Chris and I would be spending our summer in a dinghy hoping to snatch a glimpse of the Loch Ness Monster (that’s Summer 2013, obviously). We were warned, clucked at, and occasionally scolded for our interest in leaving the safety of home (home being America, land of Compton, New Orleans Mardi Gras, Detroit, and approximately 1000 tv shows about the chopping up and subsequent examination of dead bodies) for a land as dangerous and full of post-Soviet Union rave warehouses as Eastern Europe. The same thing happened when we plunked down in Guatemala and the Yucatan. This response always frightens me, and not because I actually believe I’ll be kidnapped and sold into slavery. What scares me is that we are teaching ourselves and our children that the world is a terrifying place full of USSR slave traders with hilarious accents and fur hats (to keep their heads warm). Bad things happen on this planet. Just look at the runways during Fashion Week. We are an imperfect race with more than our fair share of utter whackjobs. But at the end of the day, whether you’re in Guatemala, Bosnia, or Pleasantville, USA, 98% of the population is having a nice dinner at home with their beloved family, putting the children to bed, and turning on the tv to watch reruns of XYZWXB Miami: Chopping Up Dead Bodies to Solve Mysteries…not in the streets of Croatia robbing me. If we ever want to feel one in the same, e pluribus unum, or even just mutually disturbed at Fashion Week together, we have to accept that to live is a risk that we should all be willing take. We have to reach out and know one another, before somebody nukes us all.

With that, please allow Chris and I to show you what families look like when they try to use the timers on their cameras.

Croaking Frogs and Baby Ducks

Feeling very Hemingway-ish, Christopher and I found a footpath at our campsite that took us down a dusty, white road to a calm stretch of the river. Being ourselves, we promptly found an overgrown side trail and silently agreed to follow it instead of said dusty, white road. Chris was bitten by a fire ant while scrambling in the underbrush to a "nice" patch of dirt, helping me in furthering my suggestion that we see where the actual trail might take us before we set up for an afternoon of baking in the sun. In a rare stroke of luck, I was right about the trail, which led us to a bend in the river with a series of small waterfalls that were evidently created by the remains of a concrete structure that I romanticized as having been blown up during that whole Yugoslavia thing. We tromped across the river and settled at the top of what was likely a small spillway to the highly strategic, water-powered mill I had made up in my head and vowed to not set foot off the trail, as de-mining efforts were probably "still in progress".

You can tell in this image just how smug I'm feeling about being right about a hiking-related fact.

And you can tell in this image that Chris has been studying how female European backpackers pose with nature (I, meanwhile, have been studying how they tilt the camera until the horizon is crooked enough to make you ill). 

Yesterday, we discovered the wonders of the upper reaches of Plitvice. We had the distinct pleasure of standing in line for 30 minutes to take a ferry across a lengthy, ocean-deep stretch of one of the lakes. Chris took 47,000 pictures of this duck being chased by hordes of fish. I'll share the best one with you.

Rather like a scene from Jaws. Poor, unsuspecting, leggy duck.

The lower end of Plitvice is somewhat like something you would expect to see in the mountain forests of China - massive, blue-green stretches of water that suddenly tumble over green, leaf strewn rocks with unnerving force, pooling at the bottom for mere moments before the next upheaval begins. Upper Plitvice, meanwhile, is lagoony without the creature. The water is that clean cerulean you see on travel agency propaganda advertising Figi and the smaller falls are tucked around each corner, shaded by overhanging trees and feeling distinctly more tropical. At lower Plitvice, one misstep on the creaky, wooden walkways constructed in a manner that would never meet OSHA standards, and you are most definitely being swept to your ridiculously scenic doom. Upper Plitvice is the relief, the guarantee that falling in would likely be quite pleasant, and not in the least bit deadly. The creature might even help you back to shore and pose for a snapshot, if you're lucky. (Both prospects were equally exciting for different reasons). Best of all, the constant thrum of water falling served to utterly drown out the voices of the 87000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000 people that were understandably as interested in Plitvice as we were. It was like being alone in backcountry America, except tour groups kept trying to bop us off the walkways. Below, you will find that Christopher's interpretations are much more beautiful than mine. 

This is just a taste of the talent I bagged with Christopher. For the true representation of his skills, head to his portfolios at chrispadesky.com. Prepare to be floored. 

Plane Food Still Exists

Plane Food Still Exists!

I am disappointed to say that we are already two countries into our European excursions and my trillions of dedicated fans have not yet had a word from me, or a picture from Chris. It confounds me to say so, but we have had little to no wireless access since arriving at Heathrow some undetermined number of days ago. In Central America, we were on the Internet in the middle of beaches. As I type this now on a Word document from a bar at Camp Korana, Plitvice Lakes (I’ll get there, I promise), I can hear the sand crunching beneath our keys. I was once pinched by a crab in the back of the foot while on the Facebook Machine in Belize. Central America has less infrastructure than a Lego neighborhood, and yet Chris and I were on the Internet there more than we have been on our own couch in Wyoming. Given our previous experiences in the Third World, I had come to assume that the Internet really did grow on trees and Europe would prove more connected than an Apple Store.

                Europe has no trees.

                None.

                It’s like the Berlin Wall never fell.

                A web connection is rarer than a Brit with braces.

                Shocked? So was I.

Now that that bit of xenophobic ranting is out of the way, I will address the next conundrum I have presented. We are in Croatia, bumming it up in a field outside of Plitvice Jezera National Park.

 Here is a picture of me stomping on our tent:

Croatia is, if I could be so bold, the gem of the Adriatic, former member of Yugoslavia before that ship sailed (or combusted), and home to my new official favorite National Park (but even as I say that, I remember Arches and Canyonlands and a million others and then I doubt myself and it’s just too much to process). For the select few that managed to eke some semblance of an itinerary out of us beforehand, we did indeed have every intention of arriving in London and immediately nabbing some form of transportation straight to Paris, and this plan very nearly came to fruition. But that is simply not the Chris and Lauren way. We’ll start at Heathrow Passport Queue.

Terrifying British Passport Woman: Where are you from?

Excited Chris and Lauren: The states!

Terrifying British Passport Woman: Yes, and that is a very large place, isn’t it? You’re going to have to be more specific than that for this to work.

Excited Chris: What!

Baffled Lauren (stuttering): Ma….mass… Massachusetts.

Terrifying British Passport Woman: There now. How do you know each other?

Excited Chris: Work!

Confused Lauren: We’re together.

Terrifying British Passport Woman: Why aren’t you married?

Excited Chris: We’re going straight to Paris!

Outraged Lauren: We don’t need to be!

Terrifying British Passport Woman: How are you getting to Paris?

Excited Chris: We don’t know!

Practical Lauren: Probably by train.

Terrifying British Passport Woman: You didn’t book tickets ahead? It’s quite popular. Most people get tickets.

Excited Chris: We won’t stay past tomorrow!

Slightly Annoyed Lauren: We will get tickets with our money.

Terrifying British Passport Woman: So this is some sort of an adventure?

Excited Chris: We’re teachers! We’ve got the whole summer off to see Europe!

Indignant Lauren: Trust me, we’ll be gone by tomorrow. No interest in staying.

Terrifying British Passport Women (now attacking our passports with angry stamping): You’ve got two days. Move along.

I think that speaks for itself regarding our introduction to London culture. After we escaped the wrath of smugness, we wove our way through masses of extremely well dressed Brits, all of whom were wearing heavy winter coats and looking grim, until we found ourselves in the Underground, where we naively requested tickets to Paris. Directed far away to King’s Cross and St. Pancras, we hopped a train and enjoyed the looks of a set of lovely twin girls whose mother had spoken to Chris about our journey and excited them with the “difficulty” of the “miraculous adventure” we were about to start. (For Chris being as miraculous as he apparently is to persons of the opposite sex, I was certainly surprised when he tried to force the little doors to the Underground open without putting his ticket through the machine, and continued to do so even while watching me inserting and extricating my own ticket and gliding through the now automatically open doors without ever laying a finger, or forceful shove, on them). Throughout the course of our ride, I dipped in and out of consciousness. (Sadly, during our ridiculously pastiche ride on Virgin Atlantic airlines to London, I found that the rather nasty cold I was just beating had returned with a vengeance and the Beatles suggesting over the intercom that the sun was on its way took on a very new, unpleasant meaning. It was a plane ride to forget.)

King’s Cross/St. Pancras met us with frigid rain and the accidental purchase of a $600 train ticket to Paris, a ticket that was promptly returned when I realized I could not do math and had potentially crippled our budget due to utter inattention to details. That little micro-disaster helped me to rename St. Pancras to St. Pancreas, at which point it was decided that sleep was the only thing that could cure the rather disturbing start to our much anticipated journey.

Cue Click78. A hostel that was once the courthouse where The Clash were brought to trial. Twenty bucks to anybody that can actually tell me what they did to wind up in front of the judge. Nobody at the much lauded Click78 had any idea, though I think this was due in large part to the massive amounts of alcohol that were in the process of being consumed. I should not judge though, because I immediately put on blinders and slept so deeply for so long that our Australian roommates couldn’t figure out whether or not it was an actual roommate curled up in the corner of the dark bunk for 67,000 days. When Christopher discovered that I had zero interest in food, or even Diet Crack, he realized just how sick I was and started making funeral preparations.

Here is where I was holed up:

And here is what I probably looked like to the poor Aussies:

 When we finally became conscious again, London was busy being the super romantic city all readers dream of – it rained and it did not stop.

 For the record, it should be noted that Chris and I don’t like cities. We never have. Consequently, we should not have been surprised that we would absolutely revile a place like London. We were tricked by childhood fantasies of the “lofty meaningfulness” of the great European cities, as if our ADHD selves would actually be wooed by standing quietly in line to stand quietly in museums to stand quietly and appreciate really quiet artwork. We were duped. We have no business in Western Europe. None. We can’t appreciate anything about it and, frankly, we don’t feel like we should be expected to… I’m trying to prepare all of you real, functioning, cultured people for what I am about to say.

We hated Western Europe.

We even hated London.

This is how I know we hated London:

                                        

So we left. Chris snatched up a one-way ticket to Croatia and off we flew with the visions of national parks, brown bears, and real, live nature dancing in our heads. Best choice we could have made. Magically, my terrible, wretched, excruciating sickness is utterly gone, as if the pure joy of sleeping on the ground with tiny ants crawling all over us was all I needed to heal. Suddenly, we aren’t googling cheap tickets to Southeast Asia (this happened 14 times in London). Chris has stopped taking my hands, looking me deeply in the eyes, and saying, “I love you…but I really hate art.” The trip has been salvaged.

And now we’re here:

“Mountains speak. Wise men listen.” – John Muir

To all of you expecting pages of classic European history, gelato, and Eat Pray Love nonsense, we sincerely apologize. The mountains spoke. We had to listen.

Also, to all of you expecting real pictures of from a real photographer, I personally apologize. Having just arrived at Plitvice, the master has yet to be able to get his camera out and work. Here is a simple key to help you know when I am taking pictures and when the master is taking pictures.

Crappy Pictures = Lauren

Mindblowing Works of Authentic Art = Christopher

You’ll know the difference.

Expect more as we grow accompanied to Plitvice Jezera. For now, I’ll leave you with a few lists that Christopher has developed for your enjoyment.

Funny S*%@ That Has Happened To Us

1.       Ants in the tent (EVERYWHERE!)

2.       Lost one shoe (sort of funny, but only useful if also accompanied by the loss of a leg)

3.       Lost “meats and cheeses” (prompting the underfed Chris to have a minor meltdown and vow to make a system for every lunch purchase from here to eternity)

4.       Massive cartons of duty free cigarettes for purchase on the plane to Zagreb

5.       Lauren throwing up in a gutter in Zagreb while a nun watched sympathetically (sort of not funny…really, really sick)

6.       Outrageous stampede of over-fifties trying to get on the bus out of Plitvice at the end of the first days (us younguns were told to wait for the next bus after being elbowed by limbs older than Methuselah himself)

7.       A $40 meat platter at our first European restaurant, consisting of fried turkey, canned greenbeans, and a suspicious banana shaped sausage links with indeterminable origin (all served on a real tablecloth by a waiter in an actual cumber bun…the only thing missing was the ball pit).

Cool S%#@ That Happened To Us

1.       Lauren spotting an extremely long water snake slithering at the bottom of a cerulean Plitvice pool. We have never seen anything like it! It was literally slinking along the bottom of the River Korana. Fish were swimming above it, as if it is perfectly commonplace to see a gigantic snake flitting its tongue at the bottom of a river. (What in the world was it sniffing down there, anyway?) So. Flippin. Amazing.