Balkan Travels

Saturday lunch with family at Mio’s and walk to a female Monastery It’s Sunday morning. I just greeted ‘grandpa Dule’ our host’s neighbor who is called Grandpa (Deda) because he has been here a long time and was the ‘first neighbor’ to move here. I am on the small covered deck at our apartment in…

It’s 4:08 Thursday morning.  After sleeping about 6 hours Tuesday night I have so far slept zero tonite. I’m very tired but cannot fall asleep. I’ve tried many things that sometimes work-  I read, I did number puzzles, I wrote in my journal. Most of the time I’ve laid in bed in the dark, doing…

It’s Wednesday, almost 8 am Zagreb time (11 pm Tuesday Seattle time). I got about 6 hours of sleep (in 2 batches) and am still very tired and my neck extra sore from lugging my heavy carry-on bag around 3 airports yesterday. I wish I had access to the pain relief gel that is in…

Once again i have been spending many wakeful nights this summer feeling anxious while thinking of reasons we could cancel our upcoming trip to the Balkans, and once again during the daytime i feel (mostly) sure, and somewhat excited, about returning to the now familiar land of my ancestors. In the daytime I conclude (again)…

We are pushing back in Amsterdam right on time. Flight time is 9 hrs and 25 minutes. Distance is 4867 miles which seems too short but I don’t think the Delta seat-back app info would be wrong. The flight is full because of other flight cancellations. When I looked yesterday there was hardly anyone on…

Aside from Jim not feeling well the ride was fine. It is a lovely drive through varied landscapes the whole way and the entire route is on a fast toll highway. Tolls have risen along with everything else. We paid about 27 euros to get from the ramp near Promajna to the edge of Zagreb,…

I’m sitting on the balcony at our apartment Emili. We are on the 3rd floor of a 5 story building. I think there are 2 units per floor.  The sun has set but the sky is still peach and slightly rose-y. There are some clouds to the east but I think we are done with…

It’s Saturday. Sky is blue and clear aside for some thin scattered clouds far in the distance. There is a cool breeze this morning, cool enough that I need my jacket as I sit in the shade on the balcony. When I sit out here I always seem to see at least one cat wandering…

We arrived safely in Promajna Croatia on Wednesday just before 5. The drive from Virpazar took closer to 5.5 hrs than the 4.5 estimated on Googlemaps. The route was scenic the entire way through small mountains and open scrubby hills, except for the stretch of road that turned to dirt through a huge limestone mining…

It’s just after 7, our last morning in Virpazar. So many birds are singing, tweeting, chirping and making sounds i have no good words for. No words are as good as the bird sounds themselves. I’ve enjoyed the barn swallows and sparrows that perch on the utility wired right next to the porch. I often…