Italy, Slovenia, & Croatia trip...

(4-12 & 13-08)

So two of the girls that are on our program live in a homestay and their house frau (house mom basically) organized a trip for anyone who wanted to go to Italy (Trieste), Slovenia (Piran/Portoroz), and Croatia (Umag). If you are wondering how might that be possible to do in 2 days, they are really close together on the coast.

As if we haven't done enough traveling, we decided to go. It was only 150 Euro for the bus ride to all the places, a calamari lunch, 1 night in a hotel (with breakfast and dinner buffet), and a visit to caves in Slovenia. Just getting there would have cost a lot more than that, so I thought this would be really fun.

We left Saturday at 5am to begin our trip. The bus driver announces if everyone has their passport, don't ask why but I didn't even think to bring it, so I had to run back home to get it. Thank goodness we only like like 7 minutes away. But that was a good way to start off the day right. haha. Frau Schöttke had brought us little treats and sandwichs for the bus ride. Just to get a picture in your mind she is a 72 year old lady, but really hilarious as well. She brought like 3 friends along and then there were 16 students.

We basically just drove for around 6 hours with a few potty breaks and then stopped at a castle in Trieste. It was absolutely beautiful on the outside (we didnt get to go in because of some type of party going on) and there were lovely gardens and trails and the castle was right on the water too.

Castle Miramare

Me posing in front of the bay area

Our whole group at the castle

hahha. Frau Schöttke looking for us - it wasn't raining, but that was her tour guide umbrella

Me and the castle

So after that stop in Italy we continued our drive and entered Slovenia (it's part of the EU so we didn't have to stop there at the border).

I caught this sign - its amazing that I did so too because we were going really fast by it and I had to rip out my camera, turn it on, zoom in and just aim around Caitlin. It's not spectacular, but I thought it was pretty good for all of that. haha.

Driving through Slovenia was only like 15 minutes, then we arrived at the Croatian border (which is not part of the EU yet, although trying to become a member) to get our passports checked. Being nerds like we are, they stamped them so we could have a Croatia stamp haha. We then drove to the restaurant that we were scheduled to have our lunch. It was a really nice place and we got one free drink and our calamari with fries.

Our lunch

We then drove some more and stopped at a little place to just look at the ocean/sea/body of water. We walked around on the little beach area and collected some shells and beach glass.

Caitlin and I in front of the beach in Croatia

Modern technology at its finest

We jumped back on the bus and took it to our hotel. It was really nice and had great views of the water (we had a balcony as well). The dinner didn't start until later so we ventured into town to have a look around. It was just extremely peaceful and not overcrowded like every other city we have been to so it was really nice just to see a place for its natural beauty.

The city of Umag, Croatia

After a little self-guided tour, we went to eat the dinner buffet. I was actually not feeling too well so just had soup and ice cream. The smell of all the seafood was just making me feel sick, so we tried to hurry a little bit. We headed up to our room (Caitlin, Macy and I) and just started watching tv. It got kind of stormy outside so we didn't want to treck the 30 minutes into town, so we settled for a nice night in. Then again getting up at 3:45 in the morning and traveling all day does tend to wear a person out. We watched The Bone Collector and American Pie 2 in English with Slovenian or Croatian subtitles. haha.

The next morning we got up and had the buffet breakfast. I was feeling much better and really enjoyed all of the food. We didn't check out until 11 so we had time to walk along the shore around our hotel. It was pretty cool and we found interesting things along the way...

Ok - so this is the longest earthworm I have ever seen. It's hanging from this stick and I'm comparing it with my hand. ew.

Um... no explanation, just me standing on a rock

Our little hermit crab friend

Us searching around feeling like we are on one of those study abroad trips that have classes on the beach and explore all day aka oceanography

We checked out at 11 and started our driving again. We stopped in Slovenia on the way back in Portoroz and Piran.

Slovenia

Me in front of the sailboats

A group of us waiting (Clayton, Caitlin, Brynna, Leah, me, Macy, and Kirstin)

Look closely and you can see a jellyfish in the water!

Also while we were just sitting on the wall we saw this guy doing a handstand on his windsurfer's board...if that is what its called. haha.

So we then left Piran and started our drive back home. Our next stop was at caves in Slovenia. I really wanted to go because I'm totally into stuff like that, but the only catch was that it was another hour before the English tour, the tour lasted around 1.5 hours and then we still had to eat and drive home. We took and vote and democracy sucks because only like 4/16 wanted to do it. :( But anyways, the drive home was hilarious. It went by so fast because we were just quoting movies, you tube videos and telling stories the entire way, so that was awesome.

We ended up not getting back too late, probably around 7 or 8. Something like that. But seriously this was an amazing trip. I liked how it was smaller than our huge group but then again not just a couple of us. Another great thing was that even though it was crappy weather (I feel like I say this all the time), every time we got off the bus to see something it would stop. It was so weird, but obviously awesome as well.