After months of planning and anticipation, June 9th finally arrived. Jen was peeing-her-pants excited! First leg was a 10 hour direct flight to Frankfurt. Didn't sleep much on the redeye flight. It was interesting to watch the flight tracker as we went North into Canada, over the Hudson Bay, Greenland/Arctic Circle, and down past Scotland and England. For some reason I had assumed we'd head due East. The other unexpected thing was that while we left Seattle at about 8:30 pm, going North meant that it stayed light for nearly the entire trip. In fact, at about midnight when we were asked to close our window shade, it was actually lighter than when we left Seattle. Pretty cool.
Here we are leaving Seattle
Layover in Frankfurt airport was highlighted by the woman cleaning the stall next to me in the men's bathroom (I thought the whole time it was some guy with some serious bowel issues) Nope, just the cleaning lady. We also cracked up at the teeter-totter that was in the airport. Quite a few adult travelers who appeared to be using this type of apparatus for the first time in their lives. Whoops and hollers and amazement at the up and down motion... a little more than they were expecting. And a little girl being booted off by the asian adults wanting to ride. Also our first taste of Europe, and by taste, I mean body odor that you more than smell.... enough said. But you can't blame them when it seems that many places do not have AC. I'm probably contributing to the smell as well. Feel sorry for everyone around me. Overall though, a nice airport with helpful folks as we navigated our first foreign airport.
Oh yeah, I can't forget to mention how Jen's sister Nellie had figured out that the thumb's up gesture is offensive in Germany. Jen mentioned lots of times not to give the thumb's up, but when we went through the security checks, she gave the ole' thumbs up after she was cleared. Then she caught herself. Good thing the TSA agent didn't catch Jen giving him/her the equivalent of the middle finger. Unintentional, my friend. We had a good laugh at how hard she was trying not to make the gesture, but it still came out.
Let's get onto Zagreb, stop number 2.
Finally into Croatia. Zagreb, the country's capital has a fairly small airport. We offloaded the plane using stairs straight onto the tarmac. Pretty cool. We arrived into Zagreb at 7 pm local time, so the sun was getting low, which made for a beautiful first sight of Croatia. Customs check, pulled some Croatian Kuna out of the bank, stared at the Montenegro water polo team (those dudes were huge!) - well, at least Jen did, and boarded a plane for Dubrovnik.
Here's our Zagreb stamp on our passport - Jen's first and her dream come true. I should've taken a picture of the biggest smile on her face, jumping a bit in the middle of the airport. Maybe would've caught some weird glances from the folks going by.
And a tractor for the luggage cars. We thought Jen's dad and our boys would love that.
Arrived in Dubrovnik at night and jumped onto a bus that took us into town. It was quite the exciting trip as the large bus wound through some narrow turns in the road. We're renting a car in a week, so I was trying to pay attention to how folks drive. Let's just say it will be interesting - scooters passing buses on a two-lane, winding road in the dark. Narrow roads and steep cliffs to navigate. Let's just say I'm glad we were on a bus for this first little bit.
We went through old town Dubrovnik and got to see some of our first glimpses of the walls surrounding the city. The height of the walls and steepness of the terrain were very impressive. Hard to even explain how cool it was. It felt like we were entering a huge castle and I almost immediately had the thought - how can we figure out a way to live here? Although we are exhausted from the trip, we are anxious to check out the city in daylight tomorrow and venture off on our own to explore and experience the Croatian culture.
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