When we pulled into Rijeka, Miloš was there waiting for me at the train station, and his mom drove us to the apartment we would be staying in during my visit. It was a cute little studio apartment a block up from the beach. Since we were both exhausted, we took a nap before heading out to see the town of Crikvenica. (I also learned that the letter “C” is pronounced the same as a German “Z”, or the double “zz” in pizza.) So his town’s name was pronounced [tsreek-VEN-ee-tsa.]
The original plan was for me to come and stay for a week. But Miloš got a week’s notice that he was to board his ship for his season contract on Wednesday March 14th….So my week long visit was going to have to be a three day visit. And I couldn’t make my trip any earlier, as I had that agent audition on Saturday afternoon. There was no wifi in the apartment, so I just used Miloš’ computer when I needed to briefly go online, as he had some kind of internet stick contraption that he put into his computer to hook up to the web.
(And let me tell you how tricky it was to use his keyboard – very different than a standard American keyboard.)
All of Sunday, Monday, and Tuesday were wonderful sunny days, with highs near 60 F. Monday was the warmest by far and we were able to walk around without coats. If I had been there a week, we would have also gone to Rijeka, but since we had three days, we stayed in Crikvenica. We walked all over and everywhere. I got to see the beaches, many marinas, the house where Miloš grew up, where he’d been living during this break, some lovely parks, and all the many beautiful shades of blue in the water along the coast! Our walking took us all the way to a peninsula just above town that was named after all the snakes that inhabit it. (I didn’t see any snakes there.) We also walked down along the coast to a part of the town called Selce. All in all it was a lovely place that I can tell is only better in the warm summer months. And apparently it is a big tourist area – for Germans and Austrians especially. I didn’t pack any non-winter shoes for my trip to Europe, but fortunately, my black Aerosole boots get me around more than okay – and I can walk all day in them with no foot or leg pain – and they’ve got 3 inch platforms heels on them!
We bought a few things at the store to eat while I was there, but most of our meals were cooked by his mom – they tasted great, and it was less money for me to spend, since we weren’t buying food every day. (And I still had three weeks in Vienna to make it through too, so every penny counted!)
Since the weather had been so great for our walk on Monday, I was HOPING that on Tuesday I’d be able to bring out my bathing suit for some sunning. I think it was still too cool really for swimming, but sunning on a warm bright rock by the sea sounded great. However, Tuesday started out quite windy, which made it feel so much cooler. No bathing suits, but we still did hours of walking and exploring, and when the wind died down, we were able to walk without our coats on. I think we walked the most on Tuesday, and to cut down on walking time on the way back, we stopped by Miloš’ house and he got his scooter out to take us the rest of the way (with a drink stop in there as well.) It was fun to ride the scooter through the winding streets. (Although he’ll probably tell you I seemed nervous by the way I was holding on really tight – haha!)
But as expected, the three days flew by SO insanely fast. Wednesday morning (today), Miloš’ mom picked us up at 4am so we could take him to Rijeka to catch a shuttle bus that would then take him to the airport in Zagreb. She then drove me back to the studio apartment so I could finish cleaning and packing of my own things. And I also grabbed two hours of sleep. It was a rough morning to say the least, but we had already put plans in place for him to come to America in November of this year when his contract is done for the season. He’s never been to Philly or NYC, so it should be a really great experience for him! Eight months will fly by, right? sigh. (Edited to add that I’ll be heading to Croatia in August to visit him during his vacation. 🙂 )
I grabbed the 9:45am bus to Rijeka and then took the Noon train, which was direct to Vienna – no switching anywhere along they way. But it also meant ten hours in the same train…ugh.
So right now I’m sitting on the train – over the border from Croatia to Slovenia. We already had one passport check, and now I’m starting to freak out, because the Official at this second passport check stop told me he was just going to go stamp my passport and come right back…. but that was five minutes ago. He still has my passport!
Okay, whew! He just came back with a big pile of passports, including mine – we’re all good, and we’re on our way.
Overall, we took SO many pictures while I was there – it’s a really beautiful place and I would highly recommend for people to visit there! For those who know me well, you know I’m a bit of a dork…. and I love to take cheesy, dorky, funny pictures. I’m thinking a little of that rubbed off on Milos, ‘cause by the last day, we was doing a great job of showing some dorky creativity in his photo ideas AND captions for Facebook. Haha!
Now I have exactly three more weeks here in Europe. My biggest hope is that some auditions come around from that agent while I’m still here. But I also have some other travel plans in my head – like a day trip to Bratislava and also seeing if I can make a trip out to Neuschwanstein – the castle in Germany built by crazy King Ludwig. I’ve always wanted to see it.
But I don’t really have any more big social interactions to look forward to on my trip – so please feel free to chat me up online – so I don’t feel quite as lonely! I’m attaching some pics from my Croatia trip to this blog post, but there are many more on Facebook!
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It’s now almost 4pm and we’ve been at the Ljubljana train station for awhile. I was wondering what was up with that, until I pulled out my schedule again and realized that the schedule says we leave here at 4pm – even though we got here an hour ago. I guess this is one of those places where part of the train goes one way and part goes the other. I did notice that just this car said it was going all the way to Vienna when I boarded in Rijeka. But hopefully we’ll be leaving soon. No wonder this train ride is so long. (…And we left right at 4:00.)
Now at 5:20pm, we just went through a town called Celje. It had some really pretty buildings visible from the train tracks. And during our approach to the town, I got to see an awesome castle on the hill!! Oh yea!
Well, now it’s a little before 7pm and we’re now in Austria. Just a little over three hours to go!
And now it’s ten after nine! Less than an hour left. I was sleeping for a little, but then couldn’t do that anymore, so I played more Boggle on my iPhone. I’ve also been passing some of the time by looking at some of my pics in iPhoto – there’s so many good ones!
Pulled into Wien Meidling train station right on time at 10pm. And back to my apartment by a little after 10:30pm. I have a feeling I’m going to sleep in late tomorrow…..
(Having trouble attaching pictures right now…. will add tomorrow…)
FINALLY ABLE TO ADD PICS!
- Sundown over the Adriatic
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