Update!

Hi! Just wanted to give everyone a quick update about my situation for next season. I will be playing for a team in Finland (about an hour outside of Helsinki). I am leaving this Sunday and won't be back until Christmas! I am super excited to start playing again and can't wait to get settled in and meet all of my new teammates. Look for me to start posting regularly again! :)

Zagreb Post 4: Marina's family

Marina’s family was so welcoming the entire time I was there and always wanted us to come over for lunches. At one point her mom and grandmother were “fighting” over whose house we would go to for lunch (Lunch is the big meal of the day here instead of dinner like in the states). Everything we had to eat was delicious, and I think I gained like 10 pounds while I was here! They would keep asking me if I wanted more, and I would politely decline. A few minutes later, they would ask Marina if I wanted more again. I would decline again and this went on several more times before I said, “Okay.” This always made them very happy. In the end, we had lunch at her grandmother’s four times, at her parent’s 2 times plus coffee, and at her aunt and uncle’s once.  Plus we had a huge celebration for her cousin’s communion on day. Marina was like, “You need to come back more often!”  

I tried to get pictures with everyone. Most of them were taken on the day Marina’s little cousin got his first Communion so I am dressed up a little:

 Marina and I with her cousin Igor who just got his First Communion

 The whole crew that went to the communion minus Marina's cousin who was taking the picture

 Marina's baka (grandmother) and mom

 Marina's parents

 Marina's father and uncle

 Marina's aunt

 Cheering with Marina's grandmother and her homemade alcohol

 Marina's friends 

 Marina's other grandmother

Marina and her mom

Zagreb Post 3: Plitvice Lakes

Before coming to Zagreb, I had looked on the Internet to learn what I needed to see while there. Almost everyone said that you needed to make a side trip to Plitvice Lakes. When I told Marina about them, she said that we could go one day (they were about 1.5 hours away). Thursday was supposed to have good weather, so we picked then to go. We made some sandwiches for the trip and bought waters before we heading out so we would not have to pay the expensive prices for food while there. Although Thursday was supposed to be the best weather, it turned out to be pretty cold that day. The sun would peek through the clouds every once in a while and when it did, the weather was perfect. However, when it was hiding behind the clouds, we were all a little cold. Luckily, you are constantly walking through the park so we were able to stay warm that way.

The Plitvice Lakes are a preserved national park, and you can tell why when you begin walking through the park. There are so many little lakes that feed into each other through these beautiful waterfalls. They have constructed pathways throughout the whole park that allow you to walk right next to the waterfalls and over the lakes. There is also a small cave in the park. The water is so crystal clear that you can see all the way to the bottom. Despite it being chilly outside, we all wanted to jump in the water because it looked so pretty. However,  there is no swimming allowed in any of the lakes. During our tour, we walked around the paths, climbed to the top of a waterfall and took the boat to cross over one of the larger lakes. I took over 100 pictures, but here are some of the best (although the pictures are pretty, it was 10x prettier in person!):

 When we first entered the park

 View from above

 Getting closer to the water

 Little boat we took to cross to another part of park

 Just hanging around!

 My favorite picture of the visit

 Soooo pretty!!!!

Zagreb Post 2: Downtown Zagreb

We took two separate days to see all of downtown Zagreb. The first day Marina and I walked around the city while she tried to explain the buildings and statues we saw. However, she was not the best tour guide in the world. One time she told me to take a picture, and we would then ask her dad about it. Another time she said to google it when I got home! Some of the important things we saw on the first day were the Cathedral, St. Mark’s Church, the Stone Gate, and lots of little statues. While we were walking we got ice cream at one of the best ice cream shops in Zagreb and stopped at a café where Marina decided I needed to try coffee again. She ordered me a Nescafe Vanilla, and it was actually pretty good! It didn’t have a lot of coffee flavor which was good in my book. One of Marina’s friends, Sandra, met us at the café which was nice because Marina had talked about Sandra while we were at LSU. It was good to finally put a face to a name and meet someone who I had heard a lot about. She was really nice, and we ended up walking around the town a little more before heading home for the day.

 Statue outside the train station (The guy on the horse is very famous in Croatian history, but I cannot remember his name.)

 Park on the way to the center of Zagreb

 The Cathedral

 Inside the Cathedral (blurry again!!!)

 St. Mark's Church (I thought the tile roof was very impressive!)

 The Stone gate

A few days passed before we went back downtown. Marina wanted to go on Saturday morning to show me a popular open market called Dolac which is very crowded on Saturdays. This time Damir came with us. There was so much fresh food (fruits, vegetables, eggs, cheese, fish, and nuts) in the market as well as crafts and flowers. Everyone had these little carts that they were filling up with their goods. After breakfast from a nearby pekarna (bakery) and coffee, we walked to the other side of downtown to see the rest of the sights. Damir knew more about the city and was able to tell Marina who then translated it to me. We saw the National Theatre, the art museum, the largest museum called Mimara, and the botanical gardens. Although Zagreb is a big city, it has a small town feel in my opinion. We walked around some more before going to Marina’s house for lunch with her family. The weather matched a great day.

 Fresh flowers at Dolac

 Fresh fruits and vegetables at Dolac

 Handmade baskets and crafts at Dolac

 Fish market at Dolac

 National Theatre

 Mimara: the largest museum

 Botanical Gardens in downtown Zagreb

 Some of the prett flowers in the Botancial Gardens

Zagreb Post 1

After an adventurous trip to the Budva bus station with Nikola (We missed the bus to Dubrovnik in Budva because it left 5 minutes early, so we chased it to Kotor. Luckily it was still at the Kotor bus station, but I had to run to buy and ticket and rush onto the bus. And I forgot to mention that we think we had to outrun the police at one point. Nikola thinks they got stuck behind another car and gave up on the pursuit!) and making an earlier connection in Dubrovnik, I arrived in Zagreb at 5:30 am. The buses were actually very nice and made frequent stops for the passengers to get off to use the restroom or get something to eat. However, I never got off the bus because I was afraid I understood the driver wrong about how long we were staying at the stop, and that the bus would leave without me (After traveling on both buses and trains in the past couple of weeks, I think I prefer to travel by bus. Maybe I was just so tired of trains, but the bus seemed easier and faster.). 

Marina and her boyfriend Damir were both there waiting for me which was great to some familiar faces and get off the bus after almost 17 hours of traveling. We went back to the apartment we were going to be staying in for the next week or so. Damir had to go home to help his mother with something, so Marina and I were alone in the apartment. Although it was only 6 am and neither of us got much sleep the previous night, we couldn’t go back to sleep because there was so much to catch up on. I gave her the Swedish fish I had been saving from Layne’s parents which we ate while we chatted. 

That afternoon we were going over to her grandmother’s apartment so I could meet her mom’s side of the family. After being on the bus for so long and wanting to make a good impression on her family, I decided it was probably a good idea to take a shower. We all got ready and headed over. When we got to the apartment, Marina’s aunt was on the balcony waving an American flag and a Croatian flag. It was pretty funny and her family was so welcoming. While at the apartment, I met Marina’s grandmother, aunt, uncle, mother, and little cousin. Her grandmother went all out with the meal and it was delicious (I would learn throughout the week really how good of a cook her grandmother was!). We ate, talked, and got to know one another before Marina, Damir, and I decided we needed to take a walk because we had ate so much. We walked through a very nice nearby park and stopped for coffee on the lake before picking up Marina’s mom and heading home. With a full belly and my lack of sleep catching up with me, I headed to sleep around 9 happy to be in Zagreb and see Marina after almost a year!

Train to Bar (Day 12)

We got into Belgrade a little later than we were supposed to at around 5:30 am. The train to Bar was not leaving until 10:10, so we had a little time to kill. We were not allowed to buy our tickets yet, so we walked with all of our luggage to find something to eat. We ended up trying to go to the same burek place as before, but it was closed. Instead of waiting, we walked to the 24 hour market to get a few snacks and foods for the next day (The next day was Easter and we were not sure if anything would be open in Bar. We wanted to make sure we had something to eat!). For some reason, the 24-hour store was also closed and would not open until 7:30. We knew that we were going to have to sit somewhere for an extended period of time, so we just sat outside of the market waiting for it to open. It was kinda funny because there was a huge line forming outside the market. I think everyone was waiting so they could get meat for their Easter feasts. The store finally opened, and we made our purchases. Then, we headed back to the bakery to find out they did not have any meat burek that day. Luckily there was another bakery right next door who had some. It was very good!

The train ride back to Bar was uneventful, but kinda of cramped. There were six people in the compartment and everyone had luggage. Layne and I had to end up putting some of our luggage in our foot space. Anyways, we made it to Bar around 10 pm, and Nikola picked us up.

For the past week, I have been catching up on sleep, eating all the foods that I will miss in Bar, and packing up my apartment. We also got to meet Vladimir Grbic, who is a famous Serbian male volleyball player. He has since retired, but was the named the best player in 2000. Here is a picture of our entire club with Vladimir:

I am leaving tomorrow to go to Zagreb to visit Marina for almost two weeks before heading to a try-out at an undisclosed location. I will be back in the states on May 14! Hope you enjoyed reading about my vacation!

Sofia, Bulgaria (Day 11)

Train travel is not fun! It is okay if you are only taking one train or so, but after many, many days of trains, it gets old very fast! And it does not help when the trains are late, and you miss your connections! While crossing the Turkey/Bulgaria border, we had to get off the train to get our passports stamped (usually they come on the train, but not at this border!). This took forever! Either way, this in combination with the slow-moving train, we were like five hours late getting into Sofia and missed the train to Belgrade by 20 minutes. The next train did not leave for another five hours, so Layne and I decided to see some of Sofia while we had time.

When we were leaving the train, there was another American who was trying to get to Belgrade. We told him our plans and invited him to join us. We knew that there was a famous church that we wanted to see and a great pizza place (as told by Ian- our couchsurfer friend). He gladly accepted since the alternative was sitting in the train station for five hours. After checking our luggage into the storage room and buying our tickets for Belgrade, we began the walk to the church. Along the way, we learned that Paul was a geology professor at the University of Georgia. He had been visiting one of their partner schools in Istanbul and was making his way to Vienna for a little side trip before going home to the states. He was a super nice guy and easy to talk with. 

We had some idea of how to get to the church, but after a while, we decided to grab a taxi. I am glad we did because it was a lot farther away than we thought. When we made it to the church, we paid the entrance fee and waited for our turn to go into the church. Once inside, we met the tour guide who was this old man whose name was White White (It translated in English to this, and I thought it was weird). Although we did not pay for a guided tour, he let us listen in. This was not too difficult because the church was only comprised of two small rooms. Unfortunately there were no cameras allowed inside the church because it could damage the very old paintings inside the church. The paintings were very impressive and dated back to the 13th century.

 Outside of Boyana Church

Our tour guide was so cute and would hold our hand and point out all the different paintings. We later learned that he was 78 and had taught himself English. All three of us were very impressed because his English was very good. On our way out of the church, we ran into our English friends with whom we had shared a sleeping compartment from Istanbul. It was funny running into them there!

With the one and only Mr. White White!

After seeing the church, we took another taxi to the pizza parlor. It was soooo good! Since it was the last Friday of Lent, I went with an eggplant, zucchini, and tomato pizza (I really wanted the pepperoni one because I have been missing pepperoni, but passed on it.). Although the pizzas looked huge, but all three of us were able to finish them! We then walked back along the pedestrian street to the train station.

Sofia, Bulgaria

We got back to the train station and boarded the train. Layne and I got a compartment by ourselves and settled in for the train ride. We learned that we would get into Belgrade at 4 am! After a few hours, the border patrol came through and we were able to sleep for the rest of the journey.