Walls (images here too...!!!)

We walked on a Roman wall. It was so cool! You could see all of Dubrovnik. I forgot to say we are in Dubrovnik. We also went to an Island called Lokrum. On Lokrum we went swimming on a rocky beach. We had to wear sandals because there are sea urchins on the coast of Croatia. Lokrum is on the coast of Croatia.

While me and dad were swimming, we saw a black sea urchin eating a clam. It was really awesome. We also went tortoise hunting - no tortoises, but we did see peacocks. And we saw a baby peacock. The length including the tail was about a half foot and it was about half a foot tall. It was by its mama peacock.  We also saw lots of males but they did not spread their beautiful feathers (I guess that is for mating season).

Daddy is reading to us about the Groovy Greeks. They got in a different wall by playing tricks and because Cheradimus knew the password. Tomorrow we are heading to Italy and the next day to Greece on an overnight ferry. I hope the Greeks don’t play any tricks on us!

"Piratee mantises" (with images)

We arrived in Dubrovnik and went straight for a hike. We saw three Preying Mantis’ (cool - two adults and one baby). The evil  baby bit me !!(He was green and one of the big ones was green and the other was brown.)

We also came across a pirate dude with parrots  that sat on our shoulders ;)))The parrots were well trained. I thought the guy was psycho because he dressed me up as as a pirate (look down for more information).

There was a white parrot that ran away and the pirate brought him back from a cafe with a package of sugar that the parrot was eating. Just to tell you, the parrot stole it! Good thing parrots don’t get cavities.

My How Travelling Has Changed

Karen and I were lucky enough to have traveled for extended periods in Europe and Asia in our younger years, before we knew each other, but roughly around the same time - 20 years ago. Now I know some of you math whizzes are saying "That can't be. That would have been when they were 9 and 12". But alas, too be truthful, we are a little older than that ...

Well traveling 20 years ago seems in many ways to be similar. No we didn't have kids with us then, but the jist of it is the same - travel within a budget, eat where the locals eat, sponge where you can, plan as you go and be ready to be spontaneous. Though we haven't stayed in a lot of hostels, we have hit a few and they are good to make us feel a little bit younger again as we chat with the other travelers about whatever - usually good places and bad, how long we've been on the road, countries visited ... Just like 20 years ago. Granted it does get weird when we share some anecdote from our travels 20 years ago and the looks around the room tell you that the other travelers weren't even a twinkle in their mothers eye back then, let alone been born (Talking about shooting digital versus film usually has the same effect). Mattias and Emilia are closer to their ages than we are... by about double.

Where it starts to get different is when you factor in the technology that just didn't exist when we traveled 20 years ago. Almost all the travelers we meet travel with technology, usually some sort of netbook or laptop and that is where a bulk of their planning is done. Mattias and Mima use the gadgets we have for everything from music to math. Even most of their books are electronic. Where we used to have a guidebook or two as a starting point, people now use the web (though you still will see the guidebooks around but even the guidebooks themselves are available electronically).

Internet and wireless are key selling points for places to stay and merchants rely on the internet to get the word out. Ratings on TripAdvisor and similar sites can make or break an establishment. Travelers check these and base a lot of decisions on that information. More and more people book in advance, or at least they do in the places we've traveled so far. We used to just get to a place and start asking around of other travelers or maybe start with some of the guidebook recommendations. It usually took a little while but I must admit I'm glad the kids don't have to be part of big searches for a place to stay as I seem to recall doing.

Even places when you do book with will send you a google map link to give directions to their place, have panoramic views of their rooms, and even have computers on hand to use. I also talking hostels here - not fancy pants hotels and so far it seems more common than not.

It changes things in terms of planning and perhaps lessens the sense of surprise when you get to a place (that can be good or bad). Maybe some spontaneity is lost and certainly there are those who don't use it for this reason. For us we have used it and more since we are no longer camping (though campgrounds featured the technology as well). Spontaneity is often there with kids and traveling, but the kind that we were accustomed to in our 20's is not necessarily the kind that Mattias and Emilia would enjoy.

We'll see how true this difference of traveling with technology will hold as we venture beyond Europe, but so far - it's working for us.

Great place

In Croatia, I think you all know, everything is great. We are staying in a great apartment, hostel, don't know what you'd call it. Just across the street is a great swimming area, not too many sea urchins and lots of minnows (a few crabs too). We went crabbing on the first full day we were here. We watched a little one eat and then we caught him and we also caught a fairly big one that I almost stepped on:( First one we saw was way too hard to catch, scurrying along on the rocks, hiding completely under them-so, we gave up.

Today we went to Korcula. We saw two humungous ships, the tall mast was about 40 meters high. They were about 40 m long. We just went out for dinner, we were going to have cake, but they didn't have any. The only desserts they had were ice cream and crepes, that we had for breakfast. So we decided we will save the cake for when find a good one ( speaking of which, it is mommy's birthday).

Sorry can't add a picture as they aren' t loaded yet, I will once they are up.

Bye for now everybodiezzzzzzzz

Mattias

Hvala, Croatia

Croatia has been everything and more than we could have expected. Even on the
back end of some bad flooding - read: rainy weather- it really has been fascinating. We started at Plitvice lakes, a spectacle of nature unlike you can see anywhere else, as far as I know anyway...and we were lucky enough to be there while all the colours were turning on the trees. 12 lakes, one above the next, with a veil of water cascading down from each to the next, the cascades in various heights. The only negative was the massive number of tours going through. Very few people travel on their own at this time of year, but there are lots of groups around and they don't move very quickly.

From Plitvice we went to Split via the only public transport possible, six hours on a bus to get 220 km. Can you say milk run..... And we weren't
even convinced we wanted to got to Split after various reports from people about there not being much there. What we found was a real living city where you could get a glimpse into Croatian life. We thoroughly enjoyed our two days there, with nothing to "must see" and lots of time to wander and observe. The old city is intriguing and we did see a lot, but to the kids dismay no turtles. Mima's eye, if you are wondering, is looking pretty good and the swelling has gone down a lot- should be back to normal in a day or two. Thanks to everyone who sent her a note!

Now we are enjoying island life as we kick back for four days on the island of Korcula. The low season allows for some great accommodation deals and we are happy for four nights in one spot with a terrace on the Adriatic. We have seen dolphins twice and so the kids are on the lookout.

That's all for now....Croatian pics not loaded yet, but when they are I'll attach a couple...

Miss everyone at home,
Karen

The Green Market

We went to the Green Market. It is a market where people sell food and clothes and other things like tablecloths. We bought some fruits and vegetables. It was near the water line, and since it was a sunny Saturday everywhere you looked there was a person. Even if you looked down the street you would see a person. Oh, I forgot to mention where we are - on the coast of Croatia in a town called Split.

Back to the markets part. There were also a whole whack of bees. Mattias didn't get stung, Dad didn't get stung, Mom didn't get stung....but I got stung! In a very bad place to be stung. It wasn't my fault because, when the bee flew by my eye I blinked and it got tangled in my hair and then it stung me right on the very edge of my bottom eye lid. I screamed! Almost everyone came and circled around to see what happened. A doctor and a nurse asked if we wanted help. Mom showed them we had an epipen and they realized we were good. I was crying so hard I could hardly hear Mom talking to me. That darn bee. Luckily the stinger didn't get stuck there and it didn't die. My eye got all puffy. Dad went into a random restaurant and got ice. We wrapped it in a head scarf and held it against my eye. The bee sting was in the morning when we just left the hostel. It still hurts now and it is 10 pm.

Tomorrow in the morning we are going to some islands to find some good snorkeling. We will stay there for four nights. Today we walked around the town and looked in a place for turtles, unluckily we didn't find any. Here on the coast of Croatia, when you go to the waterline, there is a rocky edge. Mattias and I went to clamber down the edge, we were careful and it was okay. We tried to catch crabs, but no luck. But on the rocks we found some crystals. Mattias chipped some off with a different rock. At a different part it was a straight down drop with slippery concrete. You couldn't go on it it was too slippery. It wasn't too long, only about 5 feet. We could see all sorts of colorful fish in the clear water. Some were long and scaly like a rainbow trout but looked like a baby shark, but we knew they weren't because sharks wouldn't come that close to the surface.

At night we thought it was beautiful because the palm trees were lit up and the buildings reflected on the water. We thought that was very, very pretty.

Mattias and I decided we want a hamster and a turtle. By the end of the day we were pretty tired so Mattias and I got ice cream. I got lemon with chocolate sauce. Mattias got vanilla with chocolate sauce. That's what we did today. Get back to you soon.
Goodbye, Mima