Update!

I have added links to our pictures from each location, on each post! Enjoy!

Sarajevo, Mostar and meeting our travel buddies!

The ride to Sarajevo from Belgrade was crazy! It took 10 hours and we had to go North into Croatia to come back south into Bosnia and towards Sarajevo. Sarajevo was another amazing city full of deep history. We felt that the people there are even warmer than any of the other Balkan countries we had been to. When we arrived we didn't realize how far away the location was from where we were meeting our host. We had to take a taxi. We had already asked 2 locals what the price should be to the center, they said 5 marke. When we asked the taxi cab driver he said 15!!! I was pissed!!! We had no choice though and we had 15 mins to get there! We finally met our host and he introduced us to his roommate. What a wonderful couple of men to be with! They were so respectful! They are from Istanbul but are living in Sarajevo going to school at an English school. They spoke to us about many things and many differences between  the Turkish culture and Bosnian culture.

Of course we had more Čevapi and beer :)

We stayed there for 4 days and enjoyed the hell out of our time there! Our hosts cooked many typical Turkish meals and brought the kitchen table out into garden one night! It was a good time!

Pictures of our time in Sarajevo!

Belgrade

Haven't written in about 2 weeks! We have been just going, going, going and going...we arrived in Belgrade and met our host after walking in circles trying to find his place for about an hour! Lol! That's the way things go for us. Belgrade, Serbia has a lot of crazy history! Even in the last 20 years they have been through a lot. Knowing that and knowing how much the US was involved in the conflict and the injuries sustained both physically to the country and mentally, it was a very awkward feeling coming to this country. We were very hesitant to speak English very loudly, as to not attract attention to ourselves. We got over that after a few days but we were still cautious. Many people liked us and were friendly even after they knew we were American but after our issues in Slovenia, with so many people putting us down for being American, we were a bit reserved with how loud we spoke and who we told we were American to.

Our host was really cool! He met us at his home after we finally found it and we had a nice night with just relaxing. We did go out to a typical Serbian restaurant. The food was awesome!! We had something called čevapi. It is pork mixed with some secret spices and sauces and grilled...the combination creates something that you just want to stay and eat forever! With a cold beer, you can't go wrong with that meal!! It's to bad you can only find čevapi in this part of the world, in the Balcanes. I'm sure in other countries but it has to be the best here!

In Belgrade you can see new buildings and old buildings and new architecture and old architecture. Most of the variety comes from what had to be repaired after each war. Belgrade has been bombed and destroyed over 40 times, that was a crazy fact to learn. The people were very kind and welcoming. Our host brought us all over the city the first day and we saw so much! The second day I went on a free walking tour and learned a few more things and even won some free Rakia. Rakia is the local alcohol in the Balcanes. Every country we went to claimed it as originally being from there so I'm still not sure where it is from! Lol! It's compareable to absinthe though but its a bit lighter and comes in numerous flavors. I answered the following question correctly: how many zeros does the largest bill have on the ex-yugoslavian Bill have? Just so happens my host had taught me that the day before! It's 11 and its kind of a random question but I won and got to drink some Rakia!

Danielle and I spent the next day on our own. She went with our host to a park and into the forest outside Belgrade. I spent the day in the city, exploring and meeting some people I had met the day before on the tour.

I am going to start linking my photo albums from Facebook and Picasa to my blogs so everyone can see pictures too! 

Enjoy! Love you all and miss you!! Xoxo

Ugh oh...haha

04/30/2012
Haha, well I threw my Damn bank card away. We arrived at the hostel on Thursday and went food shopping. I had leggings on and didn't feel like carrying my purse so I put my card inside my cigarette pack and stuck that inside my sports bra (please excuse that part gentleman, lol, I'm trying to explain what lead to me throwing away the card). So, we went to the store, bought groceries for the weekend and bought some prepared food so we could eat. We were starving! After we were done, we waited for the bus and ate some food. We went back to the hostel and since I had 1 cigarette left, I smoked it and threw the pack away. We went on with our night. Relaxed and listened to Music. The next day we decided would be dedicated only to relaxing and doing laundry. We hadn't taken a shower in 4 days cause of hitch-hiking and staying with the Turkish guys on our trip through Croatia. So, we did exactly that. Because we didn't go anywhere, we didn't need money and I didn't realize that I had lost my bank card. The next day we decided we would go for lunch in the city and sightsee a bit :) this was where everything changed.

We were ordering our food and went to pay, I opened my wallet and realized immediately that I was missing my card. My heart dropped. I kind of freaked for a second because I know how much money is on that card. That would have made someones freaking day to find it...and I know all to well what happens with credit card fraud and how quickly the money can disappear! We left as soon as I realized it and strayed re tracing our steps from the past few days. Since we were staying in the country, we figured the garbage can at the bus stop by the grocery store isn't emptied very often, so we walked back there and checked, no card. I starting thinking about when I had it last. In my cigarette pack, in my bra lol...which was in the trash in the hostel. So, we went back. I literally dove into the trash bin and started searching for the bag. Only problem is the trash is picked up daily!! WTF?!?! Where on earth besides Zagreb is trash collected daily!? So, no card. I checked the funds and all the money was safe and sound, still sitting there waiting to be used...by me...not some creep! So, I called and canceled the card, got a new account number and can use the card at least, just don't have it physically as of now. I'm taking care of that. We contacted my mom to tell her what was going on, she wired us $ pretty quickly. Now, we just had to go get it. It was 530pm when I left.

Danielle stayed back and mingled with other people in the hostel. I walked the 3 miles to the tram stop since there wasn't a bus coming for almost another hour. As you all know, I have some issues with staying awake on trains, buses, TRAMS, etc. I had to take the tram into the city. I tried hard not to pass out but I did eventually. Hahaha...I was woken up around 730pm by a nice woman who said "dear, this is the last stop". I just looked around, looked at the time and discovered I had passed out, not just through my stop but I possibly past my stop around 2-3 times according to my calculations. I feel asleep for 2 freaking hours! Funny shit...it would have been just fine but the only post office doing Western Union past 5 was not near where I was at all. I had to wait for another tram going back towards the city and haul ass to that post office before 8pm. I made it 5 after 8, even with running the entire way. Lol....now looking back it didn't really matter, we could have waited until the next morning, I'm not sure why I was running lol. I got there though, explained my situation and that I had no other money. The woman explained that she couldn't process ir though because the system was shut down after 8pm. While speaking with her, I complimented her on her eyebrows. She had very nice eyebrows, really. After a few more minutes of explaining what happened, she finally said she would turn the system back on and do it!! I'm not sure if it was her just feeling bad, the eyebrow comment or that she was just a nice person. Either way, she did it :)

I decided to get Danielle and I some dinner. I saw the time the last bus was going to the hostel from the tram stop and figured I had 10th mins to order a quick burger, get on the next tram and make the bus so I didn't have to walk another 3 miles back to the hostel. It would have been all good excpet that the tram was running late. So, I missed the bus and had to walk to the hostel. Lol! I just laughed when I realized what was going on. I finally made it and Danielle got to laugh at me for quite a while. All the girls in the hostel told her not to worry and said maybe I had met a Croatian man and went for drinks lol....not....Danielle knows me much better than that. But the idea sounded much better than what I had just gone through trying to get the money. What should have taken 1 hour, took me 5! I saw Zagreb at night and that was nice. It's a beautiful country and Zagreb is a really cool city. For being the capital you don't feel the dame hustle bustle feel that you normally do in capital cities.

We are on the train going from Croatia to Slovenia right now. I'm going to go to sleep. I only got 4 hours last night. I'm tired. Miss you all!! Xoxo

05/03/2012
Wow, about 2 more weeks and we will have been gone for 5 months! Craziness! We are on the bus on the way to Belgrade. We left Ljubljana at 10 this morning. We arrive at 6ish. What an amazing time we had in Slovenia! The girls we met at the hostel in Zagreb and then met up with in Ljubljana are such wonderful women! They were nice, outgoing, full of energy and just as excited to hang out with us as we were with them.

The first night we arrived, Tea, Eva and Jasna are their names. Tea and Eva are sisters. Jasna is a great friend of theirs. Jasna met us at the train station and walked us around the city, showed us the center and some other cool spots in the city. That first night we all had dinner at Eva's house. They prepared dinner. Before we all went out, they brought out a cake with a candle for Danielle and we all sang happy birthday!! It was one of the kindest things someone has done for us on this trip! The fact that they went out thirty way to do that was impressive!! They gave Danielle a magnet of Ljubljana. She was very very happy. It was so nice. Eva did Danielle's makeup! She looked great!! We all went to the top of this massive hill near the city. It's something everyone in the city does for labor day. There's music, food, drinks and the biggest bon fire I've seen!! We met different people but drank mostly :) ...it was a stupendous evening! Lots of fun was had with us and the girls!

The next day we all relaxed!! We never made it back to our hostel the night before, that was a waste of money lol. We just paid to keep our bags somewhere pretty much. We met our CS host and brought our stuff to his dorm room. He was so cool! He is only 20 but was the most mature 20 year old guy I have ever met, seriously! He needed to study so we left our stuff and took off with the girls to the park. We slept, chatted and ate some snacks. That night we had some great conversations with our host. He told us of his hitch-hiking experience the week prior to the coast. The next day our host needed to study some more so we let him have his space for the day and walked the city with the girls. Before this though, we went to Eva's house for breakfast. They cooked a real American breakfast!! Eggs, bacon and toast! Mmmmm! We told that was one of the things we missed the most from home, just eating a normal American breakfast. So Tea offered to cook! I couldn't have thanked them enough! We went up to the castle above the city. We had great views of Ljubljana! The castle was cool too! It has been used for different things since it was first built in the 13th century. It was used as a prison for some time, I thought was neat. Also, they had a gallery with pieces of some of the original wall and painting. Overall it was a nice day!

We went back to  Eva's house for lunch and I cooked them tortilla española. They loved it! They had never had it! I saved some for our host. That last night was difficult to say good bye to the girls. Danielle and I have learned how hard it is to say good bye to people we meet along the way. It sucks. There's no other way to explain the feeling. We become FB friends with many of the people and this is nice. But, we don't know if we will ever see any of these people again. And that's what sucks. The fact that they entered our lives and were apart of our journey is what matters though. Also, in life, if I am ever able to see any of them again, I would!

We just passed a field of flowers and the electrical poles were tree barks! So cool!

Sorry back to my story...lol...so we said bye to the girls and went to hang out with our host for the night. He invited some other students over and we all hung out and drank wine and spoke for hours. One of the guys had gotten some Chinese wine from a family friend. He shared it with us. It tasted like sweet teriyaki and soy sauce, mixed?! If that makes sense. It was alright. I had drank way way to much for Danielle's birthday so having one glass of the teriyaki/soy sauce wine was just fine for me! We are on the bus very close to the border or Croatia and Slovenia right now. We are nervous because Slovenia is Shengen. We have only been here for 4 days so hopefully they see that and think we just came for the holiday week and are leaving...we shall see.

Today before we left our host, he gave us a sandwich, bananna and apple for each of us. So thoughtful! He knew we would be on the bus for 8 hours! He was a really cool guy! Very smart! Well, guess what I'm going to do...sleep lol...I'm getting tired. Miss you all!! Xoxo  

Pictures from:
Zagreb
Ljubljana

funny...

I was reading my blog today just to see what I have actually put and what i should have added...etc. Reading it makes it seem like we have not been gone for so long. Sometimes I think 4 months seems so long but it's really not. Reading it makes realize this. Just wanted to add that :)

hitch-hiking Croatia

04/26/2012 So, we decided to try hitch-hiking! We weren't going to tell my mom at first but then decided that it was probably a good idea just in case something did go wrong. She wasn't very please obviously. She asked "have you lost your fucking minds". (please excuse the language). We explained our plan and also decided if we couldn't find a ride by a certain time, we would take the bus. We started at 830 and were picked up by 910! We were dropped off about 5 miles down the road. We were hungry so pulled out the meat and bread to make sandwiches. As I was making them, so no eating. we were picked up about 20 mins after arriving by 2 electricians going to work. They brought us about 30 mins south to a town called Omis. We stayed in Omis for a little and walked around and took pictures, it was a really cute town! The whole day it was windy and cloudy. I thought it was going to start pouring at any moment. It never did though! That was mother nature giving us a break for the day! While were waiting at the bus stop for a ride a young girl, probably in her teens was watching me stick my thumb out as people drove by. She probably thought we were crazy thinking we wanted to catch a ride. I only think this because of the way she was looking at us. Lol. I think she was in shock when about 30 mins later, a Bosnian man pulled over and said he was going to Mostar! That was about half way to where we needed to go, Dubrovnik! So, we jumped in. He couldn't speak much English and we don't speak Bosnian lol so, it was an interesting car ride to say the least! He put his Adele CD on and we all just listened to that for an hour and a half! It was great! He pulled over twice at sightseeing points so I could take pictures. I thought that was very kind. He dropped us off in front of a cafe/pizzeria in the middle of no where!!! It was close to the Bosnian border and we weren't going to Bosnia, so he kind of had no choice! We walked into the cafe and spoke to the couple in the cafe, asked if we could use the restroom and asked where on earth we were! Lol! We spoke for a little, explained what we were doing. They offered is coffee, very nice gesture since our Damn host had us running out the door and we hadn't even eaten yet! We enjoyed the coffee and decided we walk around the area for a bit, it was beautiful. They told us we were in the middle of the Bacina Lakes. Such a wonderful location to be dropped off!! The couple let us leave our bags and we went around and took pics and enjoyed the surroundings. When we decided to leave, I thought I would try to make the sandwiches again, as I began, the man in the cafe said he was going south and would bring us as far as he could. Lol, so no eating again. He dropped us off literally in the middle of no where. There was just a gas station near by and some cafe (i think). We stood there for a bit until we realized we were at the split for the highway for Bosnia and Croatia. People didn't know where we were trying to go. We had someone ask if we were going to Bosnia. So, to make things easier we just walked about 2 miles down the road and waited. About 15 mins later we had 2 Turkish guys (about our age) say, "hi, Dubrovnik". We asked if they literally meant Dubrovnik or just close to it. They responded with "city center"....and we were all off! They didn't speak English so well but we were all able to communicate. They were on vacation for 10 days and doing a road trip through Croatia. They brought is down and dropped us off in the city center. We exchanged personal info so we could all stay in touch in case we made it to Turkey, we could contact them. Danielle and I walked around, looked for a CS host. My request was set for the following day since I didn't think we would make it in one day let alone, in half the day! We went to a bar and looked for hostels. After a while we decided to take a walk. While walking around, we ran into the Turkish dudes. They asked what we were doing, we told them we weren't sure yet. They said we could sleep in their car with them. So, we did! Lol! Danielle and I sprawled out in their back seat and woke up the next day fully rested and hit the town. We saw a lot of cool things. We went into the first pharmacy in Europe! It was neat! Later that day, the guys asked if we had any plans or if we wanted to join them that night and head back North and go to Plitvice National Park. That is the one place in Croatia we actually wanted to go! It was perfect! So, we went :) The drive that night was great, I slept. Danielle can't sleep in cars with other people driving so she stayed awake the full 7 hours. The guys just switched out when they were tired. We made it by 5ish. And pulled into a rest stop and we all slept some more. In the morning we took off the to park! I have been to some awesome national parks but that park was unbelievable! There was ferry we had to take to cross the river. When we got off on the other side, it was like heaven! There were waterfalls everywhere!! I was picture happy for sure! I am not sure if I will ever see anything like that again! Big waterfalls, small waterfalls, cascades coming from every direction. Danielle trips about 5-10 times a day, no joke. So, of course she was bound to trip while in the park and that she did. Only think is that she fell into a hole full of mud. It was gross ans funny all at the same time! There were tiny bridges that connects people from one side of a waterfall to another. And millions, yes millions of steps made of planks of skinny wood used as stairs. It's like something you see in a movie that you think they added special effects! Just amazing! Remember Everyone: Plitvice National Park! Get there at some point if you can! It's amazing! It eventually started to rain but kept going a bit further and then started making our way out. What a wonderful way to spend a day :) We left after that to head towards Zagreb. Zagreb is the capital city of Croatia. First we needed gas. We barely had enough to make it another 20 miles, if that. The closest gas station or petroleum office as the Turkish guys called it lol...was over the Bosnian border. No problem, just cross, get gas and come back to be on our way. Yes, in a perfect world that would be the way the story would go but not with us. The craziest things go on sometimes and I just wonder if these types of things happen to all people, seriously. Lol. So, let explain the back story so you know what was going on. The guys we were with are from Turkey and had taken a plane into Zagreb about 1 week prior. We are 2 American woman and had taken a ferry from Italy 4 days prior. Somehow though we were all together in a rented car trying to cross the Bosnian border. Ok, so we get to the Croatian booth, they are ok, stamp us and we go to the Bosnian booth. They weren't so ok with it all. They asked us to pull over after siting there for 5 mins. I knew none of us were criminals because we had all had our passports checked already going to Dubrovnik (so I knew they weren't criminals or anything). We pulled over and sat there for 10 more mins. Finally some man came over and started speak Bosnian, asking questions. None of us speak the language. The guys could respond with a few words they did know but it didn't get us very far. We tried to explain that we were almost out of gas and the closest station was over the border. The man told the guys to ask Allah for more gas and that maybe we wouldn't have a problem. Not very nice. The man just laughed and walked away. About 5 mins later another man walked up asked the same questions and finally gave us our passports. We crossed got gas and cane back. Then had the same damn problem coming back in. Like, the dude from earlier couldn't have told his college what was up?! They saw the tank before and now it was full, its a miracle! No, we really got gas! Danielle made a joke. They asked why we were coming into Bosnia together so many times, she said we should tell them take we came to Europe and decided of all places that Bosnia was the place for us! We were laughing hysterically! I think it made the guys nervous that we kept laughing. The whole situation was ridiculous though. Fine, going in question it. But coming back 20 mins later. Check the car or do something then, don't just make us sit there, it made no sense but it was funny. So, we got to Zagreb and we are now at a hostel in the middle of nowhere. Literally in the country side! It's wonderful though!! We took a day to do nothing! Today we did laundry and some more of nothing and tomorrow we will go into the city and see Zagreb! That's about it. Miss you all! Xoxo

Pictures from:
Split
Dubrovnik
Plitvice National Park

Back to Bordeaux and beyond...

04/06/2012
The week in Bordeaux went well. I didn't write last while in town, just spent my time with my family. It was wonderful to see them. We will be gone for a bit longer this time and I'm glad we had the chance to go back now. Danielle was able to get her contacts (or her eyeballs as I call them. We both switched out our clothes in preparation for spring and summer! We have about 2 weeks left and we will be on 4 months and counting that we have been gone! Time is flying by! Seeing people in Bordeaux that we met the first time we were there was very nice and great to share stories with them. It was especially nice to speak with Charlotte, as I already mentioned in another blog. Just sit there, eat cheese, drink wine, smoke and talk for hours. That was the best time I do have to say. She is an amazing woman and a wonderful mom/wife. Louis is very lucky to have met her! They are lucky to have met eachother! Well, we spent our time in Bordeaux and left to Milan on Wednesday the 4. We are officially illegal lol! Only by a couple of weeks. I figured this would happen (we would stay past our 3 months). We are leaving Italy in 2 weeks and heading for Croatia for this reason. Croatia isn't part of the Shengen agreement, we just realized! So we plan on spending at least 1 month there, since we have to be out for 3 months. The pictures I have seen of the country are just incredible!! The next few months will be very exciting, there are many amazing places we plan on going. The temples built into the rocks and ground in Jordan and the beaches and cascades in Croatia are what I am most looking forward to. Israel will be enjoyable for many reasons. We are planning on taking a ferry over to Croatia unless we can find a cheap flight. At this point taking a flight out of a Shengen country is taking a risk. So, we are going to try not to :) currently, we are on a 5 hour train ride through Italy going from Milan to Florence. It's an amazing trip!! Great views! We are taking the trip during the day this time, so we can see Tuscany and the surrounding regions on our way. We are going back to Giuseppe and Vincenzos home. Jenny will be there too! She moved back to her home town on the island of Alba since she couldn't find a job in Florence. We have created a great friendship with them and I am thankful we met them via CS. We all clicked very well from the beginning and its a wonderful chemistry. Even with the language barrier, it doesn't limit our conversations or ability to share great food and times out together. It's wonderful! It's a type of relationship that I have never had with anyone else before (with the language barrier and all). I'm going back to sleep :) im going to wake up when we hit Tuscany. Miss you all! Xoxo

04/12/2012
We left Florence and spent a few days in a small seaside town called Livorno. Our host here is very cool! He speaks Japanese and Italian fluently and a little English. We all manage to communicate just fine though. He has 2 apartments in town and he lives in his home in the country side outside of Livorno. His homes are beautiful! The apartments are are very well designed inside and he has a stereo system set up so you can hear the music you play in the living room throughout the entire place! It's the coolest set up I have ever seen! His home in the country side is gorgeous! He has it completely renovated to accommodate parties with over 50+ people! It's impressive! His grill is the biggest I have ever seen! Danielle took a picture of it. You can roast about 3-4 full size pigs on the grill, its that big! We had seafood spaghetti last night. It's the first time we have had seafood in Italy and I was very happy with the dinner! Today we are all going to Pisa to see the leaning tower and then to the port. That should take up most of the day :) I think we will BBQ tonight! Second time that we will have had a BBQ since leaving home. Gosh, I'm excited for that! Well I have to finish getting ready for my day out! Miss you all! Xoxo

04/17/2012
We are on the train heading to Alcona, Italy. We will be taking a ferry later today to Croatia. We are going to a city named Split. It's the second biggest city in Croatia. It's located on the coast and from the pictures, it appears to be absolutely breathtaking! They don't use the Euro there instead they use a currency called the Kuna. It's about 75 Kuna for €10. They speak Croatian, which sounds similar to Arabic and their official religion is Roman Catholic. Lol the mix of all of this makes me wonder what type of a feel you get being there. Sitting here writing I just looked out the window and all I see are the green rolling hills of Tuscany. My goodness do I hate the idea of leaving Italy. I absolutely love it here. It really sucks to leave. I have moved a lot in my life and I have lived in many different places but leaving here is not like any other feeling I have ever had, not even leaving home for this trip. I think thats because I assumed I was going home after we were done traveling. I'll stop talking about how much I'm going to miss Italy now lol...it makes me sad to talk about. I love the Latin countries! Ugh! So, I made grilled cheese yesterday for Danielle, Jenny and I. It was delicious! I used Swiss and asiago cheese! Mmmmm...it came out very well! We had spritz and sausages on the side :) We stayed up super late last night because we figured we could sleep on the trains today lolololololol! I should know better by now! When we are traveling all day I get tired anyways so I figured it wouldn't matter how much sleep I got. It does. But its a bit late to go back and change that now.

04/19/2012
Well, my o my have we had a few very interesting days!... I have never dreamed it. Have you ever dreamed a night like this...its the chorus to the song I'm listening to right now. A song from Caro Emerald. I love the song, nice beat! So, let's get back to the story of the last few days! Lol! We arrived and realized we didn't have enough money on us to purchase our tickets, the research I did was only for tickets purchased online. Now, we didn't know this at first so we had my mom put enough money in our account and money to last a few days for food, etc (for once we got to Croatia). At this point we figured we could still leave that night to Croatia. We got the money and went to the port. Getting there was fun! We got lost on the buses in one of the smallest cities we have visited yet! For some reason they have double lines for each individual line itself, both going to different parts of the city. Let me explain, the sign to the center was bus 1/4 (who uses numbers like this for bus numbers first of all). The sign explained which stops like a normal sign does. So, we got on. Then we made it all the way to the end of the bus line and realized everything was getting off, so we did too. We asked where the bus that was going to the center was located and the driver pointed at another 1/4 bus, so we got on it and thought for a brief moment that maybe there was some switch or something, just to get to the center. The bus took off and we noticed fairly quickly that it was going right back to the train station. At this point it was around 4pm. We had only a couple more hours before the ferry left. So, we made it back to the station. Tried taking the same bus again, thinking we just missed the center and didn't notice it. Lol...we were wrong. We finally decided to get off at a stop half way from the station and just figure it out from there since it seemed like a big bus stop area. When we did that, Danielle was bombarded by elderly people and couldn't get off the bus in time so she kept going. Hahaha this is now the 3 time we have been separated due to public transportation. I knew what to do this time and I stayed put. She eventually made her way back to me! So, we finally figured out with help from an old Italian woman which bus we needed to take and we were off. Once we arrived in the center, we realized that it wasn't going to be so easy to find WiFi to contact my mom to say we needed more money. But we tried. To make this story shorter, 3 out of the 4 bars that are "free WiFi", didn't have access for one reason or another. By the time we found WiFi, we had missed the ferry. So, we decided to hang at a cafe and have a coffee. We didn't want to waste $ on a hotel for 1 night, since the cheapest hostel was 18€!! That's pretty expensive for those of you who don't know. We decided to hang at the train station for the night, get up in the morning, see some more of the city and just leave. That was the plan until I went online and realized the next ferry going out at the price we wanted wasn't for 2 more days. At that point, we just decided to take that price in 2 days and we figured we would just rent a hotel room or hostel. Wouldn't be a problem...that's what we thought...in our minds, which forget about reality at times. We bought the tickets, which are non-refundable due to the low price they are purchased at. Then we went to look for a room for the next 2 nights and I put up requests on Couchsurfing. We discovered immediately that ALL the hotels and the only hostel in Ancona were completely booked for the next 3 days because of some big military event occurring in the next day or two. So, we went to the station that night. We ended up meeting some really cool guys who worked at the train station and we all had conversations about all sorts of things. We all really clicked! They invited us to Porto Nuovo the following day and said they would bring us around and show us the coast. We had a blast the next day! It was one of the most beauty coast lines I've ever seen! I took so many pictures! That night we went to see if any hotels "maybe" had an extra room since we didn't want to sleep at the station again! Nope they didn't BUT, one hotel, Hotel Fortuna allowed us to sleep in their back lounge since they knew our situation and didn't want us going back to the station. The station was fine, at least it was warm. Just a lot of homeless people and kind of sketchy. We even offered to pay just to sleep in the lounge. They just let us rest on the couch. In the morning, we met the guys one more time for lunch on the coast in another city near by and we went to several other cafés and pastry shops along the way. It was a great ending to our time in Ancona. Even with the circumstances of our sleeping arrangements, Danielle and I had an amazing time in Ancona because of these men! They brought us to so many neat places and great restaurants! So, we were on the ferry that night off to Ancona. Getting through customs was insane! I'm not sure if describing what happened can be incriminating to me, but I want to share our experience! So, we were 3 weeks past our date of having to leave Shengen countries. Ok, so because we "were" 3 weeks past our date of having to be out of Shengen countries Danielle and I were a little scared to go through customs just incase they did check. Although anyone you ask will tell you, they don't check Americans. But that's the right attitude to have, so we were scared. We walk up to the customs booth and see 3 men inside. Now we are freaking...one of them may check. We turn the corner and the entire is lined with customs officers!! I almost had a heart attack! We haute sat and smiled and didn't say a word. They took the passports, stamped them and let us on our way. They didn't even look to see when we came in! People are right I guess :\ its still not a good feeling. All it takes is one person who wants to actually do their job and we would have been a bit screwed! Anyways, we ande it to Ancona the next morning. I remember riding the overnight train from Granada, Spain to Barcelona, Spain and waking up in the morning on the rain, riding the coast on the edge of the cliffs. Watching the waves hit the sides of the cliffs and seeing the sun rise was one the best mornings of my life. It was wonderful. Well, this ferry ride tops that. Only a little :) I woke up to the sun rising on the hundreds of islands off the main land in Croatia. It was one of the most beautiful sights I've ever seen. Really. I took soooo many pictures! I know I can't capture what I saw with pictures alone but it helps! So, we arrived in Ancona and started our mission to find WiFi and a cheap hot cup of coffee. We found both pretty quickly! It took us about an hour to find a place but we did! I think being in Italy so long made us forget the rest of the world does use and offer WiFi in public places! That's one downfall about Italy, technology sucks there. Not sure why. I figure since they get so many tourists they would shapen up. So, we put out some Couchsurfing requests or look for hostels and let my mom know we were still alive and kicking! I wonder what she will think if she ever reads this blog! There is so much we don't tell her because we don't want her to worry...lol...hopefully she will read this in years to come and not now! One of our requests was answered 30 mins after I sent it! We made the plans to meet that evening and Danielle and I were off to see the city for the day! We eventually found a hostel that allowed us to drop off our backpacks for a few hours (free of charge). I will not pay to have someone watch my bag of clothes!!! It's clothes!! Not some valuable shit! We always make a joke that if they loose our stuff it will be ok...lol! I just think its dumb, just let us put our bags down, if somethings happens it happens. If not, then we still have our stuff. I have learned very slowly that my personal belongings have no value. My passport and camera maybe haha but everything else can go, if it had to. After having to toss pajama pants (at the airport in Barcelona) that I paid $50 for and other items, I have realized that clothes and other things CAN be replaced even if you don't think so at that moment. Ok, so we dropped off our bags at this cool hostel and went walking down the boardwalk in Split. It's a wonderful place, reminded me a lot of south beach. The set up was very similar. We kept walking towards this really big hill and walked up it until we realized it turned into a small mountain pretty much. Lol. At that point we were so far up we just decided to keep going. We had some amazing views of the city! We met a woman who was on vacation with her parents, they were from Colorado. Very nice lady. We spoke for a while and laughed a lot. It was nice to speak to an American for a while :) Our CS host was a bit off. We didn't care for him. He kept making comments about us being American and every time we did something he would say "ugh Americans". We didn't feel so comfortable so we planned to leave earlier than we had said. He was nice just very short with us. I don't understand why you would have someone come to your home if you don't like the nationality they are. He could clearly see we were American on my profile. O well. He gave us a warm place to sleep. It disappoints me to meet people like that though. He really shouldn't do CS for this reason. You have to be really open to all cultures, religions, races, etc if you do CS. It's just part of the gig. The last day we were there he said we should be up by 730-8 so we could get ready, eat and leave. He said not worry about setting our alarms that he would wake us up. He woke us up at 8 and then said we had 5 mins to get ready before his friends were there to leave. I was pissed. That wasn't cool and he definitely did it on purpose to us. I was annoyed we listened to him. We should have set our own alarm. We had time to throw on our clothes and run out the door. It was ok though, we were away from him! Even though we stayed with an idiot our time in split was great!

Pictures from:
Milan
Porto Novo