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Connections: Belgian Bikers!

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Traveling is a wonderful way to meet people! Unfortunately, often those connections are strong but only fleeting. Connections is our tag to recognize and remember some of the wonderful people we meet.

We really enjoyed our time in Berat, Albania. We were able to meet and enjoy a lot of people from around the world. Not only did we meet an amazing Albanian tour guide/hostel worker, but we met another amazing traveling couple. This Belgian couple is traveling from Europe to Asia on bikes! Yes, that is correct, they are biking across the world! Amazing, right? Let’s just say that our trip felt positively cushy when thinking about theirs.

We met them during our tour of Berat and found we had a lot of similarities relating to our trip, age, and interests. We particularly enjoyed chatting about teaching (he works at a university to train teachers) and the differences between Belgium and the U.S. especially related to voting, politics, and other governmental systems.

One of the really fun things about meeting people on the road is being able to share experiences like this. We spent a wonderful day and fun evening with them in Albania. One of the really sad things about meeting people on the road is having to say goodbye knowing that it is unlikely that you will meet again. One of the slightly unusual things about this connection was that we didn’t have to say that goodbye right away. We knew that we were traveling the same directions, from Berat to Gjirokaster, and then on to Greece. They would be leaving ahead of us, though arriving behind us (they’re on bikes remember??) but we discovered we would be in Gjirokaster at the same time. We exchanged contact info and planned to meet up again. Unfortunately, our plans in Gjirokaster fell through. What a bummer! However, that made it all that much more fun when we realized a few days down the road that we would be in Meteora, Greece at the same time! We enjoyed another excellent evening with this excellent couple!

Now, it is hard to expect more than that, so we were especially thrilled when we saw the same couple (ever so) briefly in Delphi, Greece as well. After all of that, I hope we do manage to meet again some day!

Unfortunately, we failed and this was the only picture of us... Boo!

Unfortunately, we failed and this was the only picture of us… Boo!

Budget: Albania

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This is one of our Budget series of posts to give you an idea of how much we spent traveling around the world. Here we will look at Albania. Check our posts to see what kind of activities we did and where we stayed!

In Albania we used the lek. We converted to US dollars using the current conversion rates at the time of our visit. It was approximately 100 lek to 1 dollar.

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Total Spent (11 days): $621.01

Accommodation: $294.32

We stayed in 4 different places in Albania: 2 dorm rooms, 1 dorm room by ourselves, and 1 private room at a resthouse/hostel.

Activities: $49.50

This included 2 walking tours, several museums, and the archaeological site of Butrint.

Alcohol: $20.61

Our alcohol category does not include alcohol that we buy with food. We bought several bottles of beer at different hostels and even some raki (Albanian brandy)!

Food: $185.25

We did almost no cooking in Albania. We really enjoyed the Albanian cuisine which was tasty, filling, and overall, really cheap! Luckily, every one of our accommodations included breakfast!

Miscellaneous: $4.59

This includes postcards and laundry.

Transportation: $66.74

We traveled to 4 different cities in Albania and we are pleased that this is so low. We traveled by bus and furgon (minibus). We did not pay for any transport within any of the cities, only transport between them.

This divides out to $56.46/day which is our lowest per day budget yet. Albania is a great place to travel cheaply! 

 

 

 

 

 

Berat, Albania

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Getting to Berat from Tirana was not as hard as we feared. Our hostel in Tirana gave us a map with information about where the minibuses (furgons) for Berat left. There is no main bus station in Tirana. The bad part was that the day we left was miserable and rainy. It was quite funny, actually, we moved slowly in the morning and were planning to leave right at the checkout time of 11. We were a few minutes late, pulled our bags on, and started to head out the door. At that moment, the sky opened up and it started pouring. We decided to stay in the hostel for awhile to miss the downpour. We waited for almost 2 hours… then decided to set out anyway. After a 30 min walk in the rain, we were pretty grouchy. But luckily, the furgon to Berat was not hard to find. We did have to wait for awhile, as the furgons don’t really leave until they are full. But we made it to Berat by late afternoon. We were lucky to have GPS and the google map preloaded on our phones because, again, we didn’t get dropped off where we expected and had to find our way to our hostel. Luckily, by then, the rain had stopped!

Where We Stayed

Ana’s Rest House – We had spent a long time deciding whether to stay at the highly rated backpacker’s hostel or Ana’s, which was right across the street. We are happy with our decision. The guesthouse was quite new and comfortable. The bed was large and lovely. We also lucked out with the new worker there. He was a native of Berat and was starting a burgeoning tour business. He was around all the time and we really enjoyed a lot of discussions with him from everything from books, to American politics, to Albanian history.

What We Did

We stayed in Berat for 4 days but feel like we didn’t do a ton.

Ethnographic Museum – This was similar to something we did in Mostar, Bosnia. It was an old, Ottoman style Albanian house which had a small museum dedicated to arts in crafts in the area. The upstairs was a preserved living area from Ottoman times. It was fun to see the plush carpets and couches. It was also interesting to see and learn about the hidden rooms that women stayed in when guests were present that had small screens so they could watch what the men were doing. Unfortunately, pictures were not allowed inside the museum.

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The Ethnographic Museum from the outside

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The grounds of the museum

It was similar to some of what we saw in Mostar. The pictures below are from Mostar, not Berat.

 

Intricately carved furniture
An Ottoman Era style house
Lovely couches and carpets

Walking Tour – The worker at our hostel was starting a walking tour business. It was not free, but seemed like a reasonable price. It ended up being a tour with just us and one other couple from Belgium (who we really enjoyed meeting and chatting with). It was really nice to have such a small tour because it became very personalized. Both Della and the guy in the Belgium couple were teachers, so we asked if we could see a school. Our guide quickly took us in and chatted with the director and we were able to quickly visit a classroom. We chatted about a lot of different things, learned a lot about the history of Berat, and enjoyed walking through the medieval center, entering a mosque and a Sufi Tekke, and hiking up to the castle where people have been continuously living for thousands of years. Our guide then took us for traditional Turkish Coffee and to his favorite restaurant in Berat.

Some of the things that we were fascinated to learn were that Albania has a long history of religious tolerance and has really never had any violence related to religion at all. Our guide showed us many examples of people of different religions supporting the beliefs of others. Some examples were the Muslims of Berat sheltering hundreds of Jews during WWII and including Stars of David in their Mosques as a way to respect them. He also talked about how during communism, most churches were destroyed. Many mosques were left because, once the minaret was torn down, the building could be reused for something else. He talked about some of the communities of Muslims coming together after communism and helping raise money to assist the Christian or Orthodox communities in building new places of worship.

We also learned about how much Albanians love the USA. This was surprising given how many countries don’t love Americans. The Albanians love us!  We had first heard about this in Tirana but it was confirmed here. Our guide explained that it stems from Woodrow Wilson making sure that Albania stayed a country back at the beginning of the 1900s and was confirmed with the US assistance in Kosovo and President George W. Bush’s visit earlier this century.

 

View of the neighborhood the hostel was in
Lovely ceiling in the mosque
Climbing to the castle
Inside the Mosque
View of Berat from the Castle
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Star of David on the Mosque
The Castle
The Mosque
See the thing by Eric’s head? That is the castle we climbed up to!
Ceiling of the Tekke

Visiting a School – Once our guide/hostel worker found out that Della was a teacher he expressed his deep interest in teaching as well. He also was adamant that Della have a chance to see Albanian schools in action. Not knowing what to expect, we said that might be cool. He called a friend, a Peace Corps volunteer from Maryland, who worked in an alternative high school in Berat. This opened the door for us to spend the morning with the Peach Corps volunteer discussing his job and then an hour in his classroom where he works with a partner Albanian teacher to teach English to the students, the equivalent of seniors in the US. It was a unique experience that we quite enjoyed. We felt quite bad thinking that the school went out of their way for us. We found out that even though they are about a month into their school year, they are still working on getting their schedule in order, due to shifting teachers, who may or may not work at other locations in the area at the same time. So, the schedule for any given day comes out the prior day and can shift at the last minute. For this reason, our Peace Corps volunteer explained, the class we saw was not completely typical. There were about 20-25 students crammed into a small room and the class was a bit shorter than expected. There were things that were different that Della sees at home and a lot of things the same. Mainly, the room was very small and there was no technology. We also were told that the books hadn’t come in yet, so only a few students had them. We found out later that the class was combined so was twice as big as normal. We were really fortunate to be able to experience this!

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A hallway decoration

Where We Ate

Hotel Mangalemi – This very pleasant restaurant is attached to a Hotel. We liked it so much we went back twice. The second time we were able to sit on a lovely patio. The excitement of the evening came when a man and his two grandkids (??) came up to the patio where we were eating and proceeded to shoot off several fireworks, just for fun as far as we could tell.

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Final Thoughts

We really enjoyed our time in Berat, in large part to the excellent connections we made. We were so fortunate to meet several other travelers while we there that we really enjoyed chatting and hanging out with. We were even luckier to be able to connect with our hostel worker, who was an Albanian native who loved to talk. We hung out with people every day and almost every evening, learning a lot, and enjoying the ambiance. We even were able to hangout with the travelers who were staying at the backpackers across the road as well. Berat was a charming town with some beautiful scenery, but what made us love it was the people we met.

Thoughts on 100 days of Travel

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Wow! We have been on the road for 100 days! It is hard to imagine. 100 days before our departure, we ruminated on what traveling would be like: harder or easier than “real life?”  I’m not sure we have the answers to that question yet, but we definitely have some musings we’d like to share after spending 100 days abroad.

Della’s Thoughts

People often talk about how much traveling has changed them; made them see things in a new light, reformed their views on life, etc. I can’t say that has happened yet for me. However, there are certain things that I have struck me while exploring the countries we’ve been to.

1. We often think of America as a young country, and it is! However, there are so many countries out there that are even younger, becoming what they are as little as 20 years ago. This observation comes knowing that we chose to visit only very specific parts of the world in the last 100 days. But I was amazed at how many of them are new countries, countries that only became what they are in the 1990s… In my lifetime. South Africa threw off the reins of apartheid, violently, in the 1980s and early 90s. Namibia was part of South Africa (and before that German South West Africa) until 1990. The Czech Republic, Poland, Slovakia, and Hungary left communism and created new governments and new economic systems in the late 1980s and early 1990s. The rest of the countries we’ve visited: Slovenia, Croatia, Bosnia Herzegovina, and Montenegro were all former members of the communist Yugoslavia. The majority of those countries declared independence in the early 1990s, creating new governments and market economies. Montenegro didn’t declare full independence until 2006! Some of these changes to new governments were violent: South Africa and the former Yugoslav countries, and some weren’t. But I can’t help thinking about how all of these countries, as they are, are younger than me. It’s an interesting experience, talking to people who are facing new journeys and creating new nations. I am optimistic and hope to visit again in another 20 years to see how far they’ve come! Will they have changed as much as they have in the last 20 years?

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2. One thing that has stuck out is pretty depressing. No matter where we go, people always have found a way to hate or discriminate against other people in their past. It might be because of skin color, religion, or ethnicity. It doesn’t matter… People will always find a way to think they are superior, think that others are wrong, and worst of all, think that there are real reasons for killing. Some of this has been recent and some has been a little farther in the past, but it is an ever-present part of the discussion in any country we’ve visited. In South Africa, it was dramatic. Apartheid was a fully realized, institutional separation of people based on their skin color. People were actually categorized and carried IDs to that effect: white, indian, colored, or black. It was horrifying to see what people went through. Upon leaving Africa, we headed to Europe. Here we were faced with the history of WWII in our first countries: Poland and Czech Republic both housed horrible concentration/death camps. Jews (and others) faced discrimination in many of these places long before WWII as well. Moving into the former Yugoslav countries was even harder. We faced clear evidence of the wars of the 1990s. Places we visited had been utterly destroyed by people who all really share common roots. Visiting Bosnia Herzegovina was especially difficult as we saw the scars of the siege of Sarajevo (the longest siege in modern history) and heard about the ethnic genocide that occurred here. To say that it was extremely sobering is an understatement.

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A “Sarajevo Rose,” a scar from the 1992-96 siege that have been covered in red resin so it is never forgotten

3. People go through a lot of horrible things. Despite the terrors associated with systematic discrimination, war, or even genocide, people find ways to rebuild and move on. I have been overwhelmed with the resiliency of the human spirit. I described above the horrors that many of the people in the countries we have visited have gone through. People lived through experiences that I can’t even imagine, let alone think that I could live through myself. But we haven’t seen anyone wallowing in despair. People have rebuilt, created new, beautiful places out of the old. They have moved forward and have done it with a smile. People are friendly, generous, and motivated. As I mentioned above, the beauty that I’ve seen and the amazing places I’ve visted have astounded me… These have occurred in the last 20 years! Imagine what they will do in the next!

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4. All of the above points have driven home something I have always known: the privilege I’ve been afforded growing up where and when I did. Most of these world altering events: complete revamping of your economic system, absolute new systems of government, war, sieges, and genocide have occurred during my lifetime. And for the most part, I knew very little about them. I was struck while watching the Miss Sarajevo video in Gallery 11/07/95. It was clear that the creator was using a little handheld video camera, racing through the bombed out buildings of a city under siege. This was in 1995… I was using a similar video camera to record and replay my gymnastic meets. I am unbelievably fortunate and that is something I should never, ever forget.

Eric’s Thoughts

My thoughts I’d like to share are going to be much shallower than Della’s. But I will say that I agree with everything she has said!

1. It is very easy to travel as a native English-speaker. Everywhere that we have gone, it has been pretty easy to find someone that speaks English, or a sign written in English telling us what to do. We’ve tried to learn a few words of the local language, but usually only remember to use it as a hurried thanks. And, people always feel like they have to apologize to us if they don’t have perfect English! It’s pretty humbling to realize how much the rest of the world has to work to accommodate us.

2. I wish there was a drug for decision fatigue. As we discussed in the post we linked to at the beginning of this blog, being able to travel for a year in theory sounds pretty relaxing. No job to worry about, you can do whatever you want, etc. But, I think in many ways traveling is even more stressful. I miss having a standard routine where you basically know what you’re doing every day. While traveling, we are constantly having to make decisions about what to do, where to eat, where to stay, and so on. Making all of these decisions can be tiring. I can see the appeal of something like a cruise where all of these decisions are made for you! Especially the decisions around meal time. Trying to find a restaurant when you are hungry is the worst.

Should we eat at the restaurant that's one block away with mixed reviews, or the one with two dollar signs that's a mile away and has good reviews? Or should we just cook?? Maybe just ice cream for dinner?

Should we eat at the restaurant that’s one block away with mixed reviews, or the one with two dollar signs that’s a mile away and has good reviews? Or should we just cook?? Maybe just ice cream for dinner?

3. Nothing makes me feel more at home in a place than finding a cheap restaurant with interesting food. Related to point #2, when we’ve been able to find someplace that we enjoy, it just makes me feel so much more comfortable because that is one less decision to make each day. I think this is probably the reason why Krakow is my favorite place that we have travelled to so far, since we found a restaurant there that served Polish food for cheap prices just a block away.

Found a nice place to eat!

Found a nice place to eat!

4. I’m getting older. Staying in dorms has really hammered home this point. One Friday night in Budapest, we were content to just hang out in the common room and relax. All the 20-somethings looked at us like we were crazy for not having wild bar crawl plans. I guess we’re just getting to the point where that doesn’t have as much appeal. Although, we did enjoy the pub tour we did the very next night! 😉

A typical evening scene

A typical evening scene

5. I miss home, but I’m not homesick. I miss being near family, to be there for important events. I miss having a house to come home to every day. I miss being able to go out and sample fun beers (I’ll tell you, the lagers here are getting a little repetitive…). I miss hanging out with friends (you may say you are living vicariously through our travels, but I am also living vicariously through your posts about what’s going on back home). But, don’t get me wrong… I’m not ready to come home. I am still enjoying seeing a new corner of the world every day, and finding out something new or seeing something I’ve never seen before. Thinking about home just gives me something to look forward to when we return!

 

Monthly Recap: Month 3

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Here we are at Month 3. Hard to believe. We’re still going strong, though Della is going through her first bout of true homesickness. This was an emotional and eventful month. We dedicate our thoughts this month to two wonderful women who lived long, meaningful lives. We both lost our grandmothers this month. Lucille, Della’s grandma, was 101 years old. Marvis, Eric’s grandma, was 94. They were both kind, caring, and generous. They will be missed.

Here are our stats for this month.

Countries visited: 6 (Slovakia, Hungary, Croatia, Slovenia, Bosnia-Herzegovina, and Montenegro)

Beds Slept In: 16

UNESCO Heritage Sights Visited: 8 (Levoca Spišský Hrad and the Associated Cultural Monuments, Budapest including the Banks of the Danube the Buda Castle Quarter and Andrassy Avenue, Škocjan Caves, Plitvice Lakes National Park, Historical Complex of Split with the Palace of Diocletian, Old City of Dubrovnik, Old Bridge Area of the Old City of Mostar, Natural and Culturo-Historical Region of Kotor) Total on RTW: 23

We traveled by 0 planes this month!

We traveled by 4 trains (though one of them involved a train, a transfer to a bus, then a transfer back to a train!)

We traveled by 5 long distance buses.

We traveled by 2 different rental cars which took us from Zagreb to Dubrovnik, then Dubrovnik to Sarajevo and back!

Top Moments:

~ Our first top moment came at the very beginning of the month! We had long been looking forward to visiting Spis Castle. We had planned to do it as a day trip from Ždiar, but felt thwarted by it being a holiday weekend and therefore bad bus schedules. We switched our plan and it totally worked out for the best. We added one more UNESCO site of the old town of Levoča and were able to spend a wonderful day at the castle. The weather was glorious and the castle even exceeded our expectations!

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The amazing Spis Castle

 

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~ We had a top moment when, after a long day of traveling, we were able to successfully meet Della’s parents at the bus station in Zagreb. It involved both her parents making a train, bus, train connection as well as us doing the same. We converged on Zagreb one Saturday evening- Peggy and Wayne from Vienna and Della and Eric from Eger. Della and Eric arrived first, connected with our VRBO host, and then decided to head back to the train station to meet Peggy and Wayne’s train. It made for quite a happy reunion!

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~ During our two weeks with Della’s parents, we had the benefit of Peggy’s Rick Steves’ Guide Book. (Eric loved that book and might consider it a top moment by itself!) Rick had warned us not to expect too much from the people in the Plitvice Lakes region of Croatia, stating that often the service left something to be desired. We were so pleasantly surprised during another one of our top moments. We had a long day of driving to arrive in the Plitvice Lakes region. We met our Airbnb host, who was wonderfully friendly, making sure we had everything we needed in a great apartment. He even brought up some free beers from the local brewery where he works. We then headed to a restaurant that he recommended where we enjoyed the service of a wonderful man. He was friendly, funny, and competent. It was just a cherry on top when he gave us travarica (Eric’s new favorite liquor) shots on the house!

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The beer was actually quite tasty!

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Dessert with free shots!

~ Eric and Della returned to Dubrovnik after a few days in Bosnia-Herzegovina with Della’s parents. They said goodbye to Peggy and Wayne in Mostar before driving the rental car back into Croatia. We weren’t really looking forward to spending more time in Dubrovnik given that we had been slightly underwhelmed by our first experience (high prices and a LOT of tourists). We were also a little depressed after having to say goodbye to Della’s parents. However, we enjoyed another glorious, sunny day (after many of rain) upon our return. There was no drama with returning the car (which was unexpected) and we found our lodging quickly, despite having to hike up 421 stairs with our bags. But it was the next day that really brought the top moment- we found out that Game of Thrones was filming in the city at that moment. We slept in (which could have been a top moment also) and then headed into the city to hunt for the sites of filming. Turned out that it was easy to find. We were able to watch them setting up for a large scene this coming season. The excitement came when we, first, got to listen to what must have been the camera director explaining exactly how the scene was to be shot and getting some inside info about what was coming! Then we saw LITTLEFINGER walk right by us! Finally, when we weren’t even expecting it (sitting on the square, enjoying a Coke Zero and some snacks), we looked up and saw CERSEI walk right by. Della feels like she even got a smile. =) What fun!

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Eric is the King in the ever-continuing Game of Thrones

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We were right there with the official Baratheon/Lannister banner!

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It was quite fascinating to watch them set up for what is probably one scene. So many people and so much work involved.

Runners up for Top Moments:

~Della, especially, loved all of Hungary. She doesn’t have any really great reasons except that it was extremely enjoyable and she somehow identified with the place and people. She wishes that she could list the whole time in Hungary as a top moment, but we try to be a little more specific in these recaps. So, we picked a moment that was in Eger, Hungary. You probably read how we experienced some pretty depressing, rainy days in Eger. There was one day in particular where we were quite annoyed. We had a lot we wanted to do, but we just weren’t feeling like getting soaking wet while trying to do it. So, we headed back to our pension to relax and read. All of a sudden, after a few hours holed up in the room, we glanced to the window and saw the sun peeking from behind the clouds. We dropped what we were doing and ran out to visit the Eger Castle before it closed. What views!

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The clouds actually added to the effect

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We love castles and views…

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so happy the sun came out!!

~ The middle of our trip with Della’s parents was plagued with a bit of bad luck: we experienced days of gloomy rain, bouts of bad colds (all of us in succession), injuries (Della tweaked her back, Peggy’s toe continued to bother her, and Wayne sprained his ankle badly), unpleasant experiences (lodging being cancelled on us at the last minute and then having to pay more for less, car companies who didn’t do what they said and then literally yelled at us and hung up on us, threating to let the car be towed instead of allowing us to return it: Sixt Car Rental, by the way), some sad family news from back home, etc. I tell you all of this because it was the backdrop for one of our runners up for top moment. After all of this stuff to make us unhappy, we arrived in Sarajevo. Sarajevo is a difficult city to visit for a number of reasons, but we found it amazing. We also were able to finally find affordable, good food. This may sound like a small thing, but, somehow good dining options seem to be able to make or break a place for us. We found multiple pleasant restaurants with genuine servers, good prices, and tasty food. (Even the hardest person to please among us was happy!) Our last night with Della’s parents was amazingly pleasant. We dined in our second town in Bosnia Herzegovina, Mostar. The evening at a restaurant with all the above, plus a great ambiance, and amazing views of the wonderful Old Bridge of Mostar.

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Happy campers… er… eaters!

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Local food delicacy called Burek. Yum!

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Our meal, see the view in the background.

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This lovely bridge!

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Sunset in Mostar, adding to the wonderful ambiance of our final dinner

~ See above for the lead up to this second runner up as well. We had had many days of rain during our trip and expected many more. We arrived in the Plitvice Lakes region on a cloudy evening, had a wonderful dinner (see above top moment), and slept well (except for Della who was fighting the cold at that time). We woke up to more cloudy, gloomy weather, which was truly unfortunate for our trip to the amazing Plitvice Lakes. We had been looking forward to this for a long time, reading blog after blog about how wonderful these lakes were. This is what they are supposed to look like.

Image Credit: adventurouskate.com

This is what they actually looked like when we arrived.

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The rain had also caused many of the wooden paths to be closed due to flooding. We were quite distraught but hiked on anyway. The top moment arrived when, at around noon, the sun was able to peek through the clouds! It wasn’t perfect, but it gave us the light that we had been hoping for. The mist cleared and we were able to enjoy the second part of the lakes!

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The lovely upper lakes

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The sun is out!

~ We had a wonderful time with Della’s parents, however, because their trip was short and there was a lot they wanted to see, we moved very fast! We rented cars and zipped from city to city, mostly spending only one night in each location. This was great because we saw a lot, however, we were quite exhausted by the time Peggy and Wayne left. Traveling like that is OK when you get to go home after, but on this long trip, we can’t keep up that kind of pace. We knew we wanted to slow down and thought that maybe we had found the place to do it. We headed to the bayside town of Kotor in Montenegro. We had booked an apartment through booking.com and didn’t exactly know what to expect. We arrived to a great place! Spacious, homey, and with almost everything we could want. We had already decided to hunker down for a few days, but now we think we might even go for more!

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Stay tuned to the blog for more pictures of the actual town. It is lovely.

Items Missing, Broken, Discarded, or Added:

Discarded/Broken:

1. Eric’s computer. We were quite frustrated because we had bought a lightweight netbook for the purpose of this trip, but by the second month of the trip, it was starting to malfunction. It wouldn’t start up regularly and we began to worry that it was on its last legs. Luckily, we were able to buy a new one, ship it to Della’s parents and have them bring it to us.

2. Della’s cell phone battery. While in Budapest Della’s phone died. Luckily, it turned out to just be the battery. Unluckily, we were told that the specific battery she needed was not sold anywhere in Hungary. Cue a late night rush to the store in Denver by Wayne (Della’s dad) the day before they left to meet us.

Added:

1. See above: New computer and new cell phone battery, purchased at home and brought to us

2. New soap

3. New toothpaste and two new toothbrushes

Packing Update:

We’re still mostly happy with the contents of our bags. We probably have more than we really need. We still feel like we haven’t used some of our summer clothing. Shorts haven’t been worn virtually at all. We have finally used our swim suits (swimming in the Adriatic, next to the walls of Dubrovnik, and in Zadar) and we made use of our cold weather gear again during our time in Sarajevo. We also have been potentially carrying more books with us at a time then strictly needed.

Books Read: (Have you read any of these??)

Della has read Poland by James Michener, Everything is Going to be Great by Rachel Shukert, The Bridge at Andau by James Michener, Final Epidemic by Earl Merkel

Eric has read Outlander by Diana Gabaldon, Fire From Heaven by Mary Renault, Gone Girl by Gillian Flynn

Eric and Della have BOTH read Stonehenge by Bernard Cornwell.

Make sure to catch up on all our monthly recaps: Monthly Recap 1, Monthly Recap 2

Budget: Slovakia

globegazers 1 Comment

This is one of our Budget series of posts to give you an idea of how much we spent traveling around the world. Here we will look at Slovakia. Check our posts to see what kind of activities we did and where we stayed!

In Slovakia we used the Euro. We converted to US dollars using the current conversion rates at the time of our visit. It was approximately 1.3 euro to one dollar.

Total Spent (7 days): $564.55

We normally break down into the following categories:

Accommodation: $268.72

We stayed at one hostel in a dorm, one pension, and one AirBnb.

Activities: $31.68

We didn’t have many activity expenses this month! We stayed in the mountains and did hiking which was free. This included tips on a free walking tour in Bratislava, entrance to Spis Castle, and a fee to visit a church in Levoca.

Food: $165.02

We ate out approximately 1 to 2 meals per day. The hostel that we stayed in for some of these days provided breakfast.

Miscellaneous: $8.18

This included buying postcards and our Zumba class.

Transportation: $90.94

We traveled by buses and trains.

This divides out to $80.65/day which, thankfully, is under our $100/day budget. Yay!

 

Small Comforts: Conditioner

enjean2013 Leave a comment

There are a few small comforts that we run into now and then that really make us feel better while traveling…

There are certain normal comforts that I chose to give up while traveling. One of them was hair conditioner. It just didn’t seem practical to carry large bottles of conditioner around the world and it didn’t fit easily in our toiletry kit (especially after we decided to try shampoo bars). Instead, I chose to bring one small, travel bottle of conditioner which I would use sparingly.

I have gone without conditioner quite happily for most of the days on the trip, however, there are some days when it is just fantastic to use it! Smooth, unknotted hair, easy to brush right out of the shower – that’s a true small comfort!

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*In case it wasn’t clear – this was a Della post. =)