Thursday, June 17, 2010

i'm singing to every song on the radio...




Greetings! So, my summer has been good. I went to the beach yesterday, went shopping a few times, and, oh yeah, went to the top of the Eiffel Tower!!

We left for Europe last Sunday (the 6th), and landed in Paris Monday afternoon. We went to Versailles, the Louvre, the Arc de Triumphe, and, of course, the Eiffel Tower. We also went to this amazing restaurant on our last night there that had the BEST pot-roast ever!!
We left Paris on Friday and went to Zagreb, the capital of Croatia. We met up with some of my mom's family there and went over to their house for dinner. The next day, we walked around the city for a little bit and got lunch at a local outdoor restaurant. Afterwards, we saw my cousins dance in a folk festival with traditional costumes and dances.
The next day, my mom went with her cousin and my dad to go visit the town where she was born. My sister and I stayed with my cousin and her mom in Karlovac, and went swimming in the river near their house. On Monday we went to Plitvice, one of Croatia's nine national parks. It was beautiful. There were waterfalls around every corner, tiny fish swimming in the crystal-clear lakes (the water was drinkable!), and huge mountains. It was so cool.

We left Zagreb on Tuesday and moved to Dubrovnik, a city along the Adriatic coast. We rented an amazing Croatian villa (which I'm in now :] ), and then walked around the Old Town, an ancient fortress that was renovated with new shops and restaurants. Croatia has some of the most amazing food. All of the ingredients are fresh (at my cousin's house, for dinner, we ate the last of their chickens!), and everything is very simple. Yesterday, we went to the beach right outside of the Old Town, and then met my cousin and her parents for drinks and ice cream. Today, we're going shopping and to the beach again. It's so cool here! Next we're going to Dublin, Ireland tomorrow!

The language barrier really sucks. My cousins know a little bit from school, but they prefer to speak Croatian. My uncle, Vinko, speaks only in Croatian when my mom's around, and they talk for hours! My dad, sister, and I just sit there cluelessly while they jabber on about who-knows-what. *sigh* I'm glad everyone in Ireland speaks English...

4 comments:

  1. Wow! Sounds like it was a really cool trip.

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  2. Wow! Croatia sounds AMAZING! I'm lucky that when I go to Poland (the only place in Europe, or out of North America, I go to), I can speak the language. Have fun during the rest of your vacation!

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  3. Have you heard about the 13 year old Croatian girl who woke up from a 24 hour coma, unable to speak Croatian but speaking German perfectly and fluently? She had been studying German before the coma, but according to her parents she hadn't been fluent. And a pschycologist said that there are cases where someone wakes up from an illness or a coma and can fluently speak other languages, even Biblical languages!

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