Welcome to my blog. I document my adventures in travel, style, and food. Hope you have a nice stay!
All in Vacation
We flew down to the Los Angeles area yesterday for our annual visit with my family. Today was mochitsuki, where family gets together to make rice cakes for the New Year. Afterwards, Melody, Tynor, and I drove back to Lyon Supply to have dinner with my parents and my Aunt Frances, and we got a chance to see how empty the store looked.
This post covers our last couple days in Budapest and the trip back to Seattle. I've also posted a lot of pictures on the Budapest page.
We arrived back to Budapest on the 27th, and Melody's conference started on the 28th. This post will cover the first half of our last swing through Budapest. I'll post about the second half soon after we return to Seattle.
Eger, Hungary was our quickest visit, since we were there for less than 24 hours. It was a nice chance to take a breath, however. Even though we did several things, they took only the better part of an afternoon.
Kraków, Poland was our next destination. It's described as meny to be the “Next Prague” as far as tourism is concerned. Oddly enough, we had already been to the “Next, Next Prague”s, Budapest and Dubrovnik.
Since we'll do more sightseeing in Budapest after Melody's conference, I'll post the pictures page then (probably after we get back home). In the meantime, here's a narrative of our first Budapest stay.
Ljubljana (lyoob-lyee-AH-nah), Slovenia was quite a change from Bled. While we were pretty laid back in Bled, we ended up doing a lot of sightseeing in Ljubljana, although we took the opportunity to spend some time in coffee houses in the afternoons.
Bled, Slovenia was meant to be a less hectic stop on our trip, to give us a chance to recharge. The setting couldn't be better, with the clear lake set in the lush mountains and a penzion (inn) with the feeling of a small Alpine resort.
After Mostar, it was back to Croatia. Split is another coastal city, but feels much more urban. Many ships come here, as well as busses and trains. While it's used as a transfer point by many, there are also a lot of people who stay a few days in this resort-like city.
Bosnia-Herzegovina was in the throes of war in the early 1990's, but Mostar seems to be an up and coming tourist destination. It's pretty easy to find people who speak English, and those who don't know enough words to make communication not at all difficult.
Croatia is very popular with tourists, especially the Dalmatian Coast, anchored at the south by Dubrovnik. There are more pictures on the Dubrovnik page, including ones showing the great view from our room.
Planning this trip was very involved, but things came together pretty well. I'm lucky that Melody enjoys the research involved with such a task.
I'll be posting pictures and information about our trip to Eastern Europe in two ways. These blog entries will have some pictures but for the most part will have quick information about the city we're visiting and small stories describing our visit. This entry is actually being posted after we've been to a few cities, due to the lack of internet access. The first Trip Log entry is about our flight over, followed by our experiences in Dubrovnik, Croatia and Mostar, Bosnia-Herzegovina..
Kellen, Josie, and I made it safely to CA on Sunday and even though it's been only a few days, we've been pretty busy. So far the weather has been in the 80's/90's, and has been pretty humid, not unlike what we left in Seattle. Last week it was cooler in Southern CA, but this week it's a few degrees cooler at home. Figures.
We just got back today from a quick trip to Spokane to see Melody's family. In addition to Irene, Neal, and Barbara, all the Knoepfel family from IL were there, and it was great to see everyone.
Melody and I are heading east to Spokane this morning to see not only her relatives and friends there, but to meet up with the Knopefls from IL, who are there this week too. We've been fortunate enough to have seen them all within the past couple years (Brian and Frances last year, Kevin, Joanna, Jenny, and Hans the year before) but don't want to miss an opportunity to see them again.
We're back in Seattle after spending the week in Southern California. It was a pretty whirlwind trip, but things went well. It was nice to thaw out with warm weather.
