We’ve been busy here in Istanbul! Ellen and I arrived and were met by my brother and Cigdem (pronounced Chee dem), my soon to be Sister-in-law. It is so lovely to see them, to see my brother so happy. And I like Cigdem more and more every time I see her, and I liked her to begin with so that’s a whole lot!
We’ve been staying with the most generous and sweet friend that a family could ask for. Most of the week we have been on Büyükada; one of the Princess Islands. It is gorgeous …
Montenegro
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Montenegro! We got off the bus in Budva, an ancient city (we’re talking 500 BC) on the Adriatic Coast. Immediately it felt very different from where we had been in Croatia. Bus stop had no ATM (although it turns out they’re on the Euro), tons of taxi drivers pushing around, honking horns in the street, crazy motorcyclists sipping around. And it was hot! We had to take a taxi to our BnB because the owner told us we’d never find it by walking; the house is on a pathway more than a street. But as …
Dubrovnik & Mljet
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Dubrovnik lives up to it’s reputation. A beautiful old walled city, full of alleyways and ancient buildings. Unfortunately it’s also full of tourists, and after staying in small towns up the coast I felt pretty overwhelmed. Our bus took longer getting there than expected so we walked around for only about an hour before stationing ourselves at a restaurant with a prime view of the sunset.
On Wednesday we took one of many possible day trips to an island; we chose to take a catamaran out to Mljet Island, which is mostly National Park and has …
Croatia!
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Last Friday I arrived in Croatia! The plane arrived on-time, but it was after dark so I decided to take a cab rather than some combination of bus and walking. I felt very savvy walking away from the taxi that wanted to charge me twice the going price; he turned to the rest of the all-male taxi drivers and basically said ‘will anyone take this girl to this place for this price??’ mockingly and to my (and possibly his) surprise a lady driver comes up from the back of the stand and says ‘I will, …
Day Trip to Sweden!
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After arriving back in Oslo from the West coast on Thursday, my friends again met us at the train station. And luckily another friend from the Camino (Fiona from Australia) was also just arriving from Spain! After collecting everyone and dropping our bags, Hasti and Linda made us a wonderful Norwegian meal with lots of vegetables and fresh FRESH salmon! It was the best fish I’ve ever eaten, and Chelsea (who doesn’t normally like salmon) agreed.
Since Chelsea’s family is from Sweden (and we had originally planned to go to just Sweden until we realized …