Croatia: Part 3

Old Rovinj as seen from a pier with a sign labeled "photo point".

In part 2 of this particular misadventure, I described the drive from Bamberg to Rovinj and ended with us failing to find our apartment, sleeping in the car, and finally finding the agent that helped us rent the apartment, who then took us there in person. I meant to take photos of the apartment to post here, but it slipped my mind every time we arrived or left, so I'll just have to describe it for you.

The apartment building is actually a 3-story house with sections converted into individual apartments. The top floor was converted into two apartments, the middle floor into one and the bottom floor into one. The land lady, Helga, and her husband live on the second floor, her parents live on the first floor and they rent out the two apartments on the top floor. Here in Europe it's very common for Multi-generational families to live in big houses converted into several apartments, so people often rent out parts of the house as family members move out. Aimee and I lived in such an apartmet in Memmelsdorf, Germany (about 10 minutes from Bamberg) before moving on-post before we adopted.

The apartment we rened only has one bedroom, but the living room has a sofa that converts into a queen-size bed (I thought it was comfortable, Aimee thought the mattress was too firm) and the bedroom has two beds, which the kids shared. It also has a kitchen and a washing machine, though no dryer. Both of those were big plusses for us.

We took a long nap that first day we arrived, since we'd only slept a couple hours in the car. Then we set off to shop for food and a few other necessities for our stay in the apartment.

The market in old Rovinj.

I'm not sure what Aimee smells here! When she saw Isaiah in this picutre she said, "no wonder those bananas were bruised!"

The market is in old Rovinj, which you saw in the photo at the top of the post. The vendors there had a huge selection of fresh fruits and veggies and all kinds of varieties of olive oils, vinegar and fruit preserves, most of which I'd never seen before, all locally grown and produced. The grapes were particularly scrumptious, we went back for more the afternoon before we left town. Aimee bought some olive oil, balsamic vinegar and jam. They were expensive but delicious.

We didn't actually go to the beach that first day, since we slept most of the day after having slept in the van. We asked the land lord to recommend a restaurant for dinner and he said "Giovanni", so we went there. We were greeted with the sight of a pig on a spit.

The owner of Giovanni (Giovanni himself?) roasting a pig on a spit in front of his restaurant.

The kids wee grossed out and fascinated at the same time. Aimee and I had some of the pig, while the kids had peperoni pizza. By the way, in Italy, what we call peperoni is called Salami, so whenerever you go in Europe if you want peperoni ask for salami. If you ask for peperoni you'll get hot peppers. The pork was delicious, but greasy. You'd think most of the grease would melt off, but the skin - which is carmilized with some kind of sauce - holds most of it in. The skin was good too. It tasted like chicharrones. Yummy!

The next morning we got up, had breakfast and headed out for the beach.

How many eggs does it take to feed a family of seven? More than what you see here!

There are tourism offices all over Rovinj, so we stopped at one of them and asked for directions to a good beach for a family with kids. They directed us to this beach.

The shore was covered in gravel, not sand, so the kids didn't get to build sand castles, but the water was very shallow, and the grade going out to sea was very gradual - perfect for a bunch of kids who had not only never seen the beach, but also don't know how to swim and and were afraid of the water.

Aimee tells me she took the kids to a pool when she picked them up in Ethiopia and they were all so afraid of the water she had to carry each of them in. They've been to a pool in Bamberg several times now, so they're not scared of that anymore, but the beach still scared them. They were very tentative at first.

At this and most other beaches people are allowed to ride their motorcycles pretty much right on the beach. Yes, I was jealous. Actually, motorcycle would be the ideal way to travel to Croatia, the roads snake through the mountains entertainingly, and once you get to Croatia bikes can park all kinds of places cars can't. Trust me, parking is always at a premium! Of course, the torrential rains we ran into in Austria and Slovenia would be much worse on a motorcycle, and you can't carry seven people and a dog on a bike, but for one or two, it would be great.

Croatia: Part 2

When last we left our intrepid band of adventurers they were departing Bamberg en route to Austria, Slovenia, Italy, back to Slovenia and eventually to Croatia.

We headed south through Nurnburg and Munich with the weather gradually worsening. The rain intensified, but besides that we had smooth driving all through southern Germany. The US military has a deal with the German government and an oil company called Esso by which we can buy gas at Esso stations without paying European taxes using a pre-paid card we buy and replentish at the PX (Post Exchange). That deal is only valid in Germany and only at Esso stations, so we stopped at the last Esso station before the Austrian border to gas up even though we were at over half a tank. We also bought an Austrian toll sticker. The Austrian government requires travelers to buy a toll sticker (called a vigniet) for 7.50 Euros and affix it to their windshield for the privelage of driving on their Autobahn. You still have to pay at the toll booths, but if you get caught without one they'll slap you with a 300 Euro fine.

We hit the first of what would be many traffic jams (stau in German; pronounced shtau) just as we passed Salzburg, Austria. We took the opportunity to snap some photos of the scenery, but there wasn't much to see yet, as we were only in the foothills of the Austrian Alps. Once we got to the good stuff, it was too dark to take pictures.

Traveling with kids is slow. We made pit stops roughly every 1-1/2 hours to make sure the kids got to use the rest room. Aimee put Abi in a diaper in case of emergencies, but we didn't want her to regress in her potty training, so Aimee took her to the bathroom along with all the other kids at every stop. My job was to take Heidi on her potty break.

You may be thinking that's an unfair trade; taking five kids to the bathroom vs. one dog. What you probably don't know is that Heidi is afraid of her own shadow, but strong as an ox, so when I try to take her on a walk in the middle of a noisy truck stop, she tries to run away in every possible direction at once, pulling on her leash like she's trying to win the Iditarod all by herself. She's a handfull.

Heidi in her new favorite spot; behind the cooler, in front of the third row.

We're pretty well accustomed to being a freak show when we go anywhere with the kids. People point, stare, openly talk about us and even take pictures of the Caucasian woman and the Hispanic man with the five African kids. This trip, however, saw a whole new phenomenon. Complete strangers started giving our kids stuff. The first occurence was when we were at a rest stop in Austria. There was a dispensing machine outside the bathrooms that gave out toys for 1.00 Euro. Abi asked Aimee for a toy and Aimee said "no". Abi said, "peese, Mama" (that's not misspelled, that's really how she says "please"). Aimee said "no" again and a nice Austrian gentleman popped a Euro coin in the dispenser and gave Abi a bouncy rubber ball. Abi said "dake schoen" in her best German and left in triumph with her new toy.

Here's something you'd never see in the States. Who needs a Suburban?

We bought a portable DVD player specifically for this trip, even though Aimee still has one her parents bought her before we were married. This new one has a 9-inch screen, and we can use the case we bought for it to hang it between the driver and front passenger seat so all the kids can watch a movie or TV show while on the road. The kids loved having something to help pass the time on such a long trip and it worked great, except the speakers aren't loud enough. I had to rig some laptop speakers to it so they could hear their show. Fortunately the DVD player has a USB port that I used to power the speakers.

The kids and the mutt enjoying a movie on the new portable DVD player. I'm not sure why Candace is holding her nose!

As we headed further south, the rain turned deluvial. I could hardly see the road and the Odyssey was hydroplaning all over the autobahn, so I had to slow down considerably. On top of that, we also went through a lot of construction and a few more traffic jams, all of which slowed us down. Just before the Slovenian border, we stopped at another gas station to buy a Slovenian toll sticker (vigniet), this time for 35 Euros. We continued on into Slovenia, hit even more construction and some crazy detours that we thought for sure would get us lost, but didn't.

All in all, we thought we were doing pretty well, given the weather and road conditions. Then we hit Italy and (dum, dum, dum!) Trieste. Going into Trieste the highway gives out and you have to drive on regular city streets. By some miracle we made our way back onto the correct highway, except we didn't actually know it was the correct highway because the roads in Trieste are so poorly marked, if at all (mostly not). We missed our turn-off, of course, since we didn't even know we were on the right road, went too far, turned around and went back to Trieste. We wanted to stop and ask for directions or buy a map, but all the buisnesses, even the gas stations, were closed (it was that late). We drove around aimlessly for a while, becoming ever more frustrated, until Aimee came up with the idea to stop at a hotel and ask for directions.

The hotel clerk was extremely helpful and gave us good directions, so, exhausted and frustrated, we discovered we'd driven past our exit twice. By the time we left Trieste, it was already 1:00 am, but our travails were not over yet! Aimee called the agent that booked our apartment to let him know that we would still show up and he asured us it would take around an hour to get from Trieste to Rovinj. Yeah, right.

Austria, Slovenia and Italy are all EU members, so you don't need a passport to travel from one to the other, but Croatia isn't yet, so you do need to show your passport at the Slovenia/Croatia border. Once in Croatia the highway turned into some of the twistiest roller coaster two-lane I've ever driven. Fortunately, the kids were asleep.

We got to Rovinj about 3:00 am and stopped at a gas station to ask for directions. We followed them, but the house was in a tiny village about 20Km outside of Rovijn on desolate, unmarked country roads. There was no way we were going to find it in the dark after being awake for 24 hours. We finally gave up around 4:00 am, parked the car and slept for a few hours. That's right. We had an apartment booked, but Aimee and I, our five kids and the dog slept in the car. That, ladies and gentlemen, is a Schneegans Misadventure.

We woke up around 7:00 am and went to a tourist office to ask for directions again. We also bought a map of Rovinj and one of the surrounding area. We found the village, had to ask a villager for directions to the house (seriously, ther is no way we would've found it the night before!), but up until this time we thought the agent was the person we were actually renting the apartment from. He wasn't. He took us to the actual apartment, which was back in Rovinj. In fact, we'd passed it at least four times the night before and didn't know it.

So ends this installment of the Schneegans' Croatian saga. Tune in next time to find out if it gets any better!

Croatia: Part 1

I started this blog because I figured it would be easier to keep everyone informed about what's happening with the Schneegans clan using this format, so for our inaugural post I ask you to sit right back and hear a tale; a tale of a fateful trip that started in Bamberg, Germany aboard this not-so-tiny ship.

This here, ladies and gentlemen, is how I spent the bonus I received from the Army while in Afghanistan - the Schneegans Baby Wagon, a 2006 Honda Odyssey. It's a great vehicle, built with typical Honda precision and attention to detail, and it rides a lot better than something its size should. It handled the twisty mountain roads of Slovenia much better than I expected it would, but I'm getting ahead of myself.

Ever since Aimee picked up the kids in Ethiopia, we decided that our big family vacation when I returned from Afghanistan should be to somewhere with a beach, since the kids had never seen anything resembling an ocean. But, because of cost, we also wanted to go somewhere we could drive. Even with ridiculous European gas prices, it's still less expensive to drive seven people and a dog to your destination than it is to fly or to take a train. Also, once you get to your destination, you have to get around somehow. That's difficult and/or expensive to do with five kids and a dog without a car to stuff them all into. That made driving our best option, but driving limited our destinations to Italy and France. We would be taking our vacation in late August, and northern Europe starts to get cold at that time, and Spain is too far to drive with kids.

Fortunately, German and American friends of ours told us about Croatia.

Croatia sits right across the Adriatic Sea from Italy. It was once part of Yugoslavia and involved in the bloody, genocidal wars that took place after the death of the Communist Yugoslavian dictator, Tito. If that doesn't sound like the kind of place you'd want to take your kids, then that would explain why so few Americans go there. However, the fighting is long over; Croatia is a member of NATO, in consideration for EU membership and a major destination for Western Europeans looking for a beautiful, warm destination with a favorable exchange rate that isn't too far away. Aimee and I were looking for the same thing, so we started planning the trip when I was home for R&R back in December.

Aimee did the vast majority of the planning; picking out a place to go, booking a place to stay, etc., and ran the options by me over e-mail or phone. We settled on a town called Rovinj (pronounced ro-VEEN) on the northeastern peninsula you can see on the map on the right. You can see a larger version of the image by clicking on it.

Aimee booked us an apartment through an agent online. Lots of people in Croatia convert parts of their homes into apartments and rent them out to tourists. The prices are much more reasonable than most hotels in Europe, and in our case we got a kitchen and a washing machine, which meant we could cook at least some meals at the apartment and save money.

One of my duties on most of our trips is planning the route. You can see an image or our route, planned with help from Yahoo Maps, on the right. It took us south from Bamberg through Nurnburg and Munich, then through Austria, Slovenia, a tiny chunk of Italy and the city of Trieste, back through Slovenia, then to Croatia. Believe it or not, that was the most direct route, but it turned out not to be the fastest or the smartest to take. Hold that thought.

Aimee and I got up bright and early on Friday, 15 August and packed up the last of our stuff. Aimee had already packed the kids' things the night before. The kids were excited and Heidi, our dog, could tell something was up. She wouldn't leave my side.

Unlike most parents with five kids, we got ours all at once, so we didn't get a chance to improve our chaos management skills over time with a gradually increasing number of kids. Thus, we're not as efficient at getting our clan from point A to point B as most parents of five. In short, it takes us for ever to go anywhere, we're chronically late, and this day was no exception. Even though Aimee and I got up at 4:00am, we were already running late by the time the kids had breakfast.

Another of my usual chores on Schneegans Misadventures is packing the car. It's a curious phenomenon, but in our family the amount of luggage a person requires seems to be inversely proportional to their size and/or age. Thus, Abi requires a section of the kids' suitcase, her backpack, a diaper bag, extra diapers, water toys and a humongous stroller, while I get a laptop case. OK, I exaggerate, but not by much.

I don't know if you can tell from the two pictures of the car, but the weather was grey, dreary and rainy - in other words, typically German. We were really looking forward to our beach vacation.

With the kids and the mutt loaded in the car we were finally ready to go... around 11:00 am! Our slow pace would come back to haunt us!

Ladies and gentlemen, this is your captain speak... Holy Crap! Where'd all that grey hair come from!?

Your navigator on this Schneegans Misadventure will be Aimee Schneegans. Please keep all appendages inside the vehicle at all times and refrain from making rude gestures at bad drivers in Porsches. Will the Schneegans Clan make it to Croatia? Will there be any crying, potty accidents or motion-sickness-induced vomiting? Will they get lost (du-uh!)? Join us here next time for the exciting continuation of Schneegans Misadventures: Croatia!