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!