Our pre travel travels :)

It's sad, we only have a few nights left here in Brno before we set-off to explore the rest of Europe Since we were so limited on time before we set out to travel, we did a little more traveling to fill up that time. So sit back, crack open a cold one, turn down the TV and relax as you read about our last week's adventures. See, I knew you'd enjoy listening to the Christmas music that should be starting to play as you read this

So last Monday, the 11th, at 1300 we had our final presentation for our internship at Moravia. We spent the morning packing our bags and going over our presentation one last time. We arrived at Moravia early enough to print off our notes and papers and to drop our bags off outside the room where we were to present. The presentation went well. I'd say it was pretty casual as the two vice deans both messed with their cell phones while we were presenting, one even managed to answer his phone and leave the room! So we finished up the presentation, turned in our ID cards, grabbed our bags and headed out for the adventures we had in store!

From Brno we took a bus to Vienna where we would spend two nights exploring the city before heading to our next destination. Vienna is a very beautiful city from what we saw. It was also very cold so walking around at night and all day was very challenging. We survived and managed to see a very good portion of the city, both planned visits and even some when we didn't know exactly where we were (yah, it might have been my fault). We spent Tuesday night having a few beers in the hostels basement and chatting with a couple of Kiwi's who were living in London and traveling for a few weeks before heading to South America for 3 months and then back to New Zealand to live. Rough life I tell ya! While chatting with them, the fire alarm even managed to go off and we even had to get up and start to leave the building. At first, no one really moved until they came running down the stairs telling us we had to leave. It was only a false alarm and we our returned to our drinks. We called it an early night as we had to be up bright and early to catch our train.

So Wednesday morning saw us heading south to the capitol city of Slovenia, Ljubljana! We arrived a little after 1400, found a map and headed out to our hostel. It wasn't exactly in the city center but it was still pretty nice. We ended up having a large 8 bed room all to ourselves which was very nice. They even had WiFi so we could jump on the internet and plan the remainder of our trip since we really had nothing planned! We spent the remainder of the day and evening walking around the city seeing the sights and enjoying the beautiful Christmas lights and decorations throughout the city. The city was very nice and the people very friendly. We found it very interesting that the country was switching from their current currency to the Euro on the 1st of the year. The country must be doing pretty good to be going on the Euro! We grabbed a few groceries from a local store and headed back to the hostel to make some dinner but once we arrived back, we soon found out their were really no pans at all to make dinner with! So, we improvised and ended up making soup in a frying pan. Yah, I know what college students traveling on a tight budget will do to save a few bucks! We spent the evening planning the next few days and a few of our days on our next big travels that will be here soon then we know it! We crashed, only to get up early again!

Thursday morning we were up bright and early to finish a few things, pack and take our time getting to the train station to head to our next destination! We boared the train around 1000 and set off to Zagreb, the capitol of Croatia. We really didn't want to visit this city but it was the only big city in that area of Croatia we knew we could find a room and get to where we really wanted to go in Croatia. Once we arrived, we asked where the bus station was and set out to buy our bus tickets to the Plitvice Lakes National Park. This is why we came to Croatia, but more on that in a minute. After we got our tickets, we headed to the city center and then to our hostel. It was a little difficult to find but we managed and were soon checked in and had our bags dropped. A few things on our hostel. We had a 4 bed room with a bathroom in the room. Little did we know the bathroom was open for everyone in the hostel to use so we had people walking in and out of our room all day and evening, especially when they got home from the bars at 0200-0300. Oh yah, I was extremely happy about that one! It was ridicolous. Ok, enough of that. The city was nothing special so we walked around for a bit, saw the few sights and then headed back to our room that was just above the temperature outside to warm up and get ready for the next day. We tried to get a good night sleep but were awake from 0200-0300 so we were a bit slow in the morning. But regardless we were up bright and early and on a 0730 bus to take us to the lakes. Every city we had been in the previous few days had all been extremely cold, foggy and wet, but once we got outside the city, the fog lifted and the sun came out and the temperature warmed up. We had planned on it being very cold all day and each had on a fair number of layers but we ended up removing a majority of them once we got off the bus. It was a 2.5 hour bus ride and once we were off, we found a map and set out to explore the park and beautiful lakes. We picked up a few "tour guides" at the beginging of our walk. Two local dogs were tagging along with us for the first hour or so. They were muts, but cute. Lynsey named the one Sparky and I named the other one Cleveland, we called him Steamer for short. The lakes were by far the best part of the trip. They were so unbelievably beautiful and the water was so clear you could see so far down. We were 80 m's above the lake and were able to see large schools of trout swimming around in the lakes. Very cool. We walked pretty much non-stop for 5 hours around the lakes and did so in a t-shirt and long sleeve shirt. It was really nice outside. Check out the website for the park here: Plitvice Lakes National Park. We hoped on a bus passing by around 1700 and were back in to Zagreb by 1900. We pooked around the city for a bit and then headed back to the hostel to clean up, pack up, relax and get ready to leave in the morning. We were going to be up bright and early to start heading back to Brno.

We boarded the train at 0725 headed to Vienna and then to Bratislava, Slovakia. We had to make a quick stop there to get a few things and were able to get the few things we needed and get back on a train to Brno, all in under an hour of arrival. It couldn't have worked out any better. So we got back in to Brno, got a few groceries for the last few days and then headed back to the room. We were glad to get back last night and get one more good nights sleep. We even managed to listen to the Badger kick Pitt's butt in B-Ball and WW play a heck of a game against the tough Mt. Union team. Good job and great season Warhawks!! We spent today, Sunday, doing laundry, cleaning, organizing and packing up a few things. So much stuff to do, so little time and no idea just where to start! We'll get everything done though!

I'll post another entry before we leave on Tuesday the 19th for 2+ weeks of traveling I promise. It was a great 5 or so days of traveling, especially since it was with a great travel companion We miss you all back home and our looking forward to seeing each and everyone of you upon our return home. Until next time, drive fast, take chances!! Take care and be sure to keep checking in. You just never know when we'll post something new for ya to read or pics to check out! Until next time, ciao!!

Jon and Lynsey