For the Beauty of the Earth

In the midst of these travels blogs, life still goes on around me. It's been taking me a while to document my whole trip while still keeping up in school, but it's fun to remember everything that happened not too long ago. Over my American Thanksgiving break, I had the opportunity to return to BC for a not so pleasant reason. I was very happy to go home, but it was for my Grandma's funeral. My Grandma was 89 when she passed away and she had been struggling with Alzheimer's for years now and was in the later stages of the disease. She was having seizures and we all knew she was suffering. She caught pneumonia and within a day, she was taken home to be with her Lord. My Grandma's life was a testament of God's faithfulness. She had such a servant heart and a warm personality. I look up to her so much and will miss being welcomed by her smile every time I came. Welterusten.

My Grandma would have loved to hear all the stories of our wild travel adventures, so I continue with our next destination: Croatia.

Catherine discovered a National Park in Northern Croatia called Plitvice Lakes (Plitvicka Jezera) National Park, I googled some of the images, and we both knew we had to go there. We both love nature and beautiful places, so this was a must-see. Here's just a teaser picture to whet your appetite:

The plan was to travel about 6 hours by train from Budapest to Zagreb Croatia and then take a bus from Zagreb to the town we were staying at about 10km outside the park. We had heard the train system in Croatia was slower than buses, plus the only way to get to where we were going was by bus or renting a car, and the bus is significantly cheaper. Anyways, as we were on the train, it pulled into this rail yard/train station and stopped for an abnormal amount of time. We were by no means ahead of schedule, in fact we were running late, but that's normal for trains in Eastern Europe. After waiting about half an hour, not know what was going on, some officials came onto the train. Turns out they were customs officers and we had crossed the border into Croatia. I thought they were cops and something more serious was going on. The Croatian officer came to our seats, looked at our passports, asked a couple questions, stamped them and moved on. Then another guy came, a Hungarian customs officer, and did the same. A third guy came in and asked if we had any alcohol etc that we were taking across the border with us, which we didn't :). Finally we were on our way again, but our Croatian train problems were not over. A little while later, the train stopped again. One of the train workers came to our compartment and said 4 words to us in English - "change train bus baggage". I'm usually down for a good riddle, but this was not the time. In trying to piece these words together, Cath and I determined 1 thing, we needed to get ourselves and our stuff off the train. There were befuddled tourists from all over Europe gathering on the platform. I heard a guy speaking English, so I asked him if he knew what was going on. He said he'd been to Croatia before and this sort of thing happens all the time there. Great.

We ended up following the crowd of people who seemed to know where they were going and we ended up by 3 big tour buses. Everybody was putting their bags below and climbing on, so we did the same. We figured the bus would take us to Zagreb, but it ended up stopping at another train station and they kicked us all off. At this point, we were way later than expected. Another train came to that station which took us the rest of the way to Zagreb. From Zagreb, we walked to the bus depot and caught a bus to the small town of Korenica where I had found a cheap guesthouse to stay within a short bus ride from the park.

The guesthouse was run by an older couple that spoke very little English but kept a very clean house. We met a girl from Belgium who was also staying at the guesthouse and she was travelling alone, so we all went to the park together. She spoke perfect English as well as French and German, so having her around proved to be quite useful as well. I'll let the photos speak for themselves and attest to the beauty of this place. Definitely a must-see. It was quite busy, but Cath and I were some of the only North Americans there. It attracts a lot of European tourists. The weather was perfect as well.

Raised platforms to protect the landscape

One of many waterfalls

The water was so clear and clean!

Having the time of our lives

At the end of the day, after having some nice showers and resting up a bit, we went for dinner with our Belgian friend. There is almost nothing to do or see in the town of Korenica, but there was this delicious little restaurant (called Dalmatica) that was serving fresh caught fish. It was some of the best fish I have ever tasted in my life, and it was reasonably priced for the quality. Because food pictures are a necessity, here's something to salivate over...

Croatian tomato soup and the fish of the day - with a garlic sauce