This is how my day started....An uber ride to drop bags off at the Marriott and then us off at the airport found this in the back trunk so in order for our bags to go ... I had to hold this on my lap for the entire ride... Only in Budapest!
We got to the airport around 11 am, rented a car and then packed up to go on holiday to Croatia!
Ioana came over from Romania and got in safely the night before. She's had a hard past few weeks with her organization so she needed a break!
We changed last minute from going to Split to Dubrovnik, Croatia so we blindly followed what the GPS said was the shortest route...
We drove through Hungary, following the Croatoan border. It's sad to see the intense fence that Hungary is putting up to keep the refugees out. It's a major chain link fence with tons of barbed wire coiled around the base. This runs all along the border so it's in the backyards of families and churches and stores. It's got to be a sad and fearful thing to have this in view from your home.
This was going through the Hungarian/Croatian border.
We then passed through Croatia for a while and came to the Bosnian border. I don't think we necessarily expected to go through Bosnia to get to Dubrovnik...
But once we got past the Bosnian border, it was eerie and sad. I'm pretty sure it's the remains of the Bosnian War but miles and miles of houses be buildings were laying burned and destroyed.
And then after about 10-15 miles we passed this - a cemetery with all new tombstones from the same time in the 90s. It made me think that of all places for the refugees to go, this is a place that understands being chased from your own country and being scared because of who you are. And then I thought of all he clothes and shoes and sock and coats that we sent and even more all the Bibles that are going to these misplaced people who are being welcomed by small countries with a history like Croatia. And I'm thankful for them!
So a funny thing that lightened the sad - when we drove into Bosnia I was driving and all of a suddent this older man comes stumbling out in the rode and I'm talking about how he's either drunk or having a stroke ... And then he gets to the ditch across the road and he we see he was actually just preparing himself to ... Eliminate....:). And all along the Bosnian roads we saw young men and boys and men ... Vacating on the side of the road. I'm not sure whether they're lazy or they just don't have bathrooms???
We kept driving into the night and went though such amazingly creepy mountains where boulders had fallen down and trees were fallen across he road - all the while rail poured and intense patches of fog blocked our view. This sounds dramatic and over the top but ever word is true! Ioana was praying and Carlene was trying not to get sick... And we kept passing country signs and getting a little more freaked as we saw signs for Sernia and Montrnegro....
And then when we thought we couldn't go any more / we saw the lights to the tiny Bosnian border that we were told to go through before we got to the house we were staying at. We went though passport control...
And then found our way up a huge intimidating hill to our rental house...
And when we finally got in and settled we realized that this was everywhere we went through before we got back to our vacation spot in Croatia!
It was exceedingly nice though that we got in at midnight and this tray was waiting for us!
And we climbed into bed and slept like the dead until the sky lightened and we opened our shutters and saw this!...
And we made pacts to not return the way we came even if it takes longer - and then we set off to enjoy he first day of vacation!
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