Greece, Albania, Montenegro to Venice

Firstly, I apologise because I cannot fin the apostophe key on this keyboard! Alright, so after we spent our last night on the yachts we woke up early and had to clean up! For the people who had decided to cook risotto while sailing through the storm this was a hard task, but we got it done very quickly and got a 10 out of 10 from Chrissy and Dan.
Before we left I went over to the toilets at the restaurant we had adopted as our on land home. Out the back of the restaurant was the tiniest little kitten ever! I was very excited. The only other kitten I have ever seen this small is my own child Jack when he landed on our doorstep. So of course I had to give it a little pat and dragged around a bit of paper towel for it which it attacked and chewed up. I was a bit worried about worms and rabies but it was so little I dont think it had time to catch any diseases. Hopefully.
That morning we drove through all these large hills/small mountains in the north of Greece. The landscape was so beautiful. I have taken so many photos out of the window of the bus and so many of them have the reflections of the bus window in them too.
It took a while to get through the border into Albania but as soon as we were through the landscape seemed to change immediately, it was bizarre! Out tour leader Blake gave us a bit of a spiel about Albanias history, which was very interesting and we were all leaning over each other to snap photos of the concrete bunkers that dotted the hills. Blake told us that the Albanian government figured that if they kept the roads terrible it would make it very difficult for any other countries to invade. It also makes it very difficult for Top Deck tour buses to visit. I think we only travelled about 250kms that day and it took about 7 hours. At the first loo stop all us girls were rejoicing. In Greece, this is disgusting but it is a story that must be told, you dont throw your loo paper down the toilet becuase the plumbing was done 100, 000 years ago, instead you place it in the bins provided. yes, toilet paper in bins. its very gross, particularly when the bins start overflowing. so we had been a bit traumatised in greece and when we got to albania the toilets were so clean we would have stayed there for the night.
We drove all day, on these bumpy windy roads through all these little villages. A lot of people were really surprised because the amount of rubbish is phenomenal in Albania. It is everywhere. Even on the side of the highway it looks like garbage trucks have backed up and emptied their loads. In the towns there is rubbish on the ground everywhere. I think me and Jus werent as dumbfounded because we have been into the Aboriginal communites in Central Australia where the rubbish problem is worse. It was streange though because all the people seemed really well groomed and clean and tidy, so they obviously took pride in themselves but not in their surroundings, I guess. We wondered if they just thought the problem was too big and didnt know where to start cleaning up! They definitely need a Clean Up Albania Day though. Having said that though, I really enjoyed the drive through the countryside. Its a beautiful country.
We finally got into Tirana, the capital city (possibly only city) in the evening. I actually really liked the city, it totally contrasted with the countryside because it was so clean and colorful. Theyve painted all thier comission housing in these bright colours and patterns and it just makes the city look really cheerful. It just looked like theyd really gone to a lot of effort to make their city look nice and I liked that. We drove up and out of the city a little bit to where our hotel was. We werent expecting much but when we got there we were stoked because the hotel was really nice. Because it was up on this hill we had this beautiful view over the whole city. So we all piled in excitedly and had showers with hot water and shower curtains!! The only shower Id had while sailing had been one of those outdoor ones they have at beaches just to rinse the salt water off. And it had been cold so these showers were pretty exciting. We had dinner in a room that was obviously a wedding reception room ordinarily. We all had a good laugh because we were all freshly showered and wearing clean clothes and eating in this room full of lace and doilies, after 3 days of wearng the same clothes and no showers. We had a traditional Albanian meal which was mushroom soups, chicken and mashed potato and ice cream for dessert. I didnt realise chicken and mashed potato was an Albanian meal but apparently it is.The ice cream though was a bit weird, it was like it had been whipped and then frozen again, kind of like frozen meringue (sp??).
The next morning after vegetables and cheese for breakfast we all piled back on the bus. The north of Albania was much more green and seemed to be more of a farming area. The south had been quite dry and rocky.
We stopped for lunch at this tiny little roadhouse near the border of Montenegro. There was a little souvenir shop attached that we all raided. I have to say Albania really knows how to sell merchandise. They had Albania everything - pens, lighters, magnets, keyrings, flags, t shirts, all with the Albanian flag on it. I came back in during lunch when there wasnt as many people and had a great time playing charades with the man in the shop who didnt speak any english. He was lovely and sold me some really nice earrings which I eventually figured out were traditional Albanian handmade earrings. Then I figured out he was asking me where I was from because he was saying "Germanic??", so I said "No, Australia" and he was pretty amazed and acted out how far away it was, and I just nodded enthusiastically. Then he gave me a free pen, I think he liked me.
Before we had lunch we had all had a play in the bunker that was next to the restaurant, but when we came back to the bus after lunch there was a gun sitting on the bunker!!! It was so bizarre, so a few people posed for a photo with the gun in the bunker but there was no way I was going near a gun that had just been left lying around! It is such a weird part of the world.
As soon as we crossed over into Montengro the landscape changed again. It became a lot more foresty and treed. Blake gave us the history of Montenegro which was quite confronting seeing as it is such a recent history. I think he said Montenegro only got its independence from Serbia two years ago. He also told us that in Albania and Montenegro you get taxed a lot more if your house is completed so most houses look half built so they dont have to pay as much for them.
Ok so we drove into the city of Herceg Novi and found our accommodation, and here is a great story. Because Montenegro is such a new country, it is only now opening its doors to tourism, but they havent had time to build any hotels yet, so what have they done? They have converted half their hospitals into hotels. But I dont meant they have converted every second hospital into a hotel, I mean every hospital is now half hospital/half hotel. Yes, we stayed in a hotel hospital. Our room had a button to call the nurse. We had patients in their robes wandering the halls. One of the girls on our tour had a chest cold and went and saw a doctor down the corridor from her room. It was so surreal, but so funny. The accommodation was probably the worst weve had while weve been away, but I think the fact that it was half a hospital was such a novelty that it was worth putting up with bad rooms just to say wed stayed there!
I just found the apostrophe! ''''
We all went down for dinner in the dining room and got a plate of sliced cucumber for entree. No dressing or garnish or anything, just sliced up cuce. But I love cucumber so I didn't care! Then we had a rissole, chips and a pile of silverbeet, which wasn't awesome but it was definitely edible. Then they brought us out a banana each for dessert. Hmmm..... I guess if you go to Montenegro you have to expect an unusual experience.
The next morning there was no hot water so I went without a shower, which I think I'm getting used to. Breakfast was gross omelette pancakes but they didn't even bring me one out so I just ate some bread. I accidently found the hydrotherapy room trying to find the laundry. We all piled on the bus again and drove an hour or so into Croatia for our day trip to Dubrovnik. Dubrovnik is known as the jewel of the Adriatic and it was awesome. Another trip highlight. It is a really small city with a wall all around it, so we started with a walk around the top of the wall (after a pizza and gelati breakfast stop). I loved this because you looked out one way onto the beautiful sea or you looked the other way into the little streets of the city and into peoples back yards. Good snooping time. We spent about an hour and a half walking along the wall at a snails pace and only got half way around. We came down off the wall at the old port and took a ferry out to a little island about a km offshore. The island was called Lokrum island and it was so pretty. It reminded me heaps of Canada because it was covered in pine trees and had a really rocky shore. We avoided the nudist beach and found a nice spot to go swimming. The water was so blue and a little bit cold but definitely worth getting in. I liked this island because they had peacocks wandering around too. We stayed until the sun went behind a cloud and we all got chilly, so we jumped back on the ferry and back to the city. Had a wander down the main plaza of the city and then it was time to get back on the bus!
Back at the hospital we were served up dinner, oiled carrot, pink chicken and shredded cabbage. Now seriously, I have really enjoyed eating as the locals do while Ive been away but I have my limits, and Olivia does not eat pink chicken. I hightailed out of there and went down the street with a few others and found a restaurant. The waiter (there was only one) was very surprised to see us. He said "Yes? Can I help you?", we said, "Can we get some dinner?", he said "Dinner? You want to eat??!", we said, "Yes", he thought about it and said "Uhhh, dinner. Uhhh, yes... YES! You can have dinner!". We were ready to run again at that point but he seemed so excited now we couldnt leave. Turned out that the food was awesome. I had filet mignon and it was possibly the best meal I've had since I've been away, except for maybe the €2 souvlakis with chips or the lasagne at the Top Deck tent in Rome.
That night the tour group had a punch party in a carpark. The stench of the bus toilet wafted around us and we found a box of puppies. I'm laughing now as I'm writng this because it was such a strange night. Yes, one of the girls had a look in a box at the edge of the carpark and inside were three little black lab looking puppies. They were very cute and divided the group between those who wanted to cuddle the puppies and those who though the puppies were disease infested. I stayed away from the puppies because I didnt want to get attached and I knew we couldnt really do anything for them. A few of us (including our tour leader Blake) thought it woulod be a good idea to take the puppies with us and have bus puppies but Foggy our driver was not impressed and said no. I had an early night, while the rest of the tour partied hard. If I found my inner party girl on the first tour, I lost her again on this tour.
The next morning I completely bypassed breakfast and apparantly it was one boiled egg each so I don't think I missed out. We traveled up the beautiful coastline of Croatia, through Bosnia and back into Croatia. Croatia was one of the place I wanted to visit most on this trip and even though we didn't get much time there I'm glad we came because now I know I definitely want to come back! It is so beautiful. We stopped for lunch in Split, it is so obvious that Croatia is really embracing tourism. Everyone we spoke to could speak english to us and all the menus in restaurants and signs everywhere are in Croatian and English. We kept travelling all day, but we were pretty excited because we were back on the motorways now!! Woohoo! We go to our hostel in Zadar that evening and the rooms were fine but there was one toilet and one shower for all the guys and one of each for the girls. So we had one sink to brush our teeth for 30 plus girls. We went into Zadar for dinner, it was a really interesting little town. It was a Sunday so it was pretty deserted, but we found a nice little restaurant and had some great food. It was another little car free city like Dubrovnik, and the streets were all marble or marble-like stone, and very slippery. It kind of felt like we were inside a shopping centre. After tea we went to the foreshore to see the sea organ! I don't really fully understand how it works but it looks like steps going into the water but somewhere there is all these holes and when the waves come in they push air out of other holes and it makes organ sounds! It was so beautiful, really relaxing! After we'd had enough time being amazed at the sea organ - I swear it started to play the beginnning of Thomas the Tank Engine - we found this other thing that I can only compare to an outdoor lit up dancefloor!! Along the foreshore they had all these flat circles built into the foothpath. They represented the planets in order and they were all to scale. The sun, which was obviously a lott biger than the others, was lit from beneath and lit up in all these different patterns and colours. It needs photos to be properly explained, but neededless to say, it had pretty lights, so I absolutely loved it. Another highlight. We could have stayed there in the dark on the pretty light up sun thing with the sea organ playing for a really long time!!
The next morning I had no shower again. I couldnt be bothered waiting for 30 other girls to have theirs first, although it turned out that everyone seemed to be thinking the same thing and when I came out for breakfast there actually wasn't anyone waiting for a shower. For breakfast we had a delicacy called two slices of untoasted bread and jam. I think because we are all in the same boat and there is nothing we can do, we all manage to laugh at things like this.
We spent the morning driving higher and higher into mountains and it started to get really cloudy and misty and rainy. Very simillar to Switzerland. Once again, when we crossed the border into Slovenia the landscape changed again. Although it was more the architecture here. It started looking more like Austria here, which makes sense because Austria borders Slovenia. Lots of flower boxes, very nice.
We drove up to a place called Postojna to go to some caves!! The Postojna caves are the 2nd biggest cave network in Europe, the biggest isn't open to the pubic though. We had a 90 minute tour through the caves that was really cool. First we had to take this little open train deep into the caves. Clearly Slovenia doesn't know what liabilty is, because there were so many times we had to duck under rock overhangs, it is amazing people don't get decapitated. The coves were beautiful, very magical. I couldn't decided if it reminded me of Lord of the Rings, Harry Potter or Narnia. There were thousands of little stalacmites that looked like meerkats to me, and I think I made a fool of myself a few times because I kept saying "oh look at that one, its so cute!!", and of course, its rock. Not meerkats. Right at the end the caves open up into this huge cavern called the concert hall, and our guide told us they have Christmas concerts and orchestras and performances there. I could imagine it would be amazing.
We jumped back on the bus. One of the guys on our tour had eaten dodgy chicken in Split the day before and the poor guy had got food poisoning. So he had skipped the caves and slept on the bus. The poor guy looked like death when we all got back on the bus. I wanted to give him a pat on the shoulder or something but he looked so sick in a very "sont talk to me, dont touch me, let me stay in my induced coma" way.
After a fw more hours driving we made in to Venice!! Hurray!! It was very exciting getting off the bus because this was our last stop on the Top Deck so we never had to get back on the bus again!!! YAAAYYY!!! I really didn't mind the bus travel to be honest, but after 3 weeks of it I was ready to say goodbye! We are staying at another campground, simillar to Rome but much smaller. But really good facilites. The funniest thing is that the campground is next door to the airport!! So every few minutes we see and hear a plane taking off. Of course, being mostly Aussies on the tour, we are all quoting The Castle like crazy. "Is that the runway?? There??" It is very funny. "How's the serenity??" The good news is that we are flying out of that airport tomorrow! Apparently we can walk there!! "It will be very handy if we ever have to travel". Ahh a plane is flying overhead right now as I write this.
So, the night we got to Venice I jumped in the shower straight away beacause I hadn't washed my hair since before I went swimming in the ocean in Dubrovnik and then got gelati in my hair on the way back to the bus. I was abit worried my hari was going to starting breaking off in chunks but it is still intact. This is another campground, so we have a Top Deck kitchen tent set up with an on site chef. We were stoked because the best meals we've had have been at the Top Deck tents and this dinner was delicious too. Chicken cacciatore. Oooh, and before dinner we had plates of bocconcini, tomato and mixed lettuce, all drenched in oil and pepper. I was thrilled because me and Jus had sat with a group of people that didn't seem very interested in the bocconcini so we had a feast on it!!
One of the scheduled activites on the tour is a toga party in Venice, and there were three other Top Deck tours in Venice that night, so everyone toga-ed up and came to the little bar for the toga party. And by toga, I mean bed sheet. I had a bit of trouble trying to get my toga to look normal and ended up giving up and creating my own toga design that was much more comfortable. Once again, I went the way of the nanna and didn't stay too long at the toga party but had a great time while I was there.
Ok so, now I am up to yesterday! Almost caught up!
Yesterday, we had CEREAL for breakfast!! You don't miss cereal until you eat plain bread for breakfast a few days in a row. I also got a hot cup of tea which was really exciting although I am still hanging out for tea with fresh milk instead of long life milk. Our campground is on the mainland of Venice, so we all jumped on the shuttle bus and ventured into the island of Venice. I think that Venice and Paris have been my favourite cities. I don't think I had expected much from Venice because a lot of people had said it was smelly and the water was dirty. But the Yarra is pretty dirty too, and we only got the occasional waft of stench. It didn't lessen the awesomeness of the city for me. We went on a gondola ride, me and one of the guys from the tour acted out a proposal and had people on bridges and other gondolas clapping and congratulating us. I thought someone should have given us a free meal or a bottle of champagne but we got nothing!
After the gondolas we went to a lace demonstration, but it didn't really help me understand how they make the lace. Something about wax paper and double knots. The rest of the day me and Jus wandered around shopping, slowly, slowly making our way back to the bus stop.
Last night, back at the Top Deck tent we had chicken in white wine sauce that rivalled my mums. Sorry mum. Had an early night last night even though it was the last night of the tour. This morning we got up and waved goodbye to the bus again as the rest of the tour continues up to Austria, Prague Germany etc. So today, the plan is to relax, do some washing and relax some more. And then we think we might go back into Venice this evening to see it at night. Then tomorrow we walk over to the airport, and fly to Japan to see Allie!!!! Im very excited to get to Japan. I had a few homesick days the last week or so, and I'm starting to look forward to getting home, but really excited to see Allie and Ross and visit Japan.
Ok, I'm in Italy, so ciao ciao!!