With a week off of school I decided to visit some friends who are also living in Europe, Kaya(with AFS) Kyle(living with family in Germany) and Carla (a previous exchange student to homer, now back at home in Switzerland. After waking up at 5:30 am, taking a bus 4 hours to Split, Croatia, then a plane to Germany, then another to Zurich then a train to a smaller town in Switzerland I met up with Kaya. It wasdark when I arrived in Switzerland but I knew I must be in the alps because I saw an illuminated church that looked
as though it was floating in the sky, I awoke the next morning to find myself surrounded by snow topped forest covered mountains. Kaya lives on the side of a now snow covered mountain in a old wooden house surrounded by fields and cows and other cute little houses and other snow covered houses. her host family was incredible, also hosting me and sharing with me traditional swiss food. the best was the breakfast; dark bread with nuts and whole grains inside (something I have yet to find in Bosnia) with butter from a local farm and home made grape jelly.
I realized, as she showed me around her house that it was the first time I had been in a house in 3 months, it felt so good to eat food made with love and watch siblings play and tease each other. the families the snow, and the Christmas decorations all made me excited for the holidays to travel back to Alaska and be in my own home with my family :).
After spending a few days living in what felt like a fairytale world at Kaya's house I traveled by train to visit Carla in the north western part of the country. I had never traveled so much by train and the precision of the time astonished me. when meeting up with someone"I will meet you in the Olten train station at 3:21 or 3:26" or after sprinting down a mountain to a train station for
10 minuets "oh, it's only 10:41, we have plenty of time, it doesn't leave for another 2 minuets" where as in Bosnia or Homer almost everything is 10 or 15 minuets sloppy.
the part of the country where Carla lives is less mountainous but no less beautiful, all the houses have a charm to them and the rolling hills of fields and forests make you feel like you are on the page of a story book.
Seeing my friends again who where all going through something similar to what I was but also very different we where able to relate and compare cultures and experiences. We spent nights lying in bed after playing "ligretto" a swiss card game just talking about th
e world and ourselves and if and how we where changing and growing. Spending time with old friends in a new place and exploring a new world was strange but also so nice.
after 6 days of paradise it was time to come home, back on the train, the plain the bus, and as I traveled home to Mostar I started to get excited, and homesick for my new home, and friends and family which are now becoming old and familiar.
Hey Maggie,
ReplyDeleteI'm finally getting a break so when I got up this morning and made a cup of coffee, I made my usual to do list... laundry, trim horse feet, get firewood, sand icey driveway. But at the top of the list, I added: WRITE MAG!So here I am trying to get something at least crossed off my list.
I was certain that I told you about my adventures in Yugoslavia in 1970 when we had lunch at Cosmic Kitchen that day. It's tough being on the sliding side of dementia, because now if I think about doig something or saying something... I later think that I've done it. It makes for some interesting surprises and late fees.
I September of 1970 I left Israel. I had been there nine months working on two different kibbutzim, one in the north: upper Galilee, and one in the Negev dessert to the south.My sister came and rescued me as I had no money and we decided to head to Norway and spend some time on our old family farm with Great Uncle Bjarne.
We hitched a ride on a freighter from Tel Aviv to Athens and then went and spent a week on a Greek Island eating oranges, olives and bread. Then headed north. It was dark when our ride dropped us off at the Greek/Yugoslav border and we walked through customs and then down off the roadway to camp along a river. There were about a dozen darling buff guys there who had just pulled their kayaks out of the river and were camping too. We had a great time around the campfire trying to communicate. They spoke nothing but Serbian and Croatian... languages we had not much opportunity to explore in our small Minnesotan high school.
In the morning we said our goodbyes and they headed back down the river while we climbed the bank and got back to hitchhiking north. Between the border and Dubrovnik we got picked up by a gypsy family in a horse drawn wagon, a dirty old man in a vw bug, and a trucker.
We had no money, but I vowed that one day I would return to the Adriatic coast. It was so beautiful, and so untouched by tourism at that time.
Then we got picked up by a bus. When the driver stopped, we pulled out our pockets to gesture we had no money, but the he welcomed us on the bus. We ended up sitting near a deaf person, and my sister had just gotten her degree in deaf education, so they could communicate in Universal sign language. As the bus passed through the north edge of Dubrovnik we saw our kayakers by the side of the road, loading up their gear for the drive home. We hung out the window, shouting and waving and everyone cheered at the connection.
We spent six dollars and six days hitchhiking through Yugoslavia to Austria. The only other thing I remember clearly was Plitvice lakes. You must go there. We got in trouble there because we decided to go for a swim...bath. An official came and explained to us in English, French, German, and Spanish (languages we knew between the two of us)that it was illegal to get in the lake because it was the drinking water supply. I answered that we were sorry and didn't understand in Hebrew. But he shooed us on our way.
We made our way through Europe to Norway. I stayed there for about a month. But I was feeling the same as you had described in your previous entry on sadness. I decided to come home and go back to college. I had been on the road for almost a year and made it home for Christmas. I was 19 years old.
After I read your blog several weeks ago, I spent about an hour looking at flights to Zagreb and Prague. For some reason I am very curious to see Prague... I think it was because of Peter Sis' picture book about the keys. And I would love to go back to visit Dubrovnik and Plitvice now that I have more than $20 in my pocket.
By the way... Your spelling has improved immensely! BUT... please look twice at those troublesome words: where versus were.
Luv ya. kiki