Croatia
 

Even though this isn't really a "city", UT said I could post about Croatia here. I have lots of pictures and commentary from when Kelle and I went over.

My commentary will be in (what else) purple and Kelle's will be in Green.

Little bit of background, the commentary was written a little over 2 years ago. I was going to visit Croatia to see a friend over there (named Ivan) that I had known a few years, and while Ivan was teaching me Croatian, he introduced me (via internet) to his friend Hrvoje. I in turn, introduced Hrvoje to Kelle, and so that's how they met. She wanted to come with me, so I took her to Croatia with me.

As OC took the middle seats I took the last seats by the window two rows down from her. OC might have gotten 2 hours of sleep, but since I only had two seats, I might have gotten 15 minutes here and there. Every time I woke up, it was the SAME MOVIE over and over again: Unfaithful. I think I can recite all the lines.

We didn't sleep much. Maybe 2 or 3 hours at most. It was now October 26th, and we sat up, exhausted from trying to sleep. I went and put my face on, then waited for breakfast and started getting antsy, it was time to get there already. The little baby plane on the monitors in front of us was NOT moving across Europe fast enough. So we tapped our toes and Kelle took pictures out the window.

The Alps:

Turned it to Atlantis: The Lost Empire by Disney. Which I have at home. *sigh*. Boring trip, and I was tired. I had gotten 2 hours sleep before we left, and another 2 or 3 on the flight, and I was tired, but excited at the same time.

Before the journey had started, we did some research on what there was to do in Vienna, and decided we really wanted to see Saint Stephen's Cathedral. We weren't real sure how to get there, but we had about 7 hours until our bus left for Croatia, and we wanted to do something in Vienna while we were there.

Finally, the plane started to descend and we looked at each other. "This is it," we thought, "we're finally here." After 30 minutes of descent, Kelle's ear clogged up and it's been that way ever since. Happy to be on the ground where we could WALK, we grabbed our stuff and walked off the jetway into the land of where-they-speak-German. Only. Thank god for pictures on the signs, or we'dve been screwed. We weren't sure at which point our friends, who had come up from Croatia, could meet us, so we just walked around slowly, and kept our eyes open. We went through passport Control, and got stamped. We went through to baggage claim to grab the luggage, and waited. My bags came down the chute just fine, but Kelle's 2 bags, with both of our jackets and some clothes, were nowhere to be found. No problem, I thought, there's probably another cart to be unloaded. So we waited.
and waited.
and waited.
and waited.

A lady in the red livery of Austrian Airlines approached us hesitantly. Apperantly my jaw was set a certain way so as to make me look like someone she really didn't want to talk to at this point. Nevertheless, she did find the courage to ask, in heavily accented english, if we were missing some luggage. Yes, I said, we were missing two pieces. She invited us to follow her and we walked into the Austrian Airlines Baggage Reclamation Office. The lady took the luggage claim tickets and took a report. "They aren't lost," she explained, "They are in New York." I blinked. "We know right where they are." I blinked again, and opened my mouth. "We are putting them on a flight to Munich." I closed my mouth, then opened it again when I realized we weren't in Munich. "Then they will be flown here. We will deliver them to you. Where are you staying in Vienna?" I explained we weren't staying in Vienna, we were boarding a bus for Zagreb, Croatia at 5pm. "No problem," she said rather too happily. "We will have them here by 3 and send a car to the Vienna bus station where your bus leaves from at 4." Oh. That was ok. "Which bus station are you leaving from?"

Keep in mind I must have looked like a fish opening and closing my mouth, and now I was truly stunned. I had no idea which bus station the bus left from, but I knew the guys would know, since it's the station they came into that morning to meet us. So I explained the situation, and she understood immediately. "Are they here waiting for you?" Yes, we said, but we don't know where. "Oh, probably right outside customs. Would you like me to page them?" Uh, yeah. Sure. So she did. We waited, but they didn't come. So she said, "Well, tell you what. Take the bags you do have, go through customs and find your friends, and bring them to this window with these papers. We'll have them explain which bus station you're leaving from, you can give us a phone number to call if they have a cellular phone, and we'll get the bags to you at 4pm today at the bus station. OK?" Slightly confused, but completely understanding her intent, we got up and went through customs.

Tired, slightly pissed our stuff was gone, but happy someone with intelligence was helping us, and confident we'd get the missing bags in a few hours, we emerged from customs and looked around. Didn't see the guys.


As we walked thorugh customs and the tightly meshed group of people I saw Ivan. He looked right at me. He was holding a bag. I didn't see Hrvoje. As I turned to watch where I was going, I almost walked into a man with a long black jacket. I paused briefly so I wouldn't run into him and as I looked up at his face, I realized it was Hrvoje. I don't know why I kept walking, I could have reached out and grabbed him, but I knew if I didn't sit down, I was going to fall.

As we got to the table, I told OC I had seen them and layed my head down. She kept saying, "Look up at them, they are right there." I couldn't bring myself to. I couldn't move. As OC stood up to go to them I slowly stood up, walked about 3 steps and I was finally in his arms.

After what seemed like an hour long hug, we went into the restaurant and I made Hrvoje stand up and hugged him too. They presented us with stuffed animals. We were pleased. We each had a coke. We talked, and explained the baggage situation. Ivan got out a map of Vienna. We found where everything was, and Ivan and I went to the window and found the nice lady.

We pointed on the map. "Ah," she exclaimed, "Sudbahnhof!" I felt like saying "Bless you", but figured it was a little too cliche. We gave her Hrvoje's cell number and she promised to call around 4 and we'd tell her exactly where we were, so the bags could be delivered.

Leaving the airport, we bought tickets for the bus into Vienna proper, to the tune of 5,80 Euros each.

After a half hour, we arrived at the Sudbahnhof. That's German for "You'll never find your way out of this God-forsaken bus station." It's SO true. Ok, actually it means "South Bus Station". Not only buses go there, trains are also there. It's really a train station with buses around the outside. Which means the people at the ticket counter don't speak English, and don't know what the word bus means, nor do they know where to find one. So after we put our 2 bags, pillows and backpacks in lockers, we went looking for the bus to Zagreb, thinking that it's better to find where it leaves from now, rather than waiting until the last minute and getting lost. We spent 2 hours in the Sudbahnhof looking for the damn place, and still didn't find it. Giving up, we finally decided to see something other than the bus/train station, and went to an Italian restaurant across the road and down the street. I had a 4 cheese ravioli type substance. It was good. We sat at that restaurant for like 2 or 3 hours, talking and laughing our asses off.

We DID leave, after I paid a 46 Euro bill. The exchange rate was $1.00 = 1,05 Euros. I left my sunglasses on the table in the restaurant.

On the way back was the Belvedere Museum. The grounds were huge, so we went to the door. It was too expensive to go in, so we loitered for an hour or so. There is a little mazish type thing there, and we sat on a bench and talked for quite a while. At that point, we found out Hrvoje speaks German and had been letting us flounder around Vienna (well, the Sudbahnhof, since that's all we really saw of the city). *grumble*


Belvedere Museum:

Hrvoje's younger brother Goran was to meet us at the bus station but he wasn't there when we pulled in. Hrvoje called him and they arrived soon after. After opening up the cases and separating some of our stuff, OC went with Ivan and I went with Hrvoje, Goran, and Goran's wife, Anna. Three blocks away was the car. As Goran pulled out, I remember thinking, "How do they squeeze this many cars in one space without hitting each other?" I couldn't have gotten out of there. On the way home we decided to get food, so we stopped at what I guess was a hamburger joint. Hrvoje asked what I wanted. "Like I can read the language!" I looked at the pictures (pictures help ALOT there) and found something I recognized: a hamburger. We got everything to go. We got to Hrvoje's apartment feeling a bit odd still, especially with Goran and Anna there. I quietly ate my hamburger, which was twice the size of any burger Burger King could dream of. Goran and Anna left to go home, and I had planned to take a shower but decided against it. I was way too tired.

Ivan lives at his cousin's house, and normally stays in the "lair", which is what we would call a "casita". You know, one of those bitty houses in the back that can't really be called a house, cuz it's a room, a kitchenette and a half bathroom. The larger house, in front, was about the size of a small 2 bedroom apartment. I stayed in the larger of the 2 bedrooms, since his cousin lives somewhere else. The sizes of everything reminded me of England so much. That and the radiators, that pump hot water through them to warm the place. It was a really odd sort of deja-vu feeling. I didn't have a long time to really look at anything, because the nice, comfy looking twin bed was calling me. I slept like the dead.

Day One (Sunday)
Woke up on Oct 27th at about 9am. Hungry. We walked down the street, around the corner, and there was a market.


On the map, the house is right where the accent on the C is on the big word Volovcica. We bought jaja [yaya] (eggs) and bacon (which they call hamburger for some reason) and sok od višnja [soak ode veeshnya] (cherry juice). This market is like our open air swap meets. It was kind of like a corner strip mall, called Volovcica Trg [Vole-ohv-cheetsa Terg] (Volovcica Square) The grocery store, butcher, bakery, restaurants, tabak [tah-bok] (tabacco) and liquor stores as well as little dollar-type stores and magazine stand formed the strip mall, and the market was in the middle. Parking was along the street if you had a car (most don't). Many of the vendors in the market sell flowers. Of every shape and color. Most I had never seen before. I was sniffing some at this old lady's stall, and Ivan said something to her. She smiled and got a bunch of flowers, like 4 each of 5 different kinds, and bundled them up in butcher paper. She handed them to me, smiling and Ivan paid her what amounts to about 2 bucks.

So we came back from the market with hands full, and got started on breakfast. Ivan had never had hashbrowns, so I tried making them. Halfway through, after shredding 4 big potatoes and frying the bacon and putting the potatoes in the bacon grease, I realized I didn't have a spatula. So I used a fork. Ivan still doesn't know what a spatula looks like and I never saw one when I was there. I should go over and be a spatula importer. They'd go like hotcakes. (Get it?)

The potatoes looked ugly but didn't taste too bad. The eggs were good, we bought a kilo of cheese and Ivan shredded it, I had cheese on my eggs. Cut off a big hunk of bread, threw some Margarine on it and called it breakfast. We cleaned up and I went back to bed. I figured the first two days would be devoted to jetlag. Ivan's dad, Ivica [ee-veets-ah] was due to arrive that night, around 8ish, and I woke up about 6pm. He showed up with a BIG shoe box of apple cakes that Ivan's mom, Mara, made, a BIG box of mandarin oranges, and a pair of pants for Ivan. He doesn't speak much English, and my Croatian wasn't that great, so we didn't have much to say to each other, but Ivan took him to the lair so he could rest, he had some stuff to do Monday morning and was tired after the drive. Ivan and I stayed up til about 1am and went to bed (man I hate jetlag).

A Croatian Crysanthemum:

Day Two (Monday)
Got up Monday Morning and made more eggs and bacon and bread. (We gave up on the potatoes.) We needed to go pick up Ivan's new glasses, Register the Americans at the Embassy and I wanted to get my first look around Zagreb. By the time we were ready to venture forth, it was noonish, and Ivica took us to Volovcica Trg for lunch. We had ražnici [Razh-nee-chee], which is marinated pork grilled on a stick, served inside a big thick sourdough roll dampened with the seasoned grease of the meat. A "salad" of raw onions is served with it. I really don't consider it a salad since its nothing but a pile of raw, white onions, so from that point, I ordered everything "bez luka" [bays luke-ah] (without onion). The ražnici was OMG good. I attempted to Ivica. Turns out he is a tennis instructor, and was first place in Bosnia for amateur Tennis players. A couple of his students were in a tournament, and made 2nd and 5th place in their age group. He was really nice.

We split up from Ivica and walked to the Veterinary college (Veterinarski Fakultet) to meet Hrvoje and Kelle to go to the Embassy. It was a 15 minute walk, and I was winded when we got there, but looking at everything, and wondering what the college of Veterinary Medicine would look like.

It was not as high tech as I thought it would be. I guess I was expecting sterile, chrome/blue, antiseptic rooms, but instead, the front opened up into a large foyer with marble stairs, and a second set of 3 doors, which led to another foyer with white painted walls and several doors leading who knew where. Luckily, Hrvoje knew (since it's his college, I was pretty sure he would), and he buzzed us into the door on the right hand side. A door to the immediate right led into the open computer room, and we finally got to meet Marko, who we had known on the game and messengers as Digital. He offered his hand and I grabbed it and gave him a big hug. I think I scared him, cuz he never said a word to me after that.

Checked email, wrote a couple people to let them know I made it fine, and we were off again, headed for the Embassy. We went by a McDonald's and stopped in for a Coke. Hrvoje told Kelle NO MCDONALD'S! except for a coke. Ivan ordered for us, and we sat for about 30 minutes in there, sipping our coke in a place that was almost familiar, yet strangely different. It was the weirdest sensation.

The most important person in Croatia in the 19th century was Ban (Viceroy) Josip Jelacic (1801-1859). During his time, in 1848, the Hungarians revolted against Austria, whilst at the same time they tried to impose their language on the Croatians. The Croatian Viceroy Jelacic gathered an army and helped the Austrian czar defeat the Hungarians, thereby protecting Croatia from Hungarianization. He also managed to, for services rendered, attain certain privileges for the Croats. One of those was that the czar entrusted to Jelacic's rule Dalmatia that had until then been, after its liberation from the Turks and later Napoleon, under direct Austrian rule and so had been separated from the rest of Croatia. One of Jelacic's most important acts was the abolition of serfdom. There is a statue of the Ban in the square named after him. Trg Bana Jelacica is the main square of Zagreb. The statue in the square shows the Ban with his sword upraised toward Hungary, a symbolic gesture that they will never successfully invade Croatia.

Picture of Ban Jelacic from Croatia.net:

Day Three (Tuesday)

Woke up hungry again. Had more bacon and eggs with buttered bread. No hash browns this time. Our main project today was to get me registered at the Zagreb police station and to pick up Ivan's glasses, which we didn't do the day before, and take me to the cathedral in the daylight. We took the tram to Jelacica and walked to the Police Station. I was a little nervous, we were supposed to register within 48 hours of arrival, but we arrived on Saturday night at 11pm, they were closed Sunday, and we arrived too late the day before. We registered with the Embassy on time, but we were late in Zagreb. We went upstairs and there was no one in the particular line we needed, so we waited.

Sometimes rudeness trancends lingual barriers. This woman at the counter looked at us and sniffed softly, then motioned for us to step forward. Ivan (of course) did the talking, and told her we wanted to register me. She laid her arm on the counter and beckoned at me. I didn't need him to tell me, 'She wants your passport.' I gave it to her, and she looked at it. Looked at all my stamps. Then she put it on the counter and said something. Ivan nodded and pulled me aside by my arm. 'She isn't the one who does this. We have to wait till the other lady comes back from lunch.' I asked him why she needed to see my passport if she isn't the registration lady. He didn't answer me, tho. About 15 minutes later, lunch lady came back, and he went through the same spiel. She said something and there was a looong exchange, and Ivan again pulled me aside, but this time, he pulled me out of the office. 'We have a problem.' he said. I became alarmed. 'What problem?'

He explained that to register me as staying at his house, he needed the ID card of the owner of the house. (ID cards are so important there that just having the ID card of someone is like having them there.) The owner of the house, his cousin, was in Bosnia or somesuch (where he is from), and therefore, we couldn't get her ID card. We put in a call to Hrvoje, who was going to get Kelle registered in Kutina at his mom's house there. We made plans to take the train out there the next day, and Hrvoje would register us in Kutina. Great. No problem. Off to Jelacica to pick up Ivan's new glasses. Up two flights of stairs to the optika shop, and 1800 Kunas later (that's about $260) he paid them off, and could actually see what I look like. He didn't run screaming into the night, tho.

Walking through the Trg on the way to the cathedral, there was a little old lady with a cart, selling big pretzels. I squealed in delight. I love big warm pretzels with salt on them. Ivan bought two and handed it to me. It was cold. Hmm. He took a bite of his and didn't spit it out, but wasn't happy about swallowing it, either. They were day-olds, and basically, this old lady would go around with her cart in the morning and buy up the day old pretzles from the bakeries, then take her cart and resell the pretzles in the square. Well, I didn't much mind, we walked up the hill, and I munched on both our pretzles, and snapped some pictures.

Day Four (Wednesday)

Every day started with an agenda. "What do we have to do today?" was the first question of the morning, usually right after, "How did you sleep?", "Is the heat on?" and "Can you make me a hot chocolate, please?". The sky was cloudy, and on the agenda for the day was our trip to Kutina, for the sole purpose of getting me registered at the police station, so I wouldn't be deported. Yay. I was excited, I got to see a city other than Zagreb (which I hadn't seen much of), but more than that, I got to be on a train, something I hadn't done since my visit to England as a teenager. I had been on the underground, but that didn't count, that was more like Zagreb's trams. This was a no shit TRAIN, and I was pretty excited.

Turns out it was actually not all I had hyped it up to be, and the scenery out the window looked SO much like England, I was nearly disoriented. Had the clown cars been on the other side of the road, and the signs in English, I'd have lost it. That's how much they look alike. It was so weird. We arrived in Kutina, and got off the train and called Hrvoje. He gave Ivan directions and we started walking. (Just so you know, I weighed myself when we got home, and I was literally 10 pounds lighter. I blame the walking.) As we walked, I picked up 2 leaves right next to each other, one big green leaf and one big orange leaf. The benefit of going to Croatia in the fall was the colors of the trees. The leaves were still turning, and we saw the riot of colors. I can only imagine what New England looks like, but I think it's similar to what we saw in the Croatian countryside. Simply gorgeous.

Went up over the hill and passed by an elementary school. A window on the second floor was open, and there was a music or choir class in session. Children were singing with a piano and although I didn't understand the words, it was very beautiful. Thier voices rang out in the afternoon air, and I looked up to the window, wishing I could see the children, and wishing my command of the language was such that I knew what they were singing about. Sounded rather national anthem-ish.

We entered the market place where Hrvoje and Kelle were selling flowers for Hrvoje's mom. (A note on the flowers over there: Remember the bouquet of flowers that Ivan bought me on Day One at the market? When we got back to the house I put them in a big blue vase with some fresh water and put them on the table as a centerpiece. Those flowers stayed alive and hadn't even started wilting when I left 10 days later.) We walked through the little market, and I was struck by how much this was like a swap meet back home. At the end of the row were our partners in crime, and after exchanging hugs, Kelle and I went off for a coke at the little cafe at the top of the street. Girl talk time!!

The first thing I noticed was the large blue stone set in the gold ring on her left ring finger. Yep. She's engaged. It had been in his family for 4 generations now, and he had given it to her the night before, in front of his mother at the dinner table. It's a longish story, and it's her story to tell, so ask her about it when you see her next. I ordered 2 cokes in Croatian ("dva cola, molim te"), and we sat at a little table in the cafe and got stared at for speaking English and laughing and squealing and going on. This skrungy looking guy that wandered into the cafe said, "Ahhhh...Amerikanki." I half looked at him and said, "Da, je sam Amerikanka." He nodded and said something really fast that I didn't catch, so I replied, "govorim malo Hrvatski" (I speak little Croatian). He nodded and acted like he wanted to come on to us, but wasn't quite sure how since he didn't speak English. We purposely turned from him and resumed our conversation and he wandered away. Catching up on the story and the events since we parted in Zagreb at the Police Station, we finished our cokes and Skrungy Dude came back and asked us something else (I forget what), and I managed to answer him, and shortly after, we got up, paid our tab and left.

Day Five (Thursday) [Halloween]
Samhain (sow-in [sow rhymes with cow]) is one of the most celebrated of the Wiccan holidays, as it is the day that DIVIDES years for witches. It is the day in between years, and part of neither the old or new year. It marks the beginning of the cold season, and is the opposite of Beltain, in that respect. The word Samhain is actually derived from two gaelic words meaning "warm end". This "in between-ness" is not limited to Wiccan years, however. It is also the time that the veil between the worlds is thinnest. The ancient Celts believed that when one died, they went to a place free of hunger, pain or thirst, called "Tir nan Og" to wait for rebirth. The separation between this world and Tir nan Og is thinnest on Samhain. Many witches practice divination on this day, believing that their ancestors can make contact across the veil and guide them on this day. This was also the time that the Celts traditionally brought their herds in from the fields and culled the weakest animals to match the livestock's winter food supply. This meant a day of feasting as well, as they had alot of meat from the culling, and a time to preserve the remaining meat for the coming winter.

We were in Croatia, a land that had been inhabited, historically, since Jesus was a baby, and Zagreb itself was at least 900 years old. There is alot of history there, countless people lived and died in the area, and it was particulary important to me, as my maternal grandmother's mother and oldest sister were born in the old Czechoslovakia back in the early to mid 1800's. In a sense, I was very close geographically to my grandmother's family roots. We have so little information on the Koprovic/Sprc line that it is very difficult to track them down. The only document we have to go on is my grandmother's delayed birth certificate from Oklahoma, which indicates her father's name as Koprovic and her mother's maiden name of Sprc, both born in Czechoslovakia. Not even a city there, just the country. Keep in mind that Czechoslovakia, in the 1800's, encompassed ALOT more area than it does today, the political borders were very different. It is entirely possible that they could have been from a region which is now Poland, Hungary, Austria, or Yugoslavia, which is now Slovenia/Croatia/Bosnia and Hercegovina/Czech Republic/Montenegro.

In the morning we had breakfast (I was becoming a fan of bacon, eggs and bread with butter on it), and Hrvoje called. There was no hot water and therefore no heat in his last-minute apartment. He wanted to know if they could come over and stay with us until he found something else. "Sure," Ivan said, "come on over." So they said they would pack up and take a taxi to the house in the evening.

Later on, Ivan and I went to Volovcica Trg, and wandered around for awhile. He went into a little (and I mean little, like big enough for three people to stand in) store in the Trg, looking for a spatula. We didn't find a spatula, but I spotted a mask, and went "Ooooo!" Ivan bought the mask for Kelle, and also got a set of playing cards (he's really interested in Blackjack. I'm teaching him how to play.). He also was thinking of her drawing ability, so he bought her a package of colored pencils. We left, and I called out, "Hvala! Denja!" as we left the store. Hvala (vah-lah) [Thank you] and Denja (djane-yah) [Short for Dovidenja, Goodbye, or God be with you.] I got into the habit of doing it, and still catch myself occasionally saying it as I leave a small store. Hvala! Denja! It's just one of those things Kelle and I noticed ourselves doing. If you call us and we answer the phone with, "Molim?" (moe-leem), don't hang up. It's us answering the phone by habit.

There is a "china shop" next to the bakery in the Trg, but it's more like a dollar store. We had passed it every time we went to and from the trg, but Ivan hadn't wanted to go in. This time I made him come in, and I found a whole bunch of different little masks. Ivan became excited and we bought one of each for Kelle. We were looking for plain paper and a pencil sharpener for her too, and now we needed to find wrapping paper for these masks. The lady in the store told Ivan about the stationery shop down the street, so we left, (Hvala! Denja!) and went there. It was getting dark, and we were expecting Kelle and Hrvoje back at the house in a little bit.

It was chock full of goodies, so I picked a blue foil wrap and a purple marbley looking paper. Ivan picked up this container. It is a heavy cardboard notebook shaped box that opens up flat, but when you close it, a blue elastic band holds it closed. He picked one with this funky design on it, so I plucked it from his hands and picked a white one with cyan and navy blue anchors and other navy-ish designs on it. We got her paper, an eraser, a sharpener, and a regular pencil. Taking our loot home, we scrambled to wrap everything before they got there, and I got the last mask in the metallic bag about a minute before they walked in the door. Ivan couldn't wait to give her the bag, and when she opened it, she opened the art stuff first. Ivan explained he wanted her to draw him a picture when we were in Preko. She looked at everything and was pleased. So I made her open the other little packages. She saw the first mask and started crying. After all the masks were open, she had them arranged in front of her, and Ivan remarked how it was his birthday, but Kelle got all the presents.

We put everything away and I broke out my tarot and beast cards. Kelle's particular gift manifested itself and we went on a quest through Zagreb that culminated in 4 icicles getting home at 11:45 pm. We watched some croatian news (in Croatian, of course) and went to bed.

Day Six (Friday) [Croatian All Saint's Day]

November 1 is All Saint's Day. This is a primarily Catholic, but generally Christian holiday, celebrating, well, all of the Saints. In the 8th century, Pope Gregory IV established the Celebration of All Saints Day on November 1 and the prior evening, to honor the martyrs of the Church. It is a different day than All Souls Day, which is a Roman Catholic holiday on November 2 or 3rd, depending on which day of the week it falls on. All souls day commemorates the faithful departed or those baptized Christians believed to be in purgatory. It purposely follows All Saints' Day in order to shift the focus from those in heaven to those in purgatory. The Church of England abolished All Souls' Day during the Reformation. However, the day has been reestablished in Anglo-Catholic churches.

In all of Catholic Europe, All Saints Day has become a day to visit cemeteries, to light candles and place flowers on family graves. Of course, one also goes to church to say a prayer for loved ones as well as for the Saints. Therefore, November 1st has become a state holiday in many countries with Catholic majorities, like Croatia. The largest cemetary in the country is called Mirogoj (Meer-oh-goy). We did not go to Mirogoj on All Saints Day because we had decided, while we were in the states, that we wanted to go to Hrvoje's family's "summer home" on the Adriatic Sea.

The train was scheduled to depart Zagreb in the evening, switch trains in Knin (k-neen) with an early morning arrival in Zadar (zuh-dar), which is in "North Dalmatian" coast area. Then we were to take a ferry from Zadar across the Zadar channel to the Island of Ugljan (oog-lyan). From Preko, the town we come ashore at, we were going to take a taxi or bus to the little village where the house was, Sutomisicica (Soo-toe-mish-cheet-sa). (The population was 441 in 1991.)

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Day Seven (Saturday)

We pulled into Zadar at about 7am Saturday morning. We grabbed our stuff and walked from the Kolodvor to the harbor. At was about a mile. Along the way, buildings here and there were studded with more bullet holes and I tried to imagine what it would be like to live in that kind of environment. It's that kind of moment when I realize how fortunate I am. I've lived outside the US for years, off and on, and occasionally I'll have a moment of clarity, and I'm very thankful for what most Americans take for granted. Americans that haven't been outside the US (and I don't mean heading to TJ or Vancouver) just don't have the rare opportunity to appreciate what live is like in the rest of the world. It's a very humbling feeling, and at the same time, it inspires pride that I live at the standard that I do. I live just a hair above the poverty level in America, but even this is quite a step above the middle class of Croatia, where the average income is 1000 kunas a month, which is a little under $200.

We arrived in the harbor at about 8am, and Hrvoje checked on the ferry. It departed for Preko at 9:30, so we had 90 minutes to burn. Ivan and I went potty at the ticket station while Kelle and Hrvoje went across the street to a little shop that had a table and four chairs out front. We met there, and had a coke while we waited.

Time passes as it always does, and soon it was time to board the ferry. I had been on ferries before, (most notably the one from Dover, England to Calais, France, crossing the English Channel) so I wasn't too excited about the trip to the island, but I LOVE the ocean. The guys kept reminding me (over and over) that this was NOT an ocean, it was a SEA. "Yeah, yeah," I replied. "Ocean, sea, what's the difference?" They looked at each other and I realized they didn't know the difference, so I made it a point to call it an ocean just to spite them. If they can't tell me the difference, they don't deserve to correct me. So NYAH. (I went and looked it up.

The ferry trip took about 30 minutes, and I snapped some great pictures of the harbor and the island on approach. There is a little island on the way to Ugljan, off to the left, and Kelle and I decided we wanna buy that island, kick off the current inhabitants, and build a great big mansion there. So it's "Our Island" now. We never actually set foot on it, but it's ours.

We got off the boat in Preko and there was a little restaurant slash ticket office for the ferry there. There were buses lined up facing the village, so after a few discreet inquiries by Hrvoje (who felt like he was home), he bought us bus tickets and we got on. This was another of those buses that were the big chartered kind. There were so many people packed in the bus that the four of us stood, and Ivan was leaning against the closed door of the bus and would have to lean in and squish me while the doors were open, and then he could lean back after they closed. Ivan and I would get out at every stop that people were exiting, then get back on. When I say full bus, I mean full bus.

We got off at the fourth stop, which was basically a side road jutting to the right of the main road the bus was on. Down the lane to the right was a beautiful church. As we walked past it, people were gathered around in the side area, dressed in dark clothes, singing. We were walking past a funeral. Hrvoje was carrying the 2 huge bags and Kelle's backpack, I had my backpack and Ivan was pulling my suitcase along on the rollers. The lane went slightly downhill past the church, and then made a little left hand curve. On the left hand side of the road just down from the church, there was this little booth that looked like a white telephone booth. When we got closer to it, it turned out to be a statue of Mary, and there were rosaries and flowers and other little tokens that had been placed on her hands and on the wood around the statue. The lane then curved right and we saw a sign for food and a castle to the right. That piqued my interest, but we kept walking. We passed the soccer field on the left, a little harbor beyond it, and houses.

Up the lane we went, and we asked several times, 'Is it much farther?' 'Are we there yet?' 'I gotta pee!'. We were going up a pretty steep hill, and soon it became pretty evident that the natives did NOT walk around on this island, because we saw 9 year olds and above riding motorscooters everywhere, eliminating the need to trudge up the little back lanes between the houses. We don't know how Hrvoje did it, with all those bags on him, but he walked up the hill like it wasn't a big deal and didn't even break a sweat. Ivan wasn't winded, but was getting tired. We passed this foul smelling bend in the alley that had trash standing, and we held our noses and kept walking. Kelle and I were gasping for air, sucking down our inhalers and sweating and hot and just seriously ready to lay down. We had to stop for about 30 seconds and then roll our eyes dramatically and trudge on, our calves screaming for mercy. Finally we got to a set of wooded doors that looked like the gate in the movie Romancing the Stone. Remember when Joan Wilder and Jack are in this village and they are at the gnarly old wooden gates? They turn to leave, and Jack says, "Write us out of this one, Joan Wilder." This columbian or whatever behind the gate says, "Joan Wilder?! You are Joan Wilder? The writer?" She nods and the guy is like "Well, in that case, mi casa es su casa!!" and he opens the gates and it's this luxurious courtyard and so completely NOT what you imagined? Yeah. The gate was like that.

Hrvoje unlocked the gate and opened it up. We all peered in. It opened into a courtyard. To our right was the communal bathroom. A little down from that was someone's front door. Further up from that was a little area with a basin and a short garden hose. Directly in front of us was a steep staircase leading up to a door on the left, a small walk to the right and another door. The door at the top of the stairs turned out to be the one we wanted. It took Hrvoje about 5 minutes to open the door, accompanied by helpful remarks like, "Don't snap the key off, Hrvoje," and "You have to be smarter than the lock, dude," and "Just say no, man." Eventually the key turned and Hrvoje stood and triumpantly opened the door. It swung open to reveal a kitchen table directly inside, a door to the left, and a stove, fridge and sink past the table. The door was open, and there were two twin beds pushed together with heaps of pillows and blankets, a wardrobe, a table, and several windows.

Now, Kelle has one phobia. Spiders. This is an island, and an apartment that hadn't been used in months. One of the small windows in the bedroom were broken, probably from the children next door throwing rocks or something. The bottom line is, no one sat until Kelle was satisfied that all the spiders were dead. Spider corpses were also not acceptable. And there were spiders everywhere. Hrvoje opened the window and shook the blankets and pillows out, and Ivan and I looked around for live crawling ones. Kelle stood in the kitchen, supervising.

Once the "all clear" was sounded, Hrvoje laid one of the mattresses down on the floor, and made the bed. Ivan and I would get the twins, and Kelle and Hrvoje were sharing the mattress on the floor. It was about 11am and I was tired, but eager to explore the village. We set our stuff down and went downstairs, out the gates, and walked down the lane to the intersection. The sign said stuff about food and a castle with an arrow pointing left, and to the right was a street with houses and a little market on the right and a soccer field to the left. We were hungry. Kelle wanted "BEEF!" None of us had eaten since the train the night before. We turned left toward the castle. I never saw a castle, but there were so many trees that it could have been there and I just didn't see it. We came upon this little restaurant that was actually this guy's house, and it looked closed. Hrvoje explained that we were way off season, and we turned to go when the proprietor stepped out and spoke to Hrvoje. After a few seconds, the man walked away and Hrvoje said, "He's opening for us." I was stunned. The man came back. "Do you vant to eat outside?" He indicated the covered patio. It was warm. "Sure," we said, and he washed down the plastic tables and put a nice table cloth on it, and set the table.

Day Eight (Sunday)

Woke up to the bells of the church ringing. I think my ears are specially attuned to them or something. My eyes just popped open. I realized I was hungry again, and Ivan was already awake. Kelle and Hrvoje were still passed out on the floor. Ivan and I talked quietly for awhile, then went down the hill to get a sandwich. It was a beautiful day, the sky was blue, and there were the big, thick, fluffy clouds out. It was Sunday, and in the land of Catholicism, stores close at noon or before. We went to the store across from the soccer field, and watched some teams play as we ate our sandwiches. We decided to get up and keep walking around the harbor. We ended up actually walking on the rocks of the shoreline of the island, and on one of the little jetties we saw a crab. I took some film of it with my camera, but it turned out crappy. I did manage to get a decent picture, though.

I'd never seen a black crab before, or a crab eating, or a crab eating another crab. It was weirdly compelling. Ivan didn't understand my fascination.

Day Nine (Monday)


This is the point things start getting jumbled up for me, so hopefully Kelle and Hrvoje have a better recollection of what happened which day. It was very cold outside. We did alot of staying in the house and watching TV or listening to music, and drinking coke (Kelle) and hot tea and hot chocolate. Ivan's Aunt has cancer, and we found out his cousin was bringing her home Tuesday, so we were going to have to stay in the lair. We started cleaning up and doing laundry. Now....a note about the laundry there. They don't believe in dryers, apperantly. So after you wash the clothes, as in England, you hang them out to dry. The catch is that it was raining and the clothes line was NOT covered. So since hanging clothes up in the rain was not conducive to taking clean, DRY clothes home, I hung them over doors, in front of radiators, on hangers in the closet...anyplace I could find. It made it humid and kinda musty in the house on Monday night.


The four of us finally went to the movies. Now, the theatres there look like ours, and smell like ours, and the prices for popcorn and stuff are hella expensive like ours, but there are subtle differences, like "balcony seating". To Americans, balcony seating is the way the chairs are tiered in the theater, much like "stadium seating". In this particular theatre, "balcony seating" meant you walk upstairs to the balcony and watch the movie from up on high. Also, the movies are in the original english, with Croatian subtitles. I'd love to watch a movie like "the Lion King", or another one I know by heart, and take a pen and paper, and write down the subtitles. I could learn the language SO FAST that way. We decided to take in a double feature: Lilo and Stitch followed by Signs.

Lilo and Stitch was good, but I don't think it was up to the same standard as even Atlantis was. Definetly not one of their better films. We walked out of the balcony through a side door, and Kelle wanted to call home to make sure everything was ok. It was, so we went back into the theatre and Signs. Now, I knew Signs was by M. Night Shamalayan, but I didn't really know what it was about. And OH MAN it was good! Justin had already seen it with his (now ex-) girlfriend, Danielle, and said it was fantastic, but this is the same child who thinks Robert Guillame and Denzel Washington are the same person. I would describe it as a suspense/drama, but Ivan calls it a "horror movie" and I really think had I not been there, he would have gotten up and left. He stayed, though, and admits it was incredibly good, just scary. I honestly didn't know it was scary like that.

Day Ten (Tuesday)

The first thing we did was half pack up our stuff, get everything together, and put it out in the lair. Then we cleaned Ivan's cousin's house, changed the sheets on all the beds, and then Hrvoje was sent into the lair on a seek-and-destroy mission to kill all the spiders. Ivan wasn't very happy about that, he contended the spiders kept the bugs away, but Kelle didn't care. So all the spiders got kilt. Even spider mummies had to go.


The lair is basically 3 rooms. Kelle and Hrvoje took the kitchen, Ivan and I the bunk bed in the main room. Once we got everything to livable, I made sure my still wet clothes were hanging on the heater and we went out to the Trg to look around.

We went to Subway, as in the sandwich place, just off the Trg, next to Hotel Dubrovnik. If I ever go to Zagreb again and wanna stay in a hotel, I'm stayin there. It's in the middle of EVERYTHING. And there was a subway there. So we went. And it was sooooo good. So good. Kelle had (what else) roast BEEF! and I got a large something warm. It was the most food I ate at once my entire stay there. I was an oinker. I had a hot chocolate and we walked out from the Subway, you nearly had to roll me. I can't tell you how familiar and wonderful it tasted.

We walked around Zagreb and went shopping for the kids and such. Didn't find anything, but we saw more shops, and I picked up a pad of stationery with a croatian cartoon figure on it. Funny...it's in English.... Ivan had forgotten to leave the key to the house under the mat for his Aunt and cousin, and we still had more lookie-looing to do, so he took the tram back to the house while we made our slow, wending way to Tolkien's. We were to meet in an hour there for some hot chocolate.


On the way over, we took the funicular (like a tram that goes WAY uphill) instead of the stairs this time, it was like 3 kuna each. At the top of the hill in Kaptol (where Tolkien's and St. Mark's church is) there is Lotrscak Tower. It has a little gift shop in there, and we bought some postcards, and saw a really great book on Zagreb in there that we wanted to buy, but it was like 350 kunas, and the money was starting to run low. We wrote the title of the book down, and decided to send some money to Ivan when we got home, so he could buy it and mail it to us. We walked out of the tower and down the street, past St. Mark's Church, and into Tolkien's. Ivan wasn't there yet, so we got the back table and ordered for him. Bryan Adams was playing on the juke, and I looked around at all the memorabilia from Lord of the Rings, and looked through the postcards and the one book on Zagreb that me and Kelle bought. Not long after, Ivan arrived. He had gotten to Tolkien's while we were in the Tower, and had gone back downstairs to wait for us. When we didn't show, he went back upstairs and here he was.

We were all rather subdued, it was our last night in Zagreb. We considered going out to a club, but it was DAMN cold, and Kelle and I didn't really feel like going back to the lair, getting all done up, putting skirts on, and walking to the tram in heels and riding the tram to a club and walking to the club, dancing, and going back to the lair, all in about 30 degree weather. No, that's ok, I'll take the zero. So we talked for awhile, and left. I took one last look around and left Tolkien's in body, but I think part of me is still in there, sipping hot chocolate in the corner booth.

On the way back to the lair, we got to the Tower and looked out over Zagreb. This was my last look. I took some pictures from the wall, and we got a few of us together.

Day Eleven (Wednesday)


The mood was pretty somber all day as we prepared our hearts and our bags to leave. The clothes we had washed 2 days before still weren't dry and hanging them over the radiators overnight had only dried one side of them, so we flipped them over and basically moped around the lair. Kelle and Hrvoje really had no privacy, so about 4pm, when it was dark, (and FREEZING cold) Ivan and I went to a little cafe down the street from Volovcica Trg and had some hot chocolate. It wasn't as good as Tolkien's, but it was warm, and we got a window table, and we talked about him coming to the States and future plans and the possibility of opening a business, like Tolkien's. We talked for hours. Finally, with time pressing us on, we went back to the Lair and packed the rest of our things.

For some reason I fell asleep for a few hours, and Ivan woke me up at 9:30pm. 'You haff an hour,' he said, and I got up and rechecked over the things I'd be taking on the plane. I left my pillow with him, and a few odds and ends that I thought would be better off in his hands. Kelle and I were alternately crying and the guys were just quiet, for the most part. At 10:15pm, we left the lair and entered the cold night. Tiny snowflakes fell as we crossed the street to the Borongaj tram station. Took the tram from Borongaj to Glasni Kolodvor and we figured out that Hrvoje had bought Kelle a one-way on the bus from Vienna, whereas Ivan had got me the round trip. So we needed the remainder of the money for Kelle's bus ticket to Vienna. Ivan covered it. So on the bus we went, after final hugs and lots of tears on all sides.

We rode through the night, crying almost all the way to Slovenia. We had to actually get out of the bus at the Austrian/Slovenia border, where they ran our passports through a little machine and then we got back on the bus.

Day Twelve (Thursday) November 6, 2002


Dawn broke over the Austrian landscape as we pulled into Vienna, and we were back at the damned Sudbahnhof. This time, since we had learned the damn thing, we went right to the buses to the Flughafen (airport) and bought our tickets. We arrived at the airport hella early, and Kelle changed in the bathroom as I guarded the bags outside it. We picked up some Vienna postcards in the shop and made our way to the ticket line to check in. Waited about 45 minutes and checked the bags through to JFK. We were told they couldn't check them through because of US Customs restrictions, but we could recheck them right outside customs through to our final destination. We shrugged. No problem.

We went up to our gate. It was pretty crowded, so I found a little nook behind this big potted plant, and we sat there for about 30 minutes or so as I gave up on my right hand middle finger fiberglass nail, which had been a thorn in my ass since McCarran. We boarded the plane, halfheartedy making jokes about "hey, turn this thing around, I wanna go back to Zagreb!" Sighing, we settled in for the trip to JFK. I slept for a little bit, not much, maybe 45 minutes over the whole flight. The movie was K19 : Widowmaker, with Harrison Ford and Liam Neeson. Really excellent movie. And we had the BEEF!

We landed in New York at about 3:30pm with our little green cards all filled out and all of our bags made it. Our next flight was to leave at 6:20pm on National Airlines, directly to Las Vegas. We went through customs without a problem and right around the corner, as you go out, there was an Austrian Airlines "continued journey baggage check" counter with two women at it in the Austrian Red Livery that we had come to know and despise. The younger woman, we'll call her Helga, had dark hair and tried not to look completely confused at her very existance. "Verr are yoo goink?" she asked. "Las Vegas," Kelle replied, getting into the swing of this travelling thing. Helga tapped on the keyboard for a few moments. "Do you have your tickets?" she asked. We dutifully pulled out our last little ticket on the stub. She took them and perused it like Johnny Bench waiting for a pitch. The older woman, Hildegaard, craned her wrinkled old neck to the right and looked at the ticket. Immediately she pointed to the flight number. "National," she murmered. "N.A." Helga squinted up at the monitor and back down at the ticket. "It's not here," Helga muttered. Hilde now squinted up at the monitor. It was scary.

"Las Wegas?" she asked. We nodded. I gave her the flight number. Hilde moved young Helga over, almost booty bumped her, and took over. Tappity-tappity. "hmm." Tappity-tap-tap-tappity. Finally, she shrugged. "OK," she said. Baggage tags printed out, they attached them to the bags, we got our tickets back, and we were on our way from terminal 1 to terminal 4. *sigh*

Got to term4 and went upstairs, now very confident where we were going, after all, we had to look for information on the way out of the country. We got upstairs and looked around for the National counter. "That's wierd. Didn't we come in at Terminal 4?" I asked. "Yeah," Kelle said, chewing her gum. I looked around and decided to ask some of the xray techs over by the Northwest counter.

"Excuse me," I said, interrupting a very interesting conversation about football with a perfectly reasonable question, "Where is the National Counter?" They stopped and a tall black man actually laughed. "The what?" he said, rather impishly. If he didn't hear me why did he laugh? "The National Airlines counter," I repeated, more precisely. Perhaps he thought I meant the National Car Rental place downstairs or something. A young mexican looked Kelle up and down. "Nachonal went out of beesness las' nite." Now it was our turn to laugh. "No, guys, really. Where is the National counter?" The older black guy said, "No, really. They went bankrupt at midnight last night. All their flights have been cancelled." My heart sunk in my chest. No...no no no no dammit no. "What are the ticketed passengers supposed to do?" They shrugged in unison. "Some of the airlines are trying to pick up the slack and take people on standby. May want to try them," he offered, pointing at Northwest.

We looked around in a daze. Here we were, in New York's largest airport, ticketed through to Las Vegas on an airline that no longer existed. I strode up to the counter. "I'm ticketed on National to Las Vegas. Can you help me?" This poor woman was probably just as unhappy National went out of business as I was. Her hair must have been nicely coifed at one point, but had fallen, and it was gonna take hydraulics to get it back up. She was frazzled. She looked at her screen. "I have a standby to Minneapolis and Detroit in a couple hours, no guarantee you'll get a standby out of there for Vegas, though." My heart sank. "OK," I decided. "Let's go see if any other airlines can get us home." Then a thought struck me. Where the hell was our luggage that we checked in at Austrian? Going downstairs from the airline counters, Kelle was pissed, talking about "Oh, sure, good old USA! We should have stayed in Croatia! They don't lose luggage! They don't have bankrupt airlines stranding passengers! Yeah, SOOO good to be home!" *stomp stomp stomp*

We got downstairs and went to the not-so-much-information booth, but the slugbrain blonde wasn't on duty, we got fried-chicken eating, down home, big black beautiful woman at the desk, chewing her gum and staring at us like we were the ones that brought her great-great-grandparents over on the slave ship.

"Ken ah HELP ya'll?" *smack smack*

"Um, yes, we heard that National Airlines is out of business and..."

"UM..*smack* yeah yeah yeah, UM...theyah is a FLYah heyah that I can give youz about dat. *smack*" (Searches around the desk and spies a LARGE stack of paper. Recognizing it as what she has been searching for, she hands me one.) "Yeah, heeya it is." I look at it. It says National is out of business and according to FAA regs, other airlines are supposed to help where possible, but they can charge whatever they want. I knew this.

"OK," I decide to try and ask my question again. "But I need to know about...."

"UM *smack smack* yeah, UM... You'll have to cahntact de othah aiyalines for assistance wit getting a flight to yoawah final destinayshun." I blinked for a few moments, wondering if I was speaking the same language as this bitch and wondering if I could fuck her up and get out of the terminal before security got to me. I took a deep breath and tried again.

"I understand that. That isn't what I'm asking you. What I want.."

*smack smack* She had the nerve to act like she was forcibly being patient with me. "So what ah you axin me?" I'm thinking, 'maybe I could get in 2 good sucker punches to that big fat mouth of yours before anyone would notice.'

"Austrian Airlines checked our baggage in at customs, destined for Las Vegas on a National flight, which no longer exists. How do I get my bags back?"

Moo-cow blinked for a minute. "You would hafta coawall Ahstrian Aiyah." She ACTUALLY looked at her fingernails and picked at her cuticle then looked up at me calmly, like, 'anything else?' I pressed my lips together, and figured I prolly couldn't make it out the emergency doors before big black security guard got ahold of me.

"Thank you," I managed. "Shoowah," she fake smiled.

About 30 feet away was a bank of phones. I got on one. Called Austrian Air customer service, who couldn't get ahold of the lost and found for the Airline. "You'll have to go down there," she said. I sighed. Here we are at Terminal 4, and we have to go around this damn airport AGAIN to Terminal One. Well, it wasn't like we had a flight to catch. Back on the bus.

So now we're back on the bus and we go around the airport. Again. We get out at Terminal 1 and ask a security guard for directions to the Austrian Airlines lost and found and he points us to the big "LUFTHANSA" sign. Ah.

We trudged into the Lufthansa/Austrian lost and found. There was an older lady, and a younger guy in there. The guy was on the phone, so the older lady helped us. It took HER an hour to call, get ahold of, and get information from the right people. Turns out our bags were put out on the tarmac. She went and got them, and brought them to us, and you never saw two people so happy to have thier stuff back as us. The nice lady tried to get us flight information to get home. "I don't know if you will find anything, dears, it's Veteran's Day Weekend, you know." I looked at Kelle. Oh shit. It never even crossed our minds. She endorsed our Vegas tickets. "That should help," she said, "this stamp means that Austrian will pay for your ticket to Vegas." We almost cried. "Thanks so much!" "Good luck!" she called as we left with 4 huge bags, one of them falling apart so much that we had to tape it closed, 2 backpacks, jackets, Kelle's pillow, and one very thin piece of paper each that served as our way home, if we could find a seat.

We went to all the counters, stood in all the lines, and after 3 hours it was 8pm. We were tired, hungry, thirsty, scared, stranded and pissed. I left the Delta counter, crying. They all wanted $125 each for each leg of the trip, everything was standby if there was anything at all, and at best, we'd be leaving out of New York at 8am the next morning. They didn't seem to give a shit about Austrian's endorsement. I looked at the bank of phones and called Miah and Sindy, who were staying with the kids. I explained the situation, and they looked on all the websites. There was nothing available, even for full purchase price, out of New York's JFK, LaGuardia, or Newark airports. I sighed and told them we'd be home as soon as we could.

Day Thirteen (Friday) November 7, 2002


At about 5:30am a group of freshly rested people came into the terminal and Kelle and I both woke up. She was stiff and sore from laying on the floor, and I was stiff and sore from leaning over all our stuff in an attempt to make sure it wouldn't get stolen. We got up and took turns fixing ourselves up in the bathroom, then made our way to the counter. Delta took our endorsed Austrian tickets to Vegas and put us on Standby for Salt Lake. We went past security and looked down at the fluffy carpet and the McDonalds. This would have been way better to sleep on.

Got to the gate, and quickly caught on to how standby works. They have a number of unsold seats. That is the starting number of standby tickets they will issue. Since the agent on the phone saw there was still 12 seats unsold on this flight, he was able to issue 12 SCNs (2 to us). Now. The people with the SCNs for this flight were pretty much guaranteed a seat. Now here's the true standby part. Any cancellation seats are totaled up the hour before, and more SCNs are issued. Now in the last 10 minutes prior to boarding, anyone who hasn't checked in yet pretty much loses their seat, and then all the people on the list get em. We knew as soon as we sat down at the gate our seats were ours. I finally relaxed. Once we got to SLC, I knew southwest air ran like every other hour. We were as good as home. Kelle and I talked about getting standby's once we got to SLC and I said, "hey, worse comes to worst, we'll DRIVE home. It's only about 6 hours. I WILL sleep in my own bed tonight."

We arrived in Salt Lake, and so did all our luggage. We went to baggage claim and grabbed everything, and I called Daddy to let him know we were here. He said to go check on the standby for Vegas at the Delta counter and give him a call when we knew something. So we went to the Delta counter. "Hi. We're National Refugees, and Were ticketed from JFK to Vegas. We got the standby from JFK to here, and need to now get our last leg to Vegas." The young clerk smiled. "Certainly. May I have your tickets, please?" I looked at Kelle. "They took our tickets at the Delta counter in New York when they put us on the flight here. They were endorsed my Austrian air." She blinked at me. "Here is our tickets from New York to here. See there? Standby." She looked at them. "These don't show you're ticketed through to Vegas." "Well, we were originally ticketed from JFK to Vegas on National, but since they went bankrupt, Austrian Air endorsed the tickets, and we gave them to the Delta people in New York, to get us home. They said we had to get standby into Vegas from here." She sighed and shook her head. "Well, they only ticketed you to here. You'll have to buy tickets from here to Vegas."

I sighed. "Ok, how much are two one ways from here to Vegas?" She did some typing. "$153 each." I looked at Kelle. "We don't have that kind of money. Is that the standby price?" The lady nodded. Looks like we're driving home. I mean, $35 + gas for a one day car rental was alot better than $300 + tax. So we got out of line and I started calling car rental places. Well, all I had was a debit card. Not a credit card. Just FYI, car rental companies will NOT rent to you if all you have is a debit card. You can have a million dollars on a debit car, but they won't rent to you. Not even if you put $200 cash on the counter. I called every car rental company in Salt Lake City. Nothing.

"Daddy?"
"What you got?" he said, confidently.
"A bunch of nothin." I explained the whole Delta thing and the whole car thing.
"ok, you're at the airport now?"
"Yeah."
"You're at a pay phone?"
"Yeah."
"ok, give me your phone number there." I did. "Ok, stay where you are, camp on that phone, and I'll call you back in 30 minutes.
"ok Daddy."

Thirty minutes later he called back. "You have a pen?"
"yeah."
"ok, write this down." He gave me some digits. "Take that number to the Southwest counter right now. Run to the counter. Your flight leaves in 45 minutes." I squealed and relayed the information to Kelle. She squealed and we hugged each other. I hung up the phone and we literally ran to the southwest counter. I gave them the confirmation number and we checked in. Surprise! Our bags, being international, were "randomly selected" for full search. We had to give them our keys, and they unlocked everything, unpacked everything, then tried to repack everything and were having a hard time. Minutes were ticking by and we were required to stand there, but we couldn't help repack. They simply couldn't stuff all that shit into the bags that we had been schlepping around the planet. They had to call someone over to make everything fit. Finally, they got it all zipped up, locked up, handed out keys back, and checked our bags through. We went past security as quickly as possible, and got to the gate after almost everyone had boarded. Got to the ticket guy on the ramp, and had to take our shoes off. Shoes came off, fanny packs and backpacks were completely gone through and we ran up the jetway.

It was a pleasant flight home, we were exhausted and smelled, but we were nearly there. We landed in Vegas 50 minutes later and I nearly bent to my knees and kissed McCarren. We called Sindy, she came and picked us up. Got home, called Daddy, thanked him again, got in the shower, and went to bed. We were home.

The End

:thumbsup: Good travel diary! The ordeal at the end was unreal.