The last week has been crazy but as I sit here in the Phoenix Airport getting ready to fly to London, it all seems worth it! I can’t wait to go and explore Europe again! This is Caitlyn Gill typing how exciting it is to be flying to London with my mom. Today (May 25, 2019) was crazy! I don’t even know where to start! Well first I went to get my hair done and got it died a purple jam color. Then I tried packing for our trip. I couldn’t fit all my stuff in my old suitcase so I tried to fit the stuff in my backpacking backpack. Still didn’t fit. Finally I was able to get it in my dad’s suitcase. Next me and my mom went to go get our toe nails done. We raced home and drove to the airport at quick speeds with Christy our neighbor. We now are eating mac n’ cheese and cheese burgers at Cowboy Ciao. Stay in touch and we will type some more when we get to our destination London. This is Caitlyn Gill signing out.
Category: Switzerland 6/2019 Page 1 of 3
The Start of my Adventure in Europe
Dear people who are reading my little story about Europe,
After what seemed like the longest plane ride we made it to London! We took a train to Paddington Station, the underground to the train station and right now I am sitting in a seat on a train on my way to my grandparents, but this no ordinary train ride, I am in first class! It is so cool in first class!
We get our own little comparment, tea, and a dinner that accally looks good enough to eat, (but my grandma makes delicous cookies and mint sauce). We met a really nice lady named Tracy who works on the train and she has a daughter my age.
Anyway I’m super excited to visit my grandparents and their new golden retriever puppy named Arwen. Me and my mom and my dad are going to visit my cousins, aunt, and uncles tomarrow. My cousins names are Jake and Ben. And my Aunt’s and Uncle’s names are Aunt Amanda, Aunt Jo, Uncle Simon, Uncle Mark and Uncle Mike. I don’t know what we are going to do but I’m sure its going to be so much fun! Keep in touch and I will tpye again about tomorrow. This is Caitlyn Gill
signing off.
The Start of my Trip in EuropeRight now, I am on a plane…no, not in first class but that’s ok. I have never been on Lufthansa Airlines before. We are flying to this little island off the coast of Croatia called Lopud. This is no ordinary island – this island has no cars! Any way I’m here to tell you about yesterday when me, mom, and dad went to my aunts’ cousins, and uncles’ houses. So, it started at my Aunt Amanda’s and my Uncle Mike’s house. I had a lot of fun at their house. I saw their dog named Sonny and I chopped fire wood! Sadly we didn’t get any pictures with them! My mom wasn’t very good company there. She fell sleep next to the radiator for at least 30 minutes! Next, we went to my cousins’ house. I jumped on the trampoline with my cousin named Jake. After that I learned how to ride a hoverboard! Then me, my mom, dad, aunt, uncle, Jake, and their dog Rigby went for a walk around the neighborhood. I played on the hoverboard a bit more, then ate a delicious dinner of both Indian and Chinese takaway. After getting stuffed, we went for another nice walk outside. Next, me, Jake and my aunt went to pick up my other cousin named Ben. I didn’t know he had a girlfriend!!!!!????? Finally, we said our good-byes and drove back home to Grandma’s and Grandad’s and repacked for our next adventure.
After a lovely visit with Howard’s family we had an early morning drive to the airport. We enjoyed a scrumptious English Breakfast and washed it down with England’s finest cider at Manchester Airport. Talk about a breakfast of champions!We flew from Manchester to Munich to Dubrovnik, Croatia where we really started our vacation!
We cleared thru customs, met our brilliant driver who drove us to the harbor, and took a quick boat ride to Lopud, an island just off Dubrovnik. This will be our home away from home for the next 4 nights.
The walk up to hour hotel was breathtaking and I knew that we were in good hands for the week.
After settling in, we walked around the hotel and headed into town to grab dinner. Cat was overly excited about the infinity pool, but I was much more impressed by the enchanted garden that was close by.
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I am sure everyone is completely surprised that Cat ordered spaghetti for dinner.We were all surprised that the meat in the marinara was bits of ham.
With a full stomach, I must admit that jet lag won the war and I was asleep by 8pm.
After 13 hours of sleep we were up and ready for our adventures. We started our day with a hike to the Sutvrac Fortress at the top of the island. It was straight up hill…60+ flights of stairs. It was a great walk and we only saw one other small group of people the entire way.
We stopped at a debilitated chapel about 2/3rds of the way up and then continued up to the fort.
View from the Chapel
The views from the fort were amazing. The clouds had cleared, the sun was shining, and we could see the harbor of Lopud as well as the harbor of Dubrovnik. After some exploring, H and Cat were ready to get back down to town for an ice cream. I was still checking things out and went to one of the walls/windows to look out. I needed to put my hand down for balance and nearly put it down on a snake. There might have been a small scream that came out of my mouth. H and Cat might have thought I fell and hurt myself because of the high pitch and length of my screech! They soon realized I was fine when they saw me running towards them! We all had a small giggle as we left the fortress and headed back down the mountain.There were tons of butterflies on the trail. I joked that they were our navigators but a few times I questioned our directions.
Remnants of a room
Someone painted the fortress so I thought it would be a good place to leave a rock.
Do you see the snake? It’s hard to miss it!
H always knew where we were going and before we knew it we were enjoying some amazing Croatian gelato! Afterwards we headed over to the Franciscan monastery/church built in the 15th century at the edge of the harbor. The government did a great job of creating a beautiful tourist attraction out of this building. The lighting, gardens, accessibility and modern upgrades on this building were first class. The bathroom that they created in an old corner was one of the best bathrooms I have ever been in!
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Dinner was at a lovely local restaurant with amazing seafood. H and Cat thought it entertaining to watch me eat an oyster and I thought it equally entertaining watching Cat try to peel her shrimp!
We ended the night with another ice cream and are looking forward for the adventures that tomorrow brings!
Steps: 17542
Flights of Stairs: 68
In case you ever wondered how an island with no roads or cars gets rid of their trash – we have your answer! A dump truck gets on a barge and comes to the island and processes the garbage from the dock. It was fascinating to watch each shopkeeper/household roll their garbage bins to the barge. They would also trade out empty gas canisters for full ones. We found out they come twice a week and they get charged by the amount they dump.
We watched this process until our ferry arrived and took us to Dubrovnik. It was an hour journey as we worked our way to the famous city.
We should have turned around and gone back to the island when we saw 3 cruise ships docked at Port but didn’t really think through the ramifications of an extra 10,000 people walking around until it was too late!
We got a cab to the Old Town and we’re immediately shocked at the large number of tourists wandering around aimlessly. SO MANY PEOPLE!We made the best of the situation and started wandering around ourselves.
One of our first stops was this cool candy shop. The design and layout of the candy was awesome! As we left the store sampling our purchases we realized that they didn’t taste like we had imagined. They weren’t bad but they weren’t as sweet as we are used too. The displays we’re beautiful though and made up for the lack of taste!
We wandered though town a bit more and came across the clock tower.
And an alleyway that had ancient pieces of the buildings that had fallen off over the years.
We also came across a bronze statue of the writer Marin Držić. Lovingly called Dubrovnik’s Shakespeare, he is best known for his comedies which shed a light onto the social realities of the Renaissance period. Apparently it’s good luck to rub his nose…
Cat wanted to be our photographer for awhile and took some great photos.
And then threw herself on the cannon from exhaustion and starvation!
We stopped for lunch and had a delicious meal of mussels and torttolini.
One of my favorite things to do abroad is to check out foreign grocery stores. Croatian stores are pretty normal aside from the Coke advertisement on the door but H and Cat got a bit silly while we were there!
The only thing that made me giggle was their energy drinks! Is Mtv still a thing?!
Because we didn’t get enough stairs in yesterday we decided to keep walking and see where they took us!
We saw a sign that said Cold drinks with the most beautiful view. We kept walking to see what the view was but there were a lot of people in line to see the view as well. We just kept walking as we didn’t think any view was worth 20 minutes of waiting.
We felt very fortunate that Amanda warned us against the walk around the city walls. It was similar to Everest in that it was a single line around the rim and you couldn’t pass slower walkers.
We could see traffic jams like this one all around the city walls. Our taxi driver told us at they had 3 million visitors last year and 1 million tickets sold to walk around the walls. That is a lot of people to be serviced by the 45,000 residents. We walked just within the walls and got lost in the city streets and we’re often by ourselves.
It was fun and an intriguing maze.
I think we all breathed a sigh of relief when our ferry came to bring us back to the island.
At the end of the day Cat wanted to have room service so we ordered her dinner and H and I had a fancy romantic dinner in the hotel while she stayed upstairs and binge watched Mako Mermaids. It was a perfect way to end such a good day!
Steps: 13879
Stairs: 19
Today me, my mom and dad went to a beautiful beach. And the best thing was that there were blue sky’s everywhere! The beach is called Sunj. We walked a mile uphill to the other side of the island just to play on it. Surprisingly their were a bunch of other people on the beach with us. Anyway this beach isn’t like any other beach, I think. The water was very clear and salty and the sand was white. You know how the ocean can get very mucky? Not this one! You can see straight down.
Thanks to this bouncy ball we had something to play with.
Next I went shell searching, but I couldn’t find many. Then I saw some with snails in them. I thought I could take them to Paris for chefs to cook them but my dad didn’t think it was a good idea. My mom was in rock heaven.
Soon enough the sun was setting and we headed back to our hotel. We got an ice cream on the way and dad definitely chose the best flavor! (Strawberry) Today was a great day at the beach.
Mom’s note: There is WiFi at the beach! I wonder if I could convince my work we need a remote office here?