This time last year...

Hah! Talk about excited! 2 postings sehari tuuu!! hehe..

Was thinking about this time last year..when Abah and I decided to take one seat out from the Chrysler..install tilam, portable DVD players and the girls together with their Kak Teeny (their cousin, not the maid, lest people would think that!) and went off on a trip of our lifetime....to 7 cities in 10 days!

Best giler and penat giler! some say we were crazy to do it. Maybe we were but we did it with no regrets! Tapi tak nak buat lagi la...like I said, penat woo!

OK...where did we go? We started with Venice..6 hours away from Geneva. we stayed at a camping site called Alba D'oro. OK ok jer although Teeny claimed tak leh tido coz some youths were having a party nearby. Camping site..what do you expect? We had 2 caravan-like accommodation with very small (emphasis on "small") shower/toilet. They had a swimming pool so the girls went crazy in there. Totally refused to go anywhere else. So, visit to the city had to wait.

Malam tu we tried but couldn't figure out how to get into the city. Rupa2 nya kena park kereta and naik their water taxis (vaporetto, they called it) into the city. So, pagi2 esoknya, we did just that and ended up kat Piazza San Marco...alaaaa..the site where they filmed The Italian Job...excited nyer!! hehe..

Do not want to bore readers (if any) by recounting every minute spent in Venice. Also, am not that rajin. Suffice to say..we spent the whole day in the city and did the touristy bits..took loads of photos and bought masks and murano glasses. I must add, Venice is as romantic and beautiful as people had described it! If only we could afford the gondola rides..siggghhhhh...

Then off we went to Ljubljana in Slovenia. Sampai dah malam and had to hire a cab to help us find the hostel we booked. Kesian kitorang ni travel without GPS...

Early2 esok paginya we went off to Zagreb, Croatia for the day. A 2-hour drive from Ljubljana. It rained in Zagreb and I remember it was not all that exciting...it was unlike Venice. Highlight of the trip was the jagung bakar by the roadside!

4th day was spent in Ljubljana, another forgettable city. Highlight was the juicy watermelon bought at their pasar tani and eaten by their famous dragon bridge. Am not quite sure the history of the bridge and anyone interested can always google about it! (ni dah malas laaa ni....).

We left Ljubljana later that day and set off to Bratislava in Slovakia. We arrived late that night and simply couldn't find the hotel! We knew we were close but we just didn't see it. Had to stop for directions a few times and still couldn't find it! To begin with, no one spoke English! So, directions were given in sign language. Including from this haprak of a Vietnamese who used my phone to call the hotel and then couldn't explain balik kat we all mana hotel tu! Bodo nyer!!!

In the end, we stopped by a police station! After more sign languages, the police actually escorted us to the hotel. Apparently we passed by it a million times already!!!!! tension..but we laugh about it now...hehe.. and nasib baik hotel tu OK..very comfortable although a bit shabby.

Anyways...the next day was spent in Bratislava...again, a forgettable city. Highlight was lunch at a fancy restaurant. Makan italian food..pasta and pizza. Murah!Food for 7 people at less than 40 euros!

7th day was spent in Budapest. I guess once you've seen a european city..you see them all! What caught our attention was the unclean state of the city. Must be one of the very few european city yang macam tu. Conteng2 on the walls..sampah on the streets...not very nice! Turns out Budapest is made of Buda and Pest. Err...found this bit of info on the net...potentially interesting enough to be shared..

"There is a great deal of uncertainty as to the meaning of the names of the twin cities, Buda and Pest, that existed on opposite banks of the Danube until their merger in 1873. Some historians believe that Buda may have been the name of Attila the Hun’s brother. This argument, however, is hotly debated and many scholars believe that it is probably just a legend. Buda was, however, a name quite prominently used among the Huns and the Magyars more than 1,100 years ago.
It is also possible that the western bank of the Danube was simply named after the Slavic word “voda,” which translates to “water.”
The name “Pest,” the eastern bank of the Danube, probably originates from the Slavic word for “cave,” even though there are no caves on the Pest side of the river. "

OK..this is part 1 lah kiranya..nanti sambung...

p.s. I've removed most of the pictures from this posting, hopefully temporarily, as they still can't be viewed..so no point, kan. I need to figure this out...didn't realize maintaining a blog could be such hard work!!