Vienna Fish: April in Croatia

V's first whiff of sea air

After Justin came to visit us, we had a surprise opportunity to head off to Croatia with Andi's family for a mini Eastertime vacation. Easter is a big holiday here, and often coincides with other holidays, like Slovenia's 'Day of fighting against the oppressor' and May Day - all days off from work. The Zuccatos decided to head down to their little vacation spot to replace the old front gate and to get in some sun and fun. Andi was skyping with them and they said they will happily take Vinny down with them to give us a break. I said, hey...but I want to go too, and thus the idea was born.

Andi took some days off and we packed up and headed on down. First we stopped in Slovenia for the night. Two four-hour drives sounded better to me than one eight-hour drive with a 6 month old. We got there around 10 or 11, slept for the night, then headed out again around noon the next day in a caravan toward the coast. Both Vin and I got another stamp in our passports, but Andi was left once again without...he uses his little Yugoslav ID card, which is fast and convenient, but doesn't have the snazzy bonus of souvenir stamps!

Marko and Andi buying ferry tickets

The Zuccatos, heading toward the island.

We got to the ferry that takes the cars across the sea to the island at around 3pm - the sun was shining and the sea was blue and welcoming.

Vinny had a great time, he was bombarded with Slovene from all angles, so I am sure this trip was great for his language development. I got to sleep in more than usual - although on a very hard mattress that I swear left bruises on my hips. Other than an annoying stomach ache that haunted me almost the entire time, we all had a great time. It was warm and sunny and lovely. The neighborhood friend, Zdenka brought over fresh, fried fish and her homemade wine and goat cheese. There was a recent death in the neighborhood, the next door neighbor man nicknamed "The Garbage Man" had just passed away the week before, so the atmosphere was a bit different than it had been during previous visits.

The old gate is still mounted up front...but you can see the new
gate there in the background, just waiting for its debut

Marko worked very hard on getting the new gate up and functioning. He is a super crafty guy, he designed the gate, measured the walls for mounting, cut the metal for the hinges and closure, drilled into the concrete and stone wall, made concrete and the concrete frames, painted the gate and then went on to paint the grape vine awning because he had the left over paint to do so. And the kicker is, he did this all on his birthday weekend. The end result will be very beautiful, but we had to leave it with only one coat of primer because there was just not enough time to do everything this time around.

To thank the family for letting us come along, Andraz treated us all to a nice lunch out on our last day. We had some delicious fish, mussels, calamari, scampi and Dalmatian chard (spinach with potatoes).

We had a great time and got home with a lot of dirty laundry, but some nice memories and even a little tan!