The Adventures of Josip & Melanie

Hi everyone. It has been a long while since we have posted anything on our website mostly due to being very busy travelling and settling back into life in Australia. However we would like to start fresh and for our first post for 2008 we would like to introduce our beautiful little girl Lily. But before we tell our story, you are probably wondering about all the adventures in between our last post and now. Well we have many stories and photos to share and will be working on them shortly so stay posted and we look forward to reading all your comments.

Our precious little girls due date was coming closer and it was now the 21st of April. I must admit I was becoming a little impatient not because I was hating the pregnancy but all because I just wanted to meet this little jelly bean that was now the size of a football in my belly. My estimated delivery date was the 23rd of April but I was predicting she would arrive before this on the 21st of April and Josip predicted about a week late! Well neither of us was correct as all the drama started at precisely 0030hrs on the 22nd of April.

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Josip and I have always wanted to experience traveling Croatia in the summer time and truly see all that it has to offer. So we took advantage of our time off this summer and made our way to the Croatian coast. We started in Split and hired a car for our month long holiday. Josip had not driven for around fourteen months and the fact that he had to drive on the opposite side of the road made us a bit nervous. But in true Josip style he was driving like a pro within minutes. We had not booked any accommodation besides the one week where we will be sailing on the Adriatic Sea in a boat, so this holiday really will be an adventure.

For our first stop we landed in a little town called Omis. The first thing we did was eat a big lovely meal of cevapi with onions, fresh bread and salad. It was so delicious and I was looking forward to all the great food Croatia has to offer. Everyone just has to visit Croatia in the summer time as the sea sparkles, moods are high and the whole place just has a relaxing feel. If you come here looking a bit pale you might feel out of place. Almost everyone has an amazing tan and a lot of people look like models.

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I still could not believe that we were actually going to watch a World Cup match in Stuttgart, Germany. I applied a while ago for tickets but had no luck then was put on a waiting list and we ended up getting tickets to 3^rd place play off. Even though we were not going to watch Australia or Croatia we were still really excited and happy to be watching Germany, the home team play Portugal. We found some private accommodation which turned out to be close to the train, city and stadium and Ralf the Guy who lived there was extremely cool.

We went and checked out the main town square and the football fan fest. On the day of the match the atmosphere was awesome. The match started at 8pm but there were thousands of people all dressed up, drinking beer and being noisy from early on in the day. As the match time approached there were just so many people about, it was absolutely awesome. Josip and I got all dressed up with our German face paint and our Flags over our shoulders. Josip loved it here, he loves the way German people speak as he thinks it sounds grunty and the food was as equally pleasing.

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Today we headed down to Clapham Common for something a little different. For all of you that are not familiar with a common it is another word for a park. A huge green area in an urban jungle where people hang out, try to catch some sun but usually end up becoming dehydrated and turning a darker shade of pink. The Sprite Urban games are basically a big day out with BMX biking tricks, skateboarding, break beating and djs. It was hot today even by Australian standards, the sun was beating down, the skies were blue and it made for a perfect atmosphere for the Sprite urban games.

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We woke up early with a headache from the drinking games the previous night. But knowing that we would be seeing the beautiful sights of Scotland was enough to get us out of bed. The morning started off with us eating our breakfast and as usual I brought my little jar of vegemite along for our travels. The French tourists seemed amused by this and giggled and pointed at our vegemite. But it is a fact that most Australians take a small jar with them when they travel the globe so I am not the only one who loves my vegemite. We then all jumped into the bus and set off to the Isle of Skye.

The Isle of Skye is actually an Island that is reached from the mainland by a bridge. The Island has some of Scotland’s most dramatic and challenging mountain terrain. It is also rich in ancient monuments, castles, and memorials. Celtic myths of fairies and selkies are also associated with the region. One of our first stops of the day was at Eilean Donan Castle. It is known as Scotland’s most romantic castle and was used in Highlander the movie.

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Today we woke up early to depart for our three day tour of the Scottish highlands with a tour company called Haggis. Well the day did not start off as expected. As I was waiting to board the bus I received a lot of luck from some birds up above. But this is no ordinary bird crap story I think that the damage the birds caused could only be compared to the damage caused by a B52 Bomber on a mission. Luckily Josip had ran back to the hostel to grab something he forgot and when he got back the look of shock on his face said it all. There was bird shit all over our back packs which luckily have protective covers, all over my t-shirt, pants, some in my hair, all over the road and they even managed to get a few girls next to me.

Unfortunately we did not have the camera out but let your imagination do the work. Josip was lucky that he left something at the hostel because if he was standing next to his bag he would have felt the full force of the bird bombers. Everyone on the tour now knew who we were for all the wrong reasons but our journey had begun along with about 15 other tourists and our awesome tour leader whose name is Neil.

Our first stop was at the William Wallace memorial. Now for those of you who have never watched brave heart, he is Scotland’s National hero. The memorial overlooks the scene of his famous victory at the battle of Stirling Bridge in 1297 which would definitely have some fantastic views from the top if the weather was clear. The statue of Mel Gibson who played William Wallace in the movie Brave heart is apparently sometimes mistaken as being the monument much to our tour leader’s disgust.

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The highlands, whiskey, kilts and awesome accents can only mean one thing, a trip to beautiful Scotland. It is a place we have always wanted to visit and managed to find a weekend in June to go and see what it really has to offer. Scotland does have a lot to explore so we decided to go for a three day haggis bus tour to get out first taste.

The first day started off in Edinburgh as the tour was not due to start the following day. This was a day to see the nation’s capital and Scotland’s second largest city behind Glasgow at our own pace and leisure. Words cannot describe how gorgeous this place is. Imagine a bustling metropolis with all today’s modern amenities and then right in the middle of town there is a huge old castle, surrounded by green rolling hills and cliffs.

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In the time that we have been living in London we have had a few friends come to visit and this weekend my friend Mirko and his girlfriend Ivana were adding to the list. Mirko and Ivana were about to embark on a huge adventure which was to start in London and then continue on to Europe, the World Cup 2006, Croatia and then finally North America.

The first night they arrived we let them just relax. Ivana was the first to crash but Mirko was a bit more pumped so we all went out except Mel, who decided that walking around Piccadilly Circus at night was not worth getting out of her pyjamas. Mirko managed to wake Ivana up and we all set of to Piccadilly and Leicester square way. There was not much happening their on a Sunday night. I managed to take a picture of a great pile of garbage which is a regular site in London but might surprise a tourist. We also spotted this awesome car and the owner was more than happy for us to take a picture of his pride and joy which is highlighted by his huge cheesy grin.

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It was so hot today but we still found the energy to do some sight seeing. We checked out a Park (de la Montana) and came across an Egyptian monument. It is called Templo de Debod and is an authentic Egyptian temple built in the 4th Century BC. It is from the village of Debod, near the sacred temple island of Philae. The Debod Temple was dedicated to the gods Amon and Isis. To us this was not very exciting as we have seen so many temples but it was cool to see it in a park in Madrid. It was donated to the Spanish Government by the Egyptian Government as a gesture of appreciation for the Spanish engineers helping to construct the Aswan dam.

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