Trains, Planes and BUSES!!!!

Monday, August 2, 2010
Off to Rijeka to catch our ferry today. Hooray!!! We are so pumped that waking up this morning at 6-630 was not a big effort. We were pumped and ready to board our 820 train. We had quite a bit of time to wait but again our train was there and waiting. So we boarded early, secured a car to ourselves (3 seats each) and laid down on the bench and had a wee nappy. Two hours later the conductor had brought a translator to tell us we had to get off of the train and switch to a bus. We weren’t sure what this was all about but everyone was doing it and we were in no place to argue. So off we went, climbing over the tracks (apparently platforms are for the birds in Croatia) and headed towards the coach bus that was happily waiting to take us to...”our next destination”??? Who knows...I do remember saying to Heather “where is the water”? It’s difficult to take a ferry from dry land...oh well here we are going with the flow! Next thing we knew, 20 minutes later, we were being taken off of the bus and told to go back on the train. Ok! New train, here we go! I found the young guy who acted as our “translator” originally and asked him what was going on. He thought that the tracks were being replaced and so we had to go around the part that they were fixing and continue on from there. He also said that he thought that we would have to do it one more time. So back on the train we went, ready to move again though. After about an hour maybe we were again moving to the bus, which this time was packed. The bus was full of people and bags and the man I sat beside was ever so kind to move over and allow me to sit next to him (ya no, I had half of a seat because he had his legs wide and was leaning on the window to sleep), Classy!!! Anyhow, this was the longer, worse bus ride and two people actually vomited from the movement of the bus. We were weaving through the mountains and as you can imagine, the roads were not well maintained. Thank goodness it wasn’t the rude boy beside me, losing his cookies. Anyhow, we were then taken back onto the final train that would take us straight on to Rijeka! Wow, what a view from the train. We drove to the coast on the mountain and then had to circle the town to get down the mountain, all the while facing the water. Gorgeous! We got there later than anticipated but we still had like 6 hours until our ferry was due to leave. We then went to the ferry dock, stored our bags, checked in and went looking for a supermarket. We wandered around, found nothing and we eventually went to the shopping centre which was a 40 minute walk in the scorching heat. We found it and were amazed to find a real grocery store with tons of options. Yeah! We had to get enough food for supper, breakfast and then lunch tomorrow since we weren’t due to dock until after 4. Here we come, 20 hours on a ferry. It’s our preparation for our 20 hour flight to Australia. So we grabbed what we needed/wanted and took the bus back to the city centre to catch our ferry. We had checked in earlier when we arrived which was a really smart move in hindsight because the line was massive when we got back. We decided to cheap out on the ferry after spending the big wad on our Greek villa and just get deck seats and brave the night without a bed. So when we got on board there were people everywhere, setting up sleeping areas and reserving their spots. We got an ok spot where we had a table and then were able to sleep beside/under the table. Good times! Heather was pretty excited to have a “sleepover” with a bunch of strangers...I was open to the idea. We were hoping to meet people with a cabin and invite ourselves in but it didn’t quite work out that way.  Instead we slept on the floor under a table in the restaurant. It sounds worse than it was but we were one of many with the same sleeping situation. Our backs were wrecked and we were freezing all night but hey its only one night. There was also a small disturbance just as we were falling asleep. Some man had sat down on a bench beside some European couple and had worked his way closer and closer and was laying down right beside him. The European man said, quite loudly and abruptly, that this was his space and he needed to move over. The man didn’t really move but rearranged himself. About 20 minutes later the man got really upset and hit the guy and got up ready to fight him. Pretty dramatic!! We weren’t so impressed since the guy was already warned to move over and he proceeded to get closer as we were trying to sleep. We think he was trying to push them out of the bench so he could lie down. Pretty brutal but blown way out of proportion! Life on a boat I suppose.
I should mention the new trend that seems to be happening. We have been asked several times now for directions or for help which is quite the change from people asking us if we need help. We must look more experienced and knowledgeable than before. I was approached on the street in Budapest if I knew where the money exchange place was and we had passed it several times so I directed them to the spot. Then on the metro the next day, still in Budapest, we were asked “do you speak English...a little bit?” by someone who clearly did not fluently...of which I replied “a little”! I don’t think he picked up on my sarcasm but he needed directions on how to get to a certain metro stop. Being the amazing metro navigators that we have become, we were able to tell him where and when to change lines and what line he needed to switch to. Then when we were leaving Zagreb, some guy must have seen the Canada flag on my pack (also not North American but he recognized that we must speak English instead of Croatian) and asked us how to get to Vienna. Haha! We were headed nowhere near Vienna but went to the departure board to try and help him out anyhow. Luckily, the train went directly to Vienna and he had about 3 minutes to get to the platform. So off he went, to catch his train. We think it’s pretty amusing that people are asking us for directions when clearly we don’t know where we are half of the time. Good thing they asked us when we had our bearings and were somewhat useful to them.