Speed Travel

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When we left Spain we left behind the laid-back lifestyle and the nature of our trip has changed. We´ve been doing a sort of speed traveling where we stay only a night or two in a place and move on. That and the lack of readily available internet access has let my log suffer. With so much happening I would need a week to bring my log up to date in the way that I originally started, which is not really an option since I only have 12 days of vacation left. I´m sorry that I have to gyp you guys, but better you than me, right? :-)

So that you have a basic idea of where we´ve been I´ll walk you throgh the places we´ve seen since Spain. Back on the 28th of May, it feels like ages ago, we left Granada and flew to Paris. Originally we had planned to take a train, but when we found out that it would take 19 hours and cost 175 euros we changed our mind. I ended up getting return tickets to Paris for 10 euros more, and we shaved more than half a day off of travel time. We spent two nights in Paris seeing all the tourist sites and such. From Paris we took a train to Frankfurt, where my cousin-in-law, Nedzo, got us at the station. He took us on our first autobahn ride where in no time he got up to 180 km/h, my brother comented on how I´d love driving in Germany so that I could drive that fast at which point Nedzo looked at him all confused and asked "You consider this fast?" As we passed couple of trucks and hit an open stretch of road we accelerated up to 224 km/h. Since this was way way faster than I´ve ever moved in a car before I was clinching to the, excuse my French, "ohhh-shhiiitt" handles in the back seat, fully understaning why they´re called that. After traveling at that speed for a while I started to relex seeing that the car won´t blow up or spin out of control, and I almost felt comfortable. We spent a couple nights at my cousin Senada´s place where I got to meet her beautifull kids Dzenan and Emma. They live in Fulda and they took us all around, they even let us drive when we went to see my cousin Almira in Hamm, Germany. My brother drove first and he got up to 180 km/h, after that they let me jump behind the wheel and I went up to a nice comfortable speed of 220 km/h. Only if I could drive like that in the states, I'd be in NYC in 2 hours instead of 4.

I started this entry in Vienna but we had a bus to catch. It was an overnight bus to Sarajevo and I'm in my birthplace now. But let me get back to the story:

We stayed few more days in Germany visiting my cousin Almira, her husband Sefko and their baby son Emil in Ham. We also spent a few days with my aunt Azra and my cousins Azer and Sado in Stutgart. Next on our list was Praha, Check Republic as well as Ceske Budejovice. I was pleasantly surprised by both places we eneded up extending our stay there by couple of days. I also found out that the Check Republic consumes most beer per capita 170 liters per person per year, I am told. So my brother and I made sure we helped them keep up that standard, we must have consumed 5 liters in 4 days.

We took a train to Vienna yesterday and my brothers roommate from Spain, Ahmed got us at the train station. He took us to the bus station where we got our tickets to Sarajevo, and then we went to his home where he made us food and gave us a place to take a nap and shower. For which we're so grateful, we thanked him and wished him luck as he is getting married to a Bosnian girl whom unfortinately we didn't get a chance to meet, but we will next time and by then he'll be talking Bosnian to us. Our bus then took us out of Vienna, throught Slovenia, Croatia, into Bosnia, a 14 hour night jurney, which wasn't too bad except that the bus driver couldn't figure out how to shut off the heat during the first half of the trip. I striped down to my wife-beater and didn't mind it too much. This morning we surprised my grandparents we didn't tell them when we'd be coming so that they didn't worry. They were so happy to see us, we'll spend a few days here with them and then we're off with my cousin Senaid to Montenegro to see my other Grandmother and the rest of my numerous family.

That's it for now, I'll try to upload some pictures and more comentary if I get a chance

Cao

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