Yup, that's been my life for the last 32 days, lock down aka two weeks of quarantine peering over my shoulder and nipping at my heels. Don't get me wrong, I had an AMAZING holiday, I fell in love with Italy, visited a brand new never been before country, Croatia, and spent some time in a place I already love, Bratislava.
It was a pretty epic journey at the best of times, oh wait, this was the best of times, I fully believe the next time I get to visit Rome or Florence they will be once again filled with admiring tourists from all over the world. Some may call me crazy, I like to think of it as hopeful mixed with a huge dash of just knowing that all those people out there who love to travel as much as I do, will, as soon as they have the opportunity. You might be asking yourselves why anyone would want to put themselves in that kind of 'danger' and I will ask you which danger?! When I think of all the places I have traveled in the past few years and I think of all of the 'dangers' that I could have encountered.
I could have been robbed or thrown in jail overnight that time I slept on the train station floor in Berlin. How about malaria, rabies or the sleeping disease when I was in Africa? That flight from Frankfurt to Calgary where I could have sworn I was going to fall out of the sky with 6 hours of the worst turbulence I have ever experienced on an 8 hour flight. Or that time I found myself in the main bus terminal in Charlotte, NC at 3am with very little money, no address and only the phone number of a friend who was supposed to pick me up, didn't and wasn't answering his phone. I'm not going to lie, the crowd in there was rough and I was the only female and there was a police officer who rushed me out of there and drove me to a motel. Once before I spoke any Czech I had a what turned out to be a kidney stone but unable to communicate that was just bent over screaming and crying in pain, thank god my boyfriend at the time understood enough English for the word hospital. There are many more scenarios I could share but I'll leave it with this one, the one where I take the chance to get hit by a car walking across the street anywhere in the world, a car accident, a plane crash, a robbery gone wrong in the local Tesco or Walmart. I could look at life as death waiting for me, everywhere I go but oh man, I would rather live life to the fullest and know that when it is my time, I hope I don't see it coming.
Pompeii
Florence
San Gimignano
Cinque Terre
Venice
Burano
Trieste
Crikvenica
Split
Dubrovnik
and finally, Bratislava
Along my way this past month I caught up with friends, made a few new ones, did my best to support the guide/tourism economy by doing as many tours as I could and just enjoying myself in these places. Speaking of near death I'll have to remember to tell you about my almost ocean kayaking incident in Dubrovnik, which could lead to that time I almost died sea kayaking in the Broken Islands in British Columbia a few years ago. Oops digressing again 😉
I still did my yoga almost every morning, wandered/toured, ate delicious food, did some more wandering/touring and just tried to soak up as much of these places as I could. The best part was catching up with friends, who also thought I was a little crazy but not for the reason you are thinking. There is a reason rational people who live in those places tell you not to visit in July and August, of course that is normally to do with the massive amount of people, but also the heat.
Smart friends take their crazy traveling friends to pools when they visit in Florence and its 38 degrees Celsius 💕
I can't even begin to imagine what this trip would have been like with both of those things together. I discovered that my new favorite thing is loose fitting linen dresses. The only thing that hides the fact, or partially hides the fact, that the instant you step outside it is like being in a shower, water running down your back, dripping off your fingertips, my neck was sweating, my neck! Bet you enjoyed that pretty mental picture didn't you :).
Enjoy this beautiful sunset to make it better!
So I find myself back in Prague,
without a real plan, for an entire month! It's been a long time since I gave Prague this much undivided attention (although so far I've mostly given the inside of my apartment my undivided attention). I'm planning to see friends, spend time with them, visit my family, take a couple little trips within the country and figure out where I go from here. Although that will only be a vague plan as you can't really plan anything in advance these days, hence the title of this blog.
My journey to get here was pretty fly by the seat of my pants, things change over here daily with case numbers, borders stay open but rules, restrictions, quarantine requirements change sometimes on a daily, if you're lucky, weekly basis.
I booked my flight to Rome 3 days before I flew, my accommodation after I booked the flights, I booked Florence at the same time but made sure my booking for Venice could be cancelled if I had to change my plans before I got there. Train tickets I bought at the station a few minutes before it left. On a side note, high speed trains, are the BEST!
I booked my bus ticket to Croatia 2 days before I left. Buses in Croatia, or really anywhere if they aren't a Tauck coach, are not the best way to travel....but we will save that story for when I tell you about my Croatia travels.
Split accommodation and bus I booked just before I left. Honestly, I didn't even know until I got there that I was even going to go further south. Dubrovnik and my flight the day I left for Split.
When I flew to Vienna (which was completely full btw) to catch the bus to Bratislava I found out that as of midnight the next night anyone coming from Croatia to Austria would have to quarantine unless they were literally just passing through. Since then it has been extended to the Czech Republic and a few other places.
I'm about to have a lot of time for more in-depth blogs about my actual travels and experiences from the last month, just don't ask where I'm going next.
Always trying to stay one step ahead of quarantine, so watch this space for more fun on the run and what a person with no actual fixed place to live does during a global pandemic.
