mobile update from slovenia

This won't be too long since I'm doing it on my phone, but just wanted to say that things are great here. Had a goodd time in Venice but here in Ljubljana (Slovenia) we feel right at ginger. Charming place, beautiful, fun, bit cheaper and lots to do. Some interesting moments trying to get from Venice to here but it all worked out in the end.

Talk too you again later from a real keyboard.

Always 15 minutes too late...and Mikey is getting hangry!

Ok, let us keep this short because well...you read the title!

We are in Trieste, Italy headed to Ljubliana, Slovenia in a couple hours.  At this point we know we are getting on a bus and that they have hotels and hostels there and with any luck we will be able to find one to stay in.  It is interesting that we spent 3 days in Venice with really nothing to do and yet did we manage to take the time to book our next stay....NO!  So, here we are...

Anyhow, Venice was fantastic! Probably the most beautiful place I have seen.  The trip is young though so hopefully more beautiful spots to come.  The wine and the food was sooo yummy.  Wine wine and more wine.

Anyhow, we are off.  Lets get Mikey some food!

See you next time

T&M

Get us the *&$# out of here!

OK, it's not really that bad, but it's been a bit of a frustrating first full day of the trip. It's pouring rain here, and the flight we had found from Amsterdam to Venice was with RyanAir, whose website rejected both of our credit cards. If you want to call them, it's a toll call and they charge .50 euro per minute to talk to them! So, with no phone except our cells (brutal roaming rates), this was a poor option.

We scrounged around and basically couldn't find anything decent. After killing two 30 minutes sessions at the internet cafe, we finally decided to bite the bullet and pay twice as much for a flight to Milan. From there we'll figure out some way to get to Venice. Probably.

We do have a cool looking guest house reserved in Venice for three nights. The weather there looks fantastic (which is why we canned Prague). Sun sun sun sun sun. Yes.

Once we're in Venice I think we'll be done with flights for at least a few weeks. We'll be on the Adriatic coast there, and we can train or bus to Slovenia and then south to Croatia. There'll be another bump in the road eventually, when we have to get from eastern europe to africa, but I guess we'll figure that out when the time comes. Who knows, maybe we'll end up on some crazy long ferry trip from Albania to Italy or something. (I bet my mom is groaning as she reads this, remembering the horrific ferry that she and dad took on their european trip).

Well, hopefully the next post is from a nice sunny location where we can relax and not worry about much planning. Today has been a bit stressful, looking forward to a more relaxed setting.

Oh, and T just reminded me. You should see our kick-ass new wedding rings. They are hot. I mean, these things are so cool that you could freeze a cucumber. They're very high quality stainless steel bands that are so shiny you can sort of see your reflection in them. Nice eh? The best part: $10 (total, not each, what you think I'm made of money?)

OK, see you all later.

Mike+Trace

blog URL

btw, the spelling of the blog title planestranesandweddingrings was unintentional but actually pretty hilarious.

Tracey makes up for her spelling in lots of other ways though, don't worry. ;)

Ooohh...oops, mistake #1 as a hubby...placing blame where blame is not warranted.  As it turns out the mistake was indeed made by Mr.Spells-it-all-Schmitz.  Granted though, I didn't catch it when I agreed to the blog title and created the account.  Still, lets place blame to its rightful owner :-)

the night before

so, I just caught Tracey's post and figured I'd put something here myself. she's downstairs right now wondering what I'm doing, so I'll keep it short. We've packed and out of curiosity took them to mom's to put on a scale. T is at 23 pounds and mine is 30. As she mentioned, definitely books and electronics is a big part. Much bigger camera to take than usual, and a bunch of other stuff. One luxury I like to take is a small portable speaker for the ipod, so you can fill a hostel room or a beach chair with tunes. personally that's a big one for me.

Well, tomorrow's the big day, can't wait to get out of here! See you all when it's gray and rainy again!

So close we can almost taste it...

Well we're down to "see you later" dinners and last minute wrap ups.  We head out on Sunday, August 21st...this coming Sunday for those who aren't sitting by a calendar.  For the most part we are packed and set to go; minus a handful of ends that need to be tied up.

On the note of packing I have to admit that this trip has been more stressful to pack for than any other trip I've been on.  The main reason of course is that this is the longest I've been travelling but the other reason is that usually when I travel I have a home base (friends houses that I start from and end at, people I know along the way, etc) which makes it easier to pack extra and drop as you go.  Not this time though.  This time the only person I know is Mike and his pack has more than mine does so I'm in trouble.  The worst part is I've got almost nothing in my pack clothing wise.  It seems that between travel books, novels and electronics, etc my 60L pack fills up quick.  At this point I'm packed pretty full and there is a pile of things sitting outside of my pack that need to go in.  On top of that I'm not interested in leaving with a full pack so I guess on Saturday some decisions need to be made...everytime something goes in something else must come out. 

Phew..first post out of the way.  I was getting hassled that I'd sent out the address but there was nothing on here.  Well, here you go, now there is some bla bla bla for you to read :-)

I'd suspect next time you hear from me I'll be somewhere that's not here.

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