Bill Bryson I’m not, but I did try to avoid overdoing the landmine jokes

So here, finally, is the novel-length story of last weekend’s Ausflug, which, as you know, consisted of a trip to Pula, Croatia, by way of Ljubljana, Slovenia. If you make it to the bottom you get a prize.*

I met two other teaching assistants and the friend of one of the aforementioned in Vienna, where we rented a car (a blue Ford station wagon that we named Lorelai) and took for Köflach on Wednesday night to pick up one other assistant.

A short excursion on the subject of our renting a car: this was possibly the most brilliant decision we made all weekend, apart from the one where we actually went to Croatia instead of some other, more banal corner of Europe. About 95% of our suggestions during the trip were concluded with the words, “Hey, we have a car! This will be no problem.” We weren’t constrained to stay in the city center, to depend on public transportation, or to carry our crap with us all the time. Admittedly, parking was sort of hell (I will never, ever, ever own a station wagon if I can do anything short of selling body parts into white slavery), but my word, the freedom was delicious.

The drive itself was relatively smooth, all things considered. The things under consideration are, of course, the fact that 1) I was the only person who could drive a stick, and 2) I am, at best, a marginal driver. Perhaps the best moment of the drive was when we were crawling along in bumper-to-bumper traffic outside of Ljubljana, swearing at the asshole drivers who kept flying by on the shoulder. Our swearing turned to cheers when the semi in front of us, the driver of which was apparently watching the assholes out his rear-view window, pulled suddenly into the shoulder, forcing a tiny purple car to slam on the breaks and slide into a guard rail. Nobody was even close to getting hurt, but their shiny car did get an impressive scratch on it. Served them right. There was much appreciative honking from other cars in the vicinity.

But let me back up a bit and tell you about Ljubljana, which may be the cutest city in the whole entire world. As you (should) know, Slovenia entered the EU on May 1, 2004, and was the richest of the 10 countries that joined. It shows in their capital, which is absolutely charming, with its cobblestone streets, pedestrian-friendly center, and relatively small number of annoying American tourists. Our first encounter with the locals was heartening—we were parking at a spot near the center of town around noon, and a UPS man stopped to welcome us and offer us his extra parking token. Besides being super sweet, it was also fortuitous, since we didn’t have any Slovenian taler at that point. Then we had the largest pizzas ever for lunch, at a cute little café that overlooked the blue-green river running through the center of town, and before we left, we had the best apple ice cream I’ve ever eaten in my life.

We knew Croatia was going to be fantastic when, upon driving out of the longest tunnel I’ve ever seen (cost of use: $3.50), the vista of green mountains and blue, blue water sprawled like a reclining goddess in front of us and stayed that way for the next 60 miles as we made our way down to the tip of the Istrian peninsula, where Pula is located. Not that you would ever be able to figure this out without a map, because the Croatians suck at signs. The Austrians are generally quite good; the Slovenians are acceptably competent, but the Croatians wouldn’t know what to do with a sign if somebody handed them one with explicit directions written on the back using the shortest possible words. It took us an extra half hour to find our hostel, even after we stopped to ask for directions, because we didn’t figure out for fifteen minutes that the street markers were small green posts with the words written on them in twelve-point gold type. Needless to say, they were useless even after we did find them. We forgot this minor annoyance completely when we found the hostel, though. It was right on the water. And by “right on the water,” I mean, “we could open our door and throw things into the Adriatic.”

Thursday night we decided to hit the grocery store for dinner because we were tired and they took credit cards—we had neither patience nor Croatian money. We bought bread, wine, and dried apricots, and proceeded to get drunk and watch the sun sink into the azure.

Friday morning we had our first adventure: parking in the Eastern European style, namely half on and half off the sidewalk. I think this might be the stupidest parking system in the world, because not only does it leave pedestrians no place to walk, but it’s hell on tires. Anyway, we parked in downtown Pula, got cash, bought stamps (you’re welcome, Mom), and then started following the only signs in the entire town of Pula. They pointed toward the first century A.D. Roman amphitheatre, and I’m sure it was probably the Romans’ idea to put them up. Anyway, the amphitheatre in Pula is the second largest in the world. I presume the Colisseum is the largest, but my fact-checker is on vacation, so who knows. Anyway, it was surprisingly complete, considering it was a) old, and b) in Croatia, which doesn’t have the most peaceful history in the world.

After that we bought postcards to go with our stamps and then located a bistro for lunch. Let me insert a word about wine, here. I had wine at every meal in Croatia, except for breakfast where I had either sweet tea or “cocoa” that tasted like it was made by dipping a spoon of Nutella in lukewarm milk. The wine on the Istrian peninsula is very, very good—fruity but not too sweet, and absurdly inexpensive (and I’m speaking as someone who’s lived in Austria the last eight months, where you can’t buy a bottle of wine that costs more than 10 Euros). However, they serve red wine cold. I don’t know why—no other beverage in all of Europe is served properly chilled, but the red wine in Istria was practically shivering.

Friday afternoon we had our first beach adventure. I use the word “beach” lightly, because the shore in Croatia is rocky. There’s no sand whatsoever. Friday’s beach was large rock slabs that actually weren’t too bad for sunbathing, as long as you avoided the parts that were sharp like coral. We lolled about for a good two hours, finishing off the apricots and throwing longing glances at the water. Although the air temperature was a solid 25 or 26 degrees, the water had to be hovering around 17 at the highest. We tried to tough it out—John actually made it into the water because he had to pee—but after I stopped being able to feel my toes as I was inching in, I gave up and went back to my beach mat, which had been purchased the previous evening for 8 kuna (~1 Euro).

Friday night we had dinner at the Hotel Milan, which had been recommended to us by a waiter in downtown Pula as the only decent restaurant in town. It was in the only three-star hotel in town, so that made sense. We spent three hours there, alternately chatting up the cute waiter (who made fun of us for not being able to decide on dessert—we ended up getting one of everything) and complimenting each other on shrimp denuding technique. I adore fish, as you know, and Croatia is the ideal place to eat it. It’s cheap, and John found sand in his calimari—an acceptable level of freshness, I feel.

Saturday morning we decided we had seen all that Pula had to offer and decided to head up the coast a tad to Rovinj, which was purported to have excellent beaches. After another parking adventure (mmm, burned rubber), we found out that Rovinj was celebrating its summer-opening carnival that evening, and that there were 10 km of beaches waiting for us. We headed for the beach.

I don’t know if the sun had fried our brains or what, but somehow we decided that the water was not quite as cold on Saturday as on Friday, even though we were several kilometres north of where we had been. I managed to get in up to my waist, but got back out after I sliced the hell out of my toe on a rock. Mixing my feet and bodies of water is evidently always bad (some of you will remember the famous “Shell Imbedded in Foot While Tubing” Incident of 2000; plus, I cut the arch of my foot while shaving my legs in the shower the other day). The beach on Saturday was composed of small, sharp pebbles which evidently did not bother the two small naked Austrian children that were allowed to run amok until the little boy fell and cut his knee. Austrian parents—so permissive. We, on the other hand, had to either hobble-hop like a rabbit that needed hip replacement, or wear shoes at all times. I chose the latter after the former almost landed me on my ass in the water.

Saturday night was a real adventure. The parade was not kidding around—it started with a baton corps, followed through with a batallion of children, all wearing giant paper flowers on their heads, and finished up with drunken, costumed revelers. I got my hand kissed by a man in a blue hat with giant feathers coming out of it, and some crazy old lady put smears of brown shoe polish on all of our faces. You can imagine how that looked. The best moment, though, was when three Croatian kids, all about seven or eight, rode up to my four loud, somewhat embarassing, beer-drinking friends, and made very distinct “you drunken American bastards” gestures to them. Sometimes the designated driver gets a little bit of karmic reward.

We made it back to Pula Saturday night just in time to hit up our favorite grocery store one more time, picking up stuff for breakfast. We had to be back in Vienna by 5 so I could catch the 7 p.m. bus back to Stegersbach, and since the bus company is evidently run by Nazis, I didn’t want to be late. Therefore we had decided to leave by 7 a.m. in case we hit traffic or weather or something. However, the drive home was nearly ideal (I will admit that my driving companions annoyed me to the point that I was deliberately trying to make them car sick going around curves in the mountains) and we made it back to Vienna by 4:30, in plenty of time for the bus.

All in all, I think this might have been the luckiest vacation I’ve ever been on. I found out after I got home that the weather had been horrendous nearly the whole weekend in Austria. We had no problems with the car, amazingly, and everybody we met was charming or at least amusing, excepting one jerky café waiter who was easily ignored. For plunging half-prepared into a country that’s not renowned for its tourism, the whole thing was ideal. As I said, I’d totally recommend that you go there, if I didn’t want it gunked up by a bunch of annoying American tourists next time I go back, so stay away.

*By “prize,” I meant, of course, “insult.”