English shortcut June 14

English update maj, juni

We had a few great days in Greece. Sun and heat and beaches and bathing and relaxing. We spent a few nights at the Philion Peninsula just taking it easy. The kids loved the beach, Vida was in trance picking pebbles and rocks there, they looked like beads and pearls.

We turned and started going north. “But going north, are we going home? I don’t want to go home!” Vida screamed. Don’t worry. We won’t be home for long yet… We took a last dip in the Mediterranean Sea and then traveled into Bulgaria.

We find a really nice place for the night in Bulgaria, we set our camp and Pär takes a walk with the kids. A man comes by in a really old Lada and a while later, I hear Pär laughing as if he was talking to an adult. Another while later, the same Lada passes me (I’m by the car doing the dishes) with the man, smiling as if he would crack his cheeks. Pär comes back with the children and tells me about a fantastic meeting with this man. The man only spoke Bulgarian, Pär answered in Swedish and they were having a great time, laughing a lot. Maybe 20 minutes pass, then the man is back in his old Lada, the car jumping and hopping on the mud road. He makes a quick stop and hops out of the car with gifts for us. First of all, a bottle of Rakiya, his own homemade, more than 50% strength. He is so proud! So we all drink for friendship, then he gives us his own youghurt and a bag of his tomatoes. We continue to try to communicate and this is such a great thing. The next morning, he comes by again, just checking that we were ok and were having a good time camping on his field. We felt so welcome! We spend a few more days in Bulgaria, looking at monasteries and great nature.

The next country is Serbia. We spend three nights in Serbia. The first day we meet up with the Nikic family, family of our friends in Montenegro. We’ve had a sparepart for our kitchen sent to their home, so we come to pick it up and get overwhelmed with hospitality. The only problem is that we can’t stay for food. They are really troubled about this as they really want to treat us with dinner. But the kids are tired and we have to find a place for the night before it gets dark, so we have to be rude and say goodbye. The son in the family, Alexander, takes us to a good place for the night and stays with us to check all is ok. The next morning, another relative also comes by to see that we are ok. All so helpful!

When leaving Serbia, the customs police asks for our police papers. What police papers we ask? Well, we are supposed to register with the police every day that we are in the country. Oops, didn’t know that. We’re lucky to have met a friendly and young police officer. He lets us out, but makes us promise to do it the right way the next time. Not all of his colleagues are willing to do it the easy way…

We go into Rumania and spend only one night here. The traffic is deathly dangerous and we don’t feel comfortable. But before leaving, we find a huge department store with EVERYTHING, so we take the chance to do some major grocery shopping.

Hungary, country number 17 on our trip is great. We spend time at some thermal baths and have some great bush camping spots. In one of them, a man comes with his ~70 sheep and passes our car just when the kids have climbed up in the tent and are about to sleep. They just loved laying on the edge of the tent looking out on all the sheep passing by. The next morning he comes back with them again, going up the hill behind us, just when we were having breakfast.

We continue into Slovakia, look at some old castles and end up having Christines mobile and some money stolen. Not a good experience… It’s cold and rainy too, so we head into Poland.

In Poland the sun comes back, although it’s chilly. We spend the first afternoon just doing laundry and settling down a bit. The next day we visit Krakow.

We’ll continue in Poland for at least another week, going east and then head north along the eastern border up to Lithuania, Latvia and Estonia, then we’ll be trying to catch a boat back to Sweden. Hoping to be home around mid-July.