Beautiful Goodbye

Well, the time has finally come to say good-bye! I can't believe that I have kept this blog up for two years, and I hope that if anything, it was at least semi interesting to read! We are now "settling" back into life in Canada. The adjustment has actually been anything but easy. Lots of frustration, transitioning and tears, and I still feel pretty lost at times. Our summer travelling Europe helped us detach a little, but we did return to Cayman for one last week on the beach. What a difference it was to finally feel like a tourist, to get to sip sweet rum punch in the sun during a week day! Boy did we really miss out by working so much. We celebrated our second anniversary on our last night in Cayman. After the island presented us with one last gift; a sunset that felt appropriate in its beauty and moodiness, we dined at Hemingways on the beach. A beach walk under the dark starry sky topped off the wonderful night. It was just as hard as I had imagined to say good-bye to our little paradise. So many amazing memories, laughs, friends and experiences. It feels like we both lived a short lifetime during those 20 months, and that we are coming back to Canada changed from the experience. Not only did we grow, but our marriage did too. I still hold a hope that we will one day make it back to Cayman, maybe with our children, and re-live the glory days. Our wonderful life can really be attributed to the strong friendships we made while we were there, and the kind, generous and welcoming people we met. I will look back at the experience with such a bittersweet feeling, because for all of the joy we had living there, it made leaving so difficult. Like a wise man once said "The past should be a guide post, not a hitching post," and so it is onto the new chapter, which I am confident will be just as exciting and adventurous as the last one. Thank you all for sharing in our adventures, and keep in touch!!! Love Blake and Natalie

Croatian Fun

Our last country on our trip was Croatia. We both didn’t know what to expect, but were pleasantly surprised when we stepped off the overnight ferry in Dubrovnik to a beautiful port city. We found our villa without a problem and were greeted with fresh plums and melon from the garden and the friendliest hosts we had met yet. We spent our day in Dubrovnik exploring the old city where most of the bombings took place several years ago. It is surprising how fast they have recovered, at least on the surface. There was not a bullet hole or derelict building in site. The old city is surrounded by a thick wall which you can walk around, with gorgeous views of the Adriatic Sea and town. The rest of the afternoon we spent at an awesome beach, complete with swim in cave and rock jumping!

After Dubrovnik we took a bus up to Split, passing through Bosnia for breakfast and a brief stop. Unfortunately for us, the bus broke down on the top of a rather remote Croatian mountaintop, so we were left for two hours to explore and admire the views of the valley below. Once we finally arrived in Split we were disappointed to find our grungiest overnight spot yet. Our room, painted bubblegum pink and green had a dirty old mattress in the corner, stains all around the sink, and an irregular shaped sofa- which they called a bed. We tried to spend all of our time away from the room, and checked out Diocletian’s Palace instead.

The following day we were off to Plitvice Lakes, which turned out to be one of the highlights of our trip. Sixteen different coloured lakes flow into one another with thousands of cascades and waterfalls, and even some caves and rock formations. We spent two days hiking around the magnificent area, taking way too many pictures and uttering threats of never returning home. However, time wore down and it was finally our last day in Croatia, so we caught a bus for the capital city of Zagreb, near Budapest, where we spent an lovely evening wandering the Eastern European city and enjoying the far less touristy part of the Slavic region. Before we knew it, we had to say good-bye and return to England for the last days of our trip!

La Bella Italia

Pasta, lemons, pastries, narrow roads, espresso on the piazza and cigarettes are the words I would use to describe Italy. I could go on for hours about our 2 weeks in Italy, but I would still not do it justice. So I have decided that I will just regale you with the highlights… which to be fair was the entire time… uh oh.

After what felt like a brush with death, but most would just consider ample turbulence, we landed in Milan. Much to our disappointment we didn’t get much time to explore it. A fantastic Ravioli will forever be my Milan reminder. In the morning we headed down to La Spezia where we overnighted before our Cinque Terre walk. Cinque Terre has some of the most beautiful scenery I have ever seen, and walking inches away from sheer cliffs provides a nice adrenalin rush as well. We hiked for two days and ate pasta and drank wine in the evenings. Pretty much a perfect life.

We headed to Pisa (which was a total let down) and on to Florence. Spending two nights in a Tuscan Villa cleverly disguised as a hostel, we drank chianti, climbed to the top of the colourful Duomo and sat under the replica David statue with gelatos.

Rome itself was a pleasant surprise, with lovely weather and a simple transit system, we had a great time checking out all of the must-sees, like the coliseum, Roman Forum, Vatican, Tiber River and general atmosphere of Rome. One afternoon we climbed up Giancolo to get a view of Rome. At the top we grabbed some cold coolers from a vendor and soaked up the view. Later that evening we gorged ourselves at a little pasta restaurant while watching the ancient owner greet his friends as they walked down the narrow alleyway.

The Amalfi coast was our last stop. Pompeii was interesting and a lot larger than I had originally thought. It is scary to see how an entire town can be buried under ash. In Sorrento we booked a boat trip to Capri, complete with stops to swim in a waterfall, and two grottos and a swim through! Amazing!!!! In the little town of Amalfi, getting sick of the tourist track, we walked up through the narrow streets and found ourselves on an Indiana Jones style trek through a thick forest with ruins of old aquaducts and a million mosquitos and not a tourist in site! We also hiked up 1000 stairs to…. Nowhere! That was a little bit of a disappointment, but the workout probably wore off a few pounds!

I could have spent another week in Italy, but in 12 days we did see an amazing amount. If any of you have been thinking about doing a trip down the boot- DO IT.