The world is filled with interesting and unusual places to visit. Croatia is one of those places.

The Bosnian war happened recently, and looking around in Croatia, you can se some of aftermath of the war.

While other people stayed home or went to places around the U.S. for spring break, I went to Croatia. I went to visit one of my uncles who is currently living there.

I stared out the window; it was so much more interesting to look out the window than to read or write. This was new and unusual scenery to me. I had never been here before, and didn’t want to miss a thing. Out the window I saw apartment buildings. These concrete cement shoeboxes were very ugly and had a worn down look to them. Clothes were hung out to dry on most of the units. As we drove by my uncle Doug told us a little about them. They were built and carefully planned out by Tito and used in the 1980’s to house male workers. Today they’re used as middle class residences.

The next day, on our way to Plitvicke (pronounce: plit – vee – chay. Plitvicke is a nature park and is a world recognized UNESCO heritage site), I looked out the window and marveled at the scenery. Fields with houses nestled in them seemed to fly by as we drove past. The houses reminded me of the Weasley’s from Harry Potter.

I turned and looked out the other window. I saw a little stream flowing down a hill tucked away in a wood a little ways back from the edge of the road.

Everything was so quaint, peaceful, and beautiful, until we drove though a village. In stark contrast, the houses were burned out and some of them were boarded up.

My uncle Doug told me and my mom that the village we were driving through had been one of the font lines during the Bosnian war. The houses had been bombed and bullet holes and mortar shells riddled the homes. Some had entire roofs missing.

As we drove by more fields, my Uncle Doug commented, “This is one place that you wouldn’t want to stop and pee at the side of the road, these fields are still actively mined.” There were signs with red skulls and cross-bones along the sides of the road to indicate that the fields were dangerous.

When we got to Plitvicke nature park, I couldn’t believe how beautiful it was. A trail wound its way through with lakes and waterfalls right next to the path. Even the cold and so much snow on the paths didn’t affect its beauty, it was still utterly gorgeous.

Afterward, we drove down to the Croatian coast since we were already two thirds of the way there. Once again I looked out the window. We passed though other villages that had been bombed. One village was mostly populated by Serbs, and the other had mainly Croat residence. The Serb village had shelled the Coat village, and the Coat village shelled the Serb village back. I guess you could say the saying, “what comes around, goes around,” was true there. Unfortunate, but true nonetheless.

Another of the villages we passed though had been on the front lines during the war, and as a result, it was also bombed and mined. There were still active mines, and there were signs marking where they were. Apparently some of the houses also had been mined. My uncle Doug told us that if somebody wanted a refugee’s house, they’d steal one of the mine markers and stick it somewhere in the house. I found that rather funny and sad at the same time, funny because all you’d have to do if you wanted somebody’s abandoned house is stick a sign in it. Sad because it would be a terrible thing to come back to your house and find a mine maker in it, you’d be scared to go in there so you wouldn’t and you could end up losing you home.

When we went over the mountains it was absolutely incredible. You could suddenly see the ocean when you couldn’t before. The mountain sloped down right into the ocean, it was extraordinary and breathtaking. I couldn’t believe it, it was almost like magic.

We drove down to a town, Senj (pronounced: sin), on the coast. We parked right by a bay. There weren’t any beaches in sight; it was all just rocks and boulders.

We had dinner in a restaurant on the other side of the road across from the sea and little parked boats. Afterward we walked around the town a bit. When we were walking down an alleyway/street type thing (it was a street but it also could have been an alley), my uncle Doug stopped, told me to stand like I was talking to him and in a hushed voice told me to look at the graffiti on the wall behind us, but not to stare. I was looking for a U, the U that stood for the Ustashe (the Ustashe were, horrible, they did terrible, terrible things to the Serbs, Roma’s, anybody that they didn’t like or were against them.); the town that we were in was very nationalist, very nationalist. There was a huge black U painted on the building!

When we stopped in a souvenir shop so my uncle Doug could get a shell for my cousin Annalise, the lady shopkeeper interrogated him. She wanted to know why a foreigner was speaking Croatian and what we were. She was very suspicious and then asked which Easter we celebrated. She was relieved when he told her that we celebrated the “real” Easter( not the Orthodox Easter coming two weeks later) , and finally she smiled at us.

We went to the car and drove back.

Another day, Monday, the day after Easter, we dove to Slovenia. The Slovenian border was only about ten minutes away, so it was a great opportunity. When we got to the border, there was a humongously long line. The majority of the cars were heading back after going to the Coast for Easter weekend. We slowly inched our way up the line, we had to pass though two border checks, one for the Croatian border and the other for the Slovenian border. Once we passed though the Croatian border we passed though country that wasn’t Croatia and wasn’t Slovenia. When we were in the middle of it we joked that we were quite literally in the middle of nowhere. We went though the Slovenian border and were in Slovenia. Slovenia was gorgeous; it had rolling hills, and snow covered forests. It looked a lot like the ski resort, Vail.

We drove to the capitol of Slovenia, Ljubljana (pronounce: lube – lee – ana). On the way we stopped at this castle next to a river. The river curved around the castle in a winding motion. Green trees lined the river bank. It was gorgeous, but it was rather disappointing since it had been renovated into a hotel and a restaurant. The restaurant was really expensive, twenty five Euro a person. (I’m not sure exactly how much twenty-five Euro is in American money, but it’s probably about forty dollars.) We decided that we’d look for someplace to eat in Ljubljana.

The capitol was beautiful with a castle high on the hill above the town. We parked and walked around looking for someplace to eat that was open. We walked around for about ten minutes and didn’t find anything that was open. It wasn’t that surprising though, since it was Easter Monday and they celebrate it there. We passed by a street, the street sign said that it was the Jewish section. My uncle Doug said, “Well, if we can’t find anything open, at least there will be things open there.” We all agreed, there would be shops and restaurants opened there. We continued on, walking in the softly falling snow and soon got to a river and crossed a bridge leading to the other side. We found a restaurant on the other side. The restaurant was called the Old Cat. We ate lunch there and then walked back. It was interesting, this couple came into the restaurant with their dog and nobody stopped them. The dog sat under the table the whole time they wee eating. Apparently dogs are allowed in restaurants in Slovenia. After lunch we walked back to the car and drove back to Zagreb, it was a great day.

We went to the Dolac market in Zagreb twice. Dolac market was a lot different than I thought it would be. For one thing, it was a lot bigger than I thought it would be. The vendors that were selling produce were in the middle, main part of the market. The booths crowded the middle in an organized fashion. The booths that were selling souvenirs were on the outer part of the market. When we got everything we needed, produce wise, we went down a flight of stairs and the market continued underground. When we went to a place in the underground section of the market where the cheese was, this lady kept giving us bits of cheese to try. The cheese was very good, but we couldn’t understand what she was saying. We ended up buying a huge chunk of cheese.

One afternoon, when my uncle Doug got home from work, he drove my mom and me up Sljeme (a mountain near Zagreb.). He drove us to a castle.

The castle was amazing. Most of it wasn’t restored, so you got a better sense of what it was like, well, sot of, but, I liked it better then the restored and renovated castle on a river. A guard gave us a private tour. I think he gave us the tour because my uncle Doug spoke Croatian and he was so happy to have somebody to talk to. He first gave us a tour of the watch tower. The watch tower was really cool since it had been renovated, but it definately wasn’t renovated when we reached the highest part. The guard explained the things on the walls and my uncle Doug translated. When we reached the top, the view was amazing. I couldn’t help but imagine looking down below from the highest part and seeing enemy forces approaching from afar, maybe the enemy would be twenty or thirty kilometers away, the view was that clear. When we were done with the tower, I ran around and looked at the ruins of the castle. When I was finished exploring, the guard took us to a room with suits of armor (the tallest suit of armor was my height.). There were weapons from the medieval period that were found in the area. Spears, swords, maces, I thought it was really neat. ( I certainly wouldn’t want to be killed with any of the weapons that would be just a bit too painful for me. ) The guard then led us out of the room and our special private tour was over. We looked in a restaurant that was in the castle, and then we drove home down the very narrow cobblestone road.

The morning we left for home, we got up at 4:00 a.m. so we could get to the airport on time, except, 4:00 a.m. was more like 3:00 a.m. Europe hadn’t yet had their daylight savings time; they had it the day before we left. I found that rather interesting, and mean. I lost an hour of sleep because of daylight savings time twice instead of once, but, that’s okay.

Croatia was an interesting and educating experience, and I’m most definitely not planning on forgetting any of it anytime soon. I went quite a few places, I didn’t get to see the one thing that I wanted to see, but I have a feeling I might be going back. I loved Croatia, even though there are some things you can’t get there, prices are more expensive, and I don’t speak the language, I loved it. I love traveling, I love almost every part of traveling; the only part that I don’t like would be waiting in an airport and the airplane if it’s crowded and noisy. I love traveling because of all the places in the world that I haven’t been to, and all of the places that I want to visit again, and all of the different and unique experiences that you discover.