Daddy got 2 days of extra time off for the JAG office doing well during the inspection with TJAG so we decided that we would do a big trip to enjoy the 4 days off with daddy! After daddy heard from his friend, Ben Joelson, about how great their past trip to Budapest was, daddy decided to look up images of it online. He was completely in shock and had no idea that Budapest would look so amazing. He was instantly convinced that Budapest was our place to go to for this week.
Based on our previous trip to Switzerland, we knew we needed to brake up the almost 7 hour drive to Budapest by picking a halfway point to stop at. We looked and saw that Croatia was halfway and decided to stop at the capital of Zagreb. The day we were leaving, daddy and I arranged for your new turtles, Raph and Leo, to be watched at Ben's house for the week. When I told Jace that we were getting ready to walk and drop off the turtles, you BALLED your eyes out and kept telling me "But I'm going to miss them mommy!" This lasted for 10 minutes straight of waterfall cries, pleas not to give away his turtles, etc. I thought it was a little funny that you cried this much but didn't cry as much when we left your dogs, JD and Jaya, with sissy. However, after I texted with daddy about the heartbreak you were experiencing, he made the executive decision to take the turtles with us!!!! I was initially against it because I thought it would be so much work even though the turtles were so small. When I told you Jace that the turtles were coming with us, you were immediately relieved and ran to their side and whispered, "Yes, daddy said you guys can come." It was truly one of the cutest things I've ever seen you do! So our car of 4 humans and 2 turtles headed off to Zagreb as soon as daddy got off work on that Tuesday night.
We stayed at a very "modern" type of hotel that mirrored a college dorm room feel. I thought it was a little cheesy but daddy actually really liked the room and the hotel. We had more than enough room for all of us, and even the turtles ;p Since we are now becoming very accustomed to hotels and their breakfast spreads, the breakfast at this particular hotel was not impressive. Very simple but it was good enough for us to fill up before discovering what Zagreb had to offer.
As we drove away from the hotel that morning, we realized that our hotel was smack dab in the middle of the GHETTO. The buildings, graffiti, and stained clothing hanging from the clotheslines were clearly now seen in the daylight. We continued to drive to the center of the city and still saw buildings upon buildings that looked like the projects of NYC. However, we were hopeful that the center had a lot more to offer. Unfortunately, Zagreb did not impress us as much as we had hoped for. We did see the market and a few pretty places such as the church and streets with great looking restaurants and cafes, but it wasn't what we were expecting out of the capitol of Croatia. Daddy and I decided to cut our time shorter and head to Budapest earlier than expected. As we returned to the car, we got an unexpected souvenir from the city of Zagreb, a parking ticket ;p Bye bye Zagreb!
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