Hello from Munchen!!
We are here at Oktoberfest and can´t believe its here already. Sorry for the delay in updating our blog...finding internet has been more difficult than you´d think!

Since we last wrote we have been to several islands in Croatia, all through Italy and have now had 3 successful days at the Weisn (festival).

After Dubrovnik, we headed to the island of Korcula. The woman we rented our apartment from in DBV (Nicole) coordinated a ride for us to the ferry a few hours away in a town called Orobich. We had the best ride to the ferry... we sat up front and chatted with our driver, Ante, for about 2 hours. He gave us a full history lesson on what life was like in Croatia during their homeland war.. just 10 years ago. For the almost 5 years when Croatia was under attack from Slovania the people lived in their basements to try and hide from the bombs... we can´t even imagine what it must have been like to live through that. He said the whole reason for the war was because Slovania was upset that Croatia wanted to be its own country and profit from it´s own tourism dollars. We arrived in Korcula and Ante was nice enough to drive us to town and help us find an apartment... we scored and got one right in town. It didn´t end up mattering though because the weather was bad so we took a 6am ferry the next day to the island of Hvar!

Our 3 days in Hvar were amazing. We got off the ferry completely exhausted and hauled our backpacks to 3 different apartments before finding one that we could sleep in. Lets just say we got our exercise for that day :) The best part of that story is that the 2nd apt. we looked at was 20 mins from town... we couldnt bear the thought of carrying our bags all the way back to town so we rented a car for the day, moved our bags, and then set out to explore Hvar. This was one of our favorite days... the island is beautiful and its known for its wine so we just had to go wine tasting. We didnt think much of the regular reds & whites, but we loved their apertif wine called Prosek. Its a sweet dessert wine. We actually bought a few bottles to send home to friends and family, but they got too heavy so they were left in Split only 2 days later. Its the thought that counts right? :) That afternoon, just before heading back to our apartment, we stumbled upon a great restaurant through the longest tunnel we have ever seen (it was pitch black, one lane, literally a mile long and it looked like they just carved out it right out of the rock. It was nuts!!) The restaurant is at an exclusive yacht club, which is apparently a pretty hip spot for the Croatian government and other big wigs with yachts. We had a good time conversing with the staff and watching one guy gut a huge tuna. After we got back to town, we went for a run along the boardwalk and saw the most beautiful sunset. We then went to a yummy fish dinner and then out to Carpe Diem, a really fun bar we visited that night and the night after. We met some great Ausie friends that night at the bar, Jon and Grant, who we ended up traveling with and hanging out with for the next few days. Our time in Hvar was great and we were sad to leave, but we needed to move on....Italy here we come!

We took a ferry to Split from Hvar, where we needed to catch our next ferry to get to Italy. Originally we were going to spend one night in Split and then catch an overnight ferry to Venice. When we arrived in Split, however, we found out that that only ferry line that goes to Venice just went out of business. Sweet. Neither of us were stoked about taking an overnight ferry, so since we couldn´t get to Venice anyhow, we looked in to flights, found one that wasn´t too expensive, and were off to Venice later that afternoon.

Venice was beautiful! We stayed in Maestra, a little suburb that is much more affordable than Venice. We were only there for one day, but we managed to pack a bunch in and have a great time. We walked around the better half of the afternoon and saw all the sights. St. Mark´s Piazza is beautiful, but there were so many pigeons in the square that we couln´t stick around for too long. We both hate pigeons because they are basically flying rats. We were quite grossed out that some of the kids were feeding them and purposely letting them fly up land on their heads and bodies (see pics) YUK! That night we met some locals (the Italian coast guard and a gondola guide) and some fun Brits. Together we experienced some true Venitian osterias (little bars with great appetizers and wine). We were out a little later than we wanted and managed to visit the only dance club in Venice with our new friends.....it was a great time.

The next morning we rented a car and drove down the coast to Rimini - it is a very popular place for Italians to vacation during the summer. By the time we got there not much was going on, as the tourist rush was over. We met another American, Chris, who lives in Munich and is in the army. We all went to dinner together at the most amazing Italian fish restaurant. The dining experience was awesome - our waiter, Luca, was super sweet and spoke wonderful english and the food was excellent (we experienced our first true Italian 5 course meal)!

We got out of Rimini the next day after a few hours on the beach and headed to Tuscany. Our poor friend Chris followed us to the freeway and managed to get rear ended by a motorcycle. Luckily the two Italians on the bike were not hurt, but Chris´ bumper and that guys bike had seen better days. WOW, Tuscany is gorgeous!! We now understand why everyone raves about it. We visited some of the little towns - San Gimignano, Ceraldo, Greve (Chianti region). Many of the towns are enclosed in walls, similar to some of the Croatian towns we were in. We wine tasted two of the days and met some of the nicest winemakers. Unlike Napa, everything in Tuscany is done by hand and by the family members who own the vineyards. We lucked out and were there at harvest time, so we got to see people out in the vineyards picking the fruit and drove behind farmers with tractors full of freshly picked grapes. It was pretty cool :) We visited Sienna one of the days too and actually were tourists for a few minutes...we made it to the Duomo. Rach didn´t have her shoulders covered so she had to wear a blue plastic bag-like garmet - she looked quite hot!

We drove to Milan to catch our flight to Germany. We stayed at a nice hotel in a very sketchy neighborhood. We tried to update our blog, but didnt want to stay at the internet cafe because we were surrounded by transvestites surfing porn....yes it´s true. We are still here at Oktoberfest now and are having the best time ever. This place is nuts!! Rach has a few friends that live here in Munich (Tyler and Becca) and a bunch others came to meet us here. Aaron, his bro Josh, Julie, Reeve and several others flew all the way out to hang with us. Love you guys! We all met up on Thursday and have been playing ever since. We´ve basically tasted the beer at most of the tents (Hoffbrauhause, Paulaner, Hippodrom, Lowenbrau and more)! We have been so lucky... people have had lots of table reservations so we never had to stand in line and we were always at a table. You can only order beer in most tents if you´re sitting. Aaron some how managed to score a reservation at the Hippdrom... the hottest tent. We had 2 hours to go through $300 worth of strong German beer and traditional German food (Pretzels, radishes, sausages, and more!) If you haven´t experienced the Weisn atleast once in your life... you are totally missing out. There are people from all around the world coming together to celebrate. Everyone is chanting, singing, and dancing on every surface they can find. Its a riot. We have lots of good stories, but you´ll have to hear them in person if you know what I mean ;)

From here us girls (Julie too) are headed to taste more beer in Dublin. Ay ya ya!!

Stay tuned for our next adventures... we will try and update the blog again before this weekend!

We love and miss you all.
Rach and Steph