A Moveable Feast in Zagreb: Spring

Well, I guess we kind of hibernated on our blog this winter...
Winter has been looooooooooonng. Lots of grey skies, snow, cold, seemingly endless. How do I end up living in places with long winters when I prefer that winter lasts for about a month? I would prefer the first snowfall to be after Thanksgiving dinner, then snow on the ground until Christmas, snow all day on Christmas day, then spring to begin on New Years Day. Is that too much to ask?!?
Definitely seeing a tropical location for our next move.

Anyways, first let's rewind to "ski" week, or in our case, "search-for-the-sun" week. We decided to ditch the ski slopes for the sun of Lisbon, Portugal. Portugal has been on my list of places I wanted to see since my brother went there years ago. We found a place on Airbnb in the Alfama district. We flew in and caught a taxi to meet the owner of the apartment. We started off by having black pork-delicious! The neighborhood was amazing. Tiny, winding streets that meander up and down the countless hills.

Lisbon is beautiful. Not so much in the typical "European" beautiful sense. It's a little grittier than any other city I've been to in Europe. Sam was asked if he wanted to buy pot several times a day. Lots of graffiti (well that part is typical). But I absolutely loved the architecture and the feeling of Lisbon. The tiles (obsessed), the Fado music, the food, the views, the trolleys. It reminded me of San Francisco. And the best part? Sun. :)

Who's that guy??

View from the gondola

Celebrating being together for 10 years at Starbucks, where it all began.

Caisas

Fast forward a month and a half to April. My parents joined us for 2 and a half weeks! We drove them through Slovenia, Italy, and Croatia. I love me a road trip! :) We started by going to Ljubljana, Slovenia and then on to Venice. We had one sunny day and one day of pouring rain. I love Venice, but it seems that every time Sam and I only have a day or two in a city, we end up traipsing around at least one of the days in the pouring rain. Sam and my dad got matching ponchos, so I guess it was worth it.

Ljubljana

Venice

Then we traveled back through Trieste, Rovinj, and Motovun before stopping near Opatija for the night. My parents were as captivated by the Croatian coast as I knew they would be.
The next weekend we took them to the island of Krk and the island of Rab. We lucked out and had absolutely beautiful weather. Then we made our way through the countryside to Plitvice Lakes.