Last summer Jen and I decided to give HomeExchange.com a try. With 4 children, vacations can get very expensive. Few hotels have rooms large enough for us. Guest apartments charge per head. But with a home exchange, there is
no rent, there is often a full kitchen, and if you exchange with another family with children, there are toys for the kids to play with.
It was a great experience. We did a weekend home exchange since then and it was also a blast. We figured we had found the perfect strategy for a family vacation.
So as we looked ahead towards Christmas break, we decided we wanted to go someplace twenty degrees warmer. We found an amazing looking villa on the Croatian coast not far from Dubrovnik. It was big enough to invite another family along. So with 6 children in town, the Beilmans and the Haberls begin the journey to southern Croatia.
We split the trip into two legs, stopping at Plitvice Lakes overnight. After seeing some of the falls we made our way down the coast. At around 6pm, long after the sun had gone down, with a stout, cold wind blowing in from the sea and having had no dinner, we pull into the villa. What we found was more than we could have ever hoped for imagined!
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| Boxes of stuff lying around for nightly organizing parties! |
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| Real bird feathers for Native-American-headdress craft time! |
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The kitchen had been removed so we could
have a place to play Four-Square! |
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| A moist pillow to keep one's head cool at night! |
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| A wet bed so we can combine bedtime and bathtime! |
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| A filthy toilet so we can feel right at home! |
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Our children's education doesn't have to stop on vacation--
we can teach them how to fold (someone else's) laundry! |
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A free, mostly-consumed mixed drink waits
next to the bed of one lucky vacationer! |
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On one of the beds we found this unique, Pollock-style art left
by one of Croatia's many artistic birds! |
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Having been overwhelmed by all the perks of this particular villa, we felt we just couldn't stay. Kidding aside, we felt angry, betrayed, stressed, still very hungry, nervous about finding a new place to stay, and since this whole trip was our idea, embarrassed. Having just unloaded our cars, we packed them back up and and headed down the winding coastal highway. We were homeless in a strange country not knowing where we would stay that night or when we would eat.
To be continued...
Ah-- but it was an adventure-- and now we can look back at certain things and have a good laugh. And I'm glad that if we were going to experience somethng like this that it was with friends. We'd travel with you all again!! --EH
ReplyDeleteAhhh....don't leave us hanging!! Sorry about your terrible experience, I can't wait to read what happens next!
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