Steph's Turn!

After going to Alaska and Phoenix a couple of times myself, Steph will finally get to experience the place that I am from. Our trip to Bosnia has been a long one. We had a late flight from Manchester to Istanbul last night. We arrived to Istanbul at 10:30pm and by the time we got to our hotel in Istanbul with the shuttle, it was already midnight. We were impressed with the hotel that we were at (great views of the sea) and took long showers to rejuvenate ourselves from the long trip. We really didn't get too much rest as our alarm woke us up at 5:00am to get ready and head to the airport for our flight to Sarajevo. Unfortunately we did not get to experience Istanbul with our layover being in the middle of the night. We did manage to experience the crazy Turkish taxi drivers weaving and turning through the lanes. Although our flight to Sarajevo was half an hour late, everything went fine and we tried to catch up on our sleep.

After we landed, Steph, Elvira and I went over to our Uncle and Aunts (Moms side) for a quick breakfast. We then went to our apartment in Sarajevo to drop off our luggage and pack our backpacks for our mini trip to Vlasenica. The first bus to Vlasenica was at 3:30pm giving us enough time to go to the center of the city in Sarajevo to show Steph some of the sights and eat ice cream.

Seeing my Grandma has been great! She is not in too good of a shape with the strokes that she has had but she is strong and still holding on. Steph received a lovely necklace as a graduation gift from my Grandma and my Aunt which she is enjoying. I am always trying to fill her in with what everyone is saying but with all the practice that she had, she can understand bits and pieces and can even say a few sentences too. Everyone is excited to finally see Steph and all are surprised when she says something in Bosnian.

It's been a scorcher out here with highs in the 90's. We will have plenty of sun for the next couple of weeks in Sarajevo, Croatia, Rome, and Madrid. We plan to go back to Sarajevo Thursday morning so that Steph can experience the real beauty of Bosnia before we head to our next destination. We are super tired with little sleep so we will head off to bed soon.

Below you will see our airplane and bus adventures we went through to get to Bosnia.

And now a little word for Steph...

Dino's message is accurate. I fixed some capitalization errors. I think it is bed time now.

Love and Miss,

Steph & Dino