June 28

Random events are what this trip is all about.
Our last morning in Spain we had another wonderful breakfast at the market, checked out of our pension, walked to the bus station, and boarded a bus that would take us to the Girona-Barcelona Airport. We had a fairly uneventful (although somewhat bumpy) flight. Europeans always clap when we have safely landed, which is a nice way of showing the relief of being on the ground.
After waiting outside in the heat of late afternoon for an overcrowded bus to take us into the Treviso, Italy city center, we discovered that any train or bus that would take us closer to our destination (Rejika, Croatia) would dump us somewhere near midnight, so we decided to stay in Treviso for the night (or so we thought). We started walking in the direction of a few lodging options when we came to a city square (open areas all over cities in Europe) where tables were set up with Strudel and drinks. We were beckened over for free Strudel (which we could not pass up) and cold drinks (again, could not pass up, rememeber it is 6:30 pm, we are hot, and have been travelling all day) by travel representatives from a town in Austria. They begged us to sit down, take a load off, enjoy the food and drink (which we did). We started talking to these people and they explained they were in Treviso all day with this group of children who do a dancing and singing performance. Somehow we were invited to join this group on their bus to go back to Klagenfurt, Austria with them. While still in Treviso, they called a hostel and reserved a room for us. (Let me take a moment to ease any fears of those reading to say that Sydnee and I thoroughly assessed the safety and sanity of this situation, there were adult men and women, very nice, many children, a large coach bus, and I promise we would not get ourselves into any kind of bad situation). So, we rode for three hours from Treviso to this lovely town of Klagenfurt (slight detour, but trains leave from here to Croatia, so no big deal). The kids (ranging in age from 5 or 6 to 15) loved to try out their English on us and I loved trying out my minimal amount of German with them (of course they were way better at English than I was at German). We may end up spending a few days here because there is a very nearby lake that is supposed to be wonderful and warm (which must be rare in the Alps because they kept telling us the exact temperature like it was a big deal), there is also some sort of amusement park.
The bus dropped us off out our hotel and now we are in Austria!