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CatrionaGrace said:
I'm glad it was a stellar trip. Where to next?
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Thank you! It truly was.

I'm starting to have thoughts about going to see where my mother was born in Slovenia (she came to Canada when she was 3 months old)
 
Unless plans change, I'm going back to Scotland, this time with my daughter-in-law. She's trying to coax my son into going, too, but he is not a willing traveller unless hunting and/or fishing are involved. He's a tall man who doesn't stuff well into airline seats. She;s working the fishing angle, though, so who knows?
 
I loved Scotland when we went, especially the Highlands
 
It's not fun being stuck in an airplane seat for 7 hours, but the time in between the go-and-return is worth it!
 
CatrionaGrace said:
Rath, measuring distance in beer is a tongue-in cheek concept (at least for most travelers). I generally measure driving distance in audiobook cd discs.
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Ah, fair enough. The last time I got on a plane was from Italy to Australia, and I didn't fare too well. I couldn't get to sleep, and when I finally did and woke up later, it was to a profound pain-in-the-neck. Ow. So, maybe I could measure travel in how often I apply a heat-pack. ;)

CatrionaGrace said:
My royalty statement arrived last night. My income from writing is officially more than it was at either museum or law firm. Only took me half a century or so to achieve professional status.
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Congratulations! :) 🍻

Louanne Learning said:
It's not fun being stuck in an airplane seat for 7 hours, but the time in between the go-and-return is worth it!
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Yes. (See above). A plane flight from Italy to Australia ... shudder. The horror. I think it ended up being a 32-hour flight.
 
So my mother was born in Turnisce, Prekmurje, Slovenia, but we wouldn't stay there. We'd make it a day trip. What city should we make our "home base" for the trip?

Ljubljana? Munich? Salzburg? Graz? Budapest?
 
Set2Stun said:
This travel talk makes me want to travel.
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Same. I can't remember the last time I traveled. Well, I travel between Northern England and Crete all the time, but it's never for a trip. So, let me correct that by saying that I haven't been to a trip in ages. I believe the last time I did was ten years ago when I was 15. I went to Corfu. The other time I went to Aigina when I was around 13.

Besides those two trips, I have never gone anywhere else.

I want to change that this year. I spent a good portion of 2025 fixing up my Grandfather's car (it's been in the family for 30 years!) and I really want to get my license and use it to go all around Crete. Crete is my home island but going around is enough to qualify for a trip! There are so many cool and interesting places to see.

That's my dream right now, but I don't know if it'll happen. I'm still saving up for the license. It's not too expensive to get in Greece though. The problem is whether I can actually learn to drive. It might just be my usual self-esteem thing, but I genuinely cannot see myself behind a wheel. It feels like an alien concept.

It raises the question of why I spent a lot of time and 1,500+ euros fixing it. Why not? It was a 25k km 1993 car literally rotting away in a driveway. I rescued it before it became too far gone. Plus, it belonged to my Grandfather. That is reason enough alone, if you ask me. But it was also tons of fun. Minus the body repairs, a friend and I did most of the work by ourselves, so I learned a lot about cars along the way. It was worth the money and effort even if I don't ever get to drive it.

But it will be really cool if I can. To drive something that I poured literal blood and sweat into at the roads of my dear home island? It is indeed a dream. I want to go to a coast at the edge of Crete. Whether it turns into reality remains to be seen.
 
I'm sure you'll take to driving fairly easily. You must have sunk a lot of hours into Mario Kart. Same thing!
 
Set2Stun said:
You must have sunk a lot of hours into Mario Kart. Same thing!
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I have. I played the DS version a whole lot as a kid. The Wii version more, even recently. The community-made Wiimmfi server is a lot of fun with lots of skilled people who know what they are doing.

That said, I never used the motion steering controls. I always preferred using the Classic controller.

But how did you know?
 
A group of us is looking to travel that way next year. My sister is mentioning Tuscany, but the villa she chose costs twice as much as a villa in Trieste!
 
Homer Potvin said:
Honestly, I find driving easier and less dangerous than walking. I've had more injuries tripping over my own feet than behind the wheel. Food for thought.
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Driving feels like magic to me. It's because I know the theory of how it works that it seems so hard. You have to shift those gears with that very needy clutch in a road full of other cars. It might sound much harder than it is because I've never even attempted it though.

The only thing I ever did was bring the car five meters forward in its parking spot after we finished working on it. Push clutch, shift first gear, give it a bit of gas, and engage the clutch just enough so it moves. Easiest thing ever. But I can't imagine doing the full thing in a road.

But I have never taken any lessons, so that's probably where all of those silly thoughts are coming from :) I'll probably end up driving just fine by summertime! That said, my beloved little Opel Corsa has no power steering, and shifting gears is really hard compared to modern vehicles. I've felt how a friend's modern Toyota RAV4's shifter feels while I was installing a sound system in it. It felt butter smooth compared to the Corsa. Almost like a video game control.
 
ps102, your Opel Corsa sounds delightful, and good on you for becoming a mechanic along the way. 🚗 Driving around the coast of Crete sounds heavenly.

Both of my children and my grandson were driving on backroads by the time they were twelve or thirteen. I learned to drive stickshift in a 1946 US Army-issue jeep that was just short of 30 years old when I got hold of it. What we could do, you can do. It's not so hard- really!
 
I grew up in the bush and had similar experiences. Dad let me drive the truck and his motorbike a few years before I'd be eligible to get a license. Mom did not share this enthusiasm, but still let me drive her around when I got my license at 16 😅
 
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