postcard 50: one year

And a little life update✨

Europe slips into an early fall and it feels, just a bit, like life snaps back into place. The line of German RVs makes their way back north, the grocery stores are once again empty and the AC starts blowing chunks of ice at us.

I close my first magazine issue of the season, sending it to the printer with immense gratitude that the monster is finally done with, and we walk the now empty trails along the coast every morning. The sea fluctuates between glass and tossing waves and we stop and watch no matter what it’s doing, always mesmerized by the show. There’s dinner on the balcony in sweatshirts and coffee at our favorite seaside cafe and the hot, sticky summer feels like a fever dream.

In Austria, they turn the herding of the cows each fall from the high mountain pastures of summer down to the low, winter ones, into a festival marking the changing of the seasons. The first town we visited on our way to Croatia last year, Filzmoos, hosts a festival and parade where the cows get driven through the streets. They wear flower crowns. It's on a Monday, but I decide we have to go. Two days before we’re supposed to leave, as we’re scrubbing the apartment for our next guests, I check the weather. There are some very solid snowflake icons in Filzmoos.

The festival gets cancelled and we’re bummed, but the hotel is non-refundable and we can’t pass up snow, even if it is in early September. The mercury dips the farther north we head and it’s almost freezing by the time we pull off the highway onto the little mountain road leading to the village. Almost is the key word here, because the constant precipitation coming out of the sky is not snow, despite the nearly a foot that coats the ground. A steady drizzle tests the waterproofing on our jackets as we wander the small town that first charmed our jet-lagged brains. Even now, it’s still adorable. We find a dog park and let Hazelnut zoom through the snowy field. I have a feeling she manifested a winter wonderland instead of a boring cow festival where she’d be left in the hotel room. She’s over the moon. Another dog shows up and she tries to convince him to wrestle.

There’s a tractor with a two-cow trailer making trips up and down the road, moving the sad, soggy beasts. Out the window of our hotel we hear hooting and hollering and then an accordion starts up, followed by a tuba. The very drunk folk band—in full lederhosen—whom I’m assuming was supposed to play the festival, is drinking at the hotel bar across the street. They stand out in the rain, clutching cigarettes and playing snippets of music to an empty and wet street.

We’re one of three tables at the restaurant we choose for dinner but it’s so cozy. I order pumpkin and orange soup and traditional knödel dumplings with wild mushrooms. Topher has a schnitzel stuffed with ham and cheese. I think back to our first night here, nearly a year ago, and how timid and unsure we were of everything. Now, we can read a German menu, we sort of know what to do at restaurants and we understand how rest stop bathrooms work. Sometimes it feels like the blink of an eye, but there’s been so much learning and growing in the past year it might as well have been a lifetime.

In the morning we get pasteries from the bakery and head out on the trail. It’s raining harder today and we switch off holding the umbrella. Our ski jackets make it a solid 20 minutes before they start soaking through and the forest floor squelches under our feet. The higher wet get, the deeper the heavy, wet snow becomes and finally we give up and traverse over to the road that runs parallel to the trail. Finally, we reach the end of the valley. This is where we got chased by alpine cows (https://postcardsfromeurope.substack.com/p/postcard-1-cows-on-a-rampage?r=9bp7c) last year. Today, they’re safely locked up in a paddock, mooing their displeasure.

There’s supposed to be a marmot colony that’s so friendly you can pet them (I know, I know, bad etiquette but this is Topher’s lifelong dream) just up the mountain from the huts at the valley’s head. Hazelnut and I watch Topher cross a river and posthole through quad-deep snow for several minutes until he gives up and returns with soggy boots. The marmots are definitely not going to be out.

On the way back to the hut we spy a rabbit nosing around one of the barns for dropped hay. He looks like a pet bunny, but he’s hopping around freely. Topher digs the carrots we bought for the marmots out of his bag and leaves one with the little guy. He’s exctatic.

One hut is closed, but the other is bursting with life. Folk music comes out of the speakers and we’re ushered into one of several small rooms filled with communal tables of wet hikers. It’s warm and cozy and I order the most random trio of warming items I can imagine: soup, coffee and apricot shnapps. I’m freezing. Despite having roamed all over Germanic Europe this year, we’ve yet to drink shnapps and I decide today is the day. I don’t know what I expected, but it’s not the clear liquor that comes out. We down them swiftly and eat our soup and noodles. Hazelnut simmers under the table, mad we won’t let her shake off in the small space.

It’s a long and soggy walk back and we’re freezing and soaked to the bone by the time we get to the hotel. Every surface gets covered with clothing laid out to dry and we crank the heaters and take hot showers. It’s a work day and I settle into bed with my laptop, a perfect view out the window to the village and lower pastures dotted with cows in the distance. It’s perfectly cozy.

Eight hours later I power down and we walk next door for fondue. I think we may be the only people at the hotel tonight—the door is locked and we have to let ourselves out with the key. There’s a few tables finishing their dinners as we sit down but soon we’re alone. The waiter sings along to the folk music and brings us a pot of fondue, cubes of bread, a bowl of fruit and a green salad that’s half potatoes. Austrian fondue has more wine than the Swiss version we’ve only had up until this point. It’s sharp and delicious, the perfect cure for a cold and rainy night.

In the morning, the rain has finally stopped. The air smells crisp and cold, like winter. We order two more pastries for the road and exclaim over the inversions sitting in every valley we pass as we make our way back to Croatia.

Today marks exactly 365 days since we touched down in Germany last year to begin this marvelous adventure. I think about the scared, wide-eyed and yes, naive, kids that jumped head long into that adventure and am both proud of the ways we’ve grown and changed and the ways we’ve stayed exactly the same. I tried so hard to come into this chapter with no expectations, but obviously that is never possible. Living in Croatia looks different than I’d imagined, but in some ways exactly the same, or exceeding my wildest imagination.

I love walking into an ancient Roman city to buy produce or eat calamari fresh from the sea. I love swimming in the salty Adriatic, my dog paddling next to me in her bright yellow life jacket. I love the rows of vines lined up along the hillsides and buying olive oil from the source and the multitudes of street cats. I love the sound of sea gulls and drying laundry fluttering in the breeze and buying fresh mozzarella for $1.50 a ball. I love the shop where we order kebab and our daily walk and being able to greet our neighbors and order in Croatian. I love the seaside towns and the hidden beaches and the villages nestled in wild, forested hills filled with truffles. I love the sleepy, safe feeling and the kind people and the unhurried pace of life. I love being just a road trip from Europe’s greatest hits: the Swiss Alps and the canals of Venice, Austrian Christmas markets and some of the world’s best wine country. I love every day feeling like an adventure, even if it feels like a lot some days.

I realize the silliness in sobbing, but I can’t help it. I feel like I’ve cried too many tears for too many conflicting emotions this year, but that’s what purposefully splitting your heart does to you. I cried so much thinking about, and actually leaving our life in Colorado. I cried often when we first moved here, homesick and hating this strange place that didn’t feel like home. And now, I find myself sobbing because leaving seems impossibly hard, but here we are. Planes tickets booked, less than three months left.

December 3rd seems much too soon now that the decision has been made, but I know I’d feel that way no matter when we closed this chapter. Leaving highlights all the beauty and sweeps all the bad under the rug. It’s bittersweet. I am elated to be coming back to Colorado, to be returning to our people and the place my heart yearns for, but I am also heartbroken to be leaving Europe, and yes, even Pula, this town I have against all odds fallen in love with.

There’s countless factors that went into deciding to return, but the bottom line is that Colorado is home, even if that word feels more complicated now that it did a year ago.

We’ve got a million things to do to get ready and truly the silliest journey yet to get back to the Rockies (if you thought our journey here was wild, buckle up this next one’s a doozy!) but more than anything, we’re taking advantage of every moment we have left and telling each other every chance we get that this is not goodbye, it’s just see you later.

-Mikaela