Last Thursday I decided last minute that the van needed to be rescued. As they say: Winter is coming. So with 48 hours notice, flights were booked, bags were packed, all my work responsibilities were fulfilled and the next thing I knew it was planes, trains and automobiles all over again. I apparently wasn’t quite ready for home in Ottawa, Canada. From Newark to Switzerland to Venice to Trieste, the last minute plan materialized perfectly. That is, until the van didn’t start. Of course it didn’t!

The important part of the story is that it was also my 40th birthday on Monday and the parking lot in Trieste wasn’t exactly ideal, so… found a mechanic, rented a car, got the parking lot owner to manage the van for us and headed to Split, Croatia. It was a jumbled beautiful mess of local food, heritage hotels, friendly taxi drivers, pop up hot wine booths and a strange biker bar until 3am followed by a whole lot of stumbling around trying to find our way home. The weirder the better right?

From there, a little Game of Thrones adventure to Dubrovnik where we explored the back alleys at night, King’s Landing by day and the walls surrounding the old city. What a place!

Now what? No idea. But my Instagram stories may have left a clue…