This won’t be a very exciting post. We had 2 nights in Munich to drop off our rental car and pick up our friends Andy and Steph for our next leg to Split, Croatia. At this stage in the trip 6 weeks into our 9 week journey we were pretty tired.

A little bit of normality was a welcome relief from our transient existence. It took the form of going to Andy and Steph’s church and joining their church community for lunch after the service. It was so nice to be in a church again and around people who went out of their way to make us feel welcome. We met a lot of Andy and Steph’s friends and Thea loved heading downstairs to the kids group to play play dough while the sermon was on.

After a nice lunch we headed home for some downtime. Craig napped and the girls and I did drawing and hanging out on the floor. Evie is just getting the hang of crawling forward so time out of the front pack is pretty important.

Andy and Steph live in a tiny house which we hadn’t seen in person before so we headed there in the late afternoon to see it. Thea was very pleased to discover a playground there and the tiny house was compact and cute!

The tiny house is in a campground right on the river running through Munich so we enjoyed a meander along the banks up to the little cafe we went to last time we were here. Just as we were almost there the skies opened and we were drenched in water. The cafe was full as it is only really a container so we went to the bakery instead. Their coffee is pretty average and out of a vending machine so we decided to split our snacking. The cakes were delicious and the rain stopped as soon as we got inside.

It was pretty late by this stage about 5.15pm so we grabbed our coffees and headed back to Andy and Steph’s to pick up our car. They came for dinner and we enjoyed chatting about our upcoming trip to Split the next morning. Once again logistics were our main focus as we had to be at the airport by 11am and it was a 45 minute drive from our Airbnb. Thankfully our bags were mostly still packed from being in Switzerland so the next morning went without a hitch.

Despite a sudden onset of snow, we arrived at the airport by 11.30am and Evie dozed in the front pack as we made our way to our gate. The flight went well too, the girls, Steph and I sat in one row and the boys in another. We hadn’t expected food or drinks on our flight but both were provided.

Once we landed we went to the rental car desks and picked up the keys for our rental. We’d booked through a third party and this meant that our car company wouldn’t let us take the car without a $1800NZD block on our credit card or $350NZD excess reduction payment. Craig and I were both confused as we thought we’d paid for an excess reduction option when we booked. Apparently that was through the 3rd party and not through the rental car company themselves. Craig was livid, it didn’t seem legitimate to us, but after a heated exchange it didn’t seem like we had much option but to let the block happen. It was either that or pay the $350 which we wouldn’t get back. We just had to be uber careful with our car!

We were late for our arrival time with our host, Bartul. But thankfully he was very generous and kind hearted and told us not to worry and that he’d meet us when we arrived. It took about 25 minutes to get from the airport to our apartment. He was wearing a Wallabies T-shirt (Australian rugby team) so that was a good omen. Bartul bounced around the apartment making sure we knew where everything was and he’d even left us some snacks, juice and milk in the fridge – wow! We were stoked with the apartment it was large and very comfortable.

We hadn’t had time to get to the supermarket so Craig and Andy visited the local restaurant which Bartul had recommended to us and grabbed four traditional Split dishes. There was a prawn and homemade pasta, lamb stew with gnocchi, a risotto and a chicken breast in tomato sauce. They were all full of garlic and flavour. The girls went down pretty well given the long travel day and we settled into a card game and dessert.

So far Split was working out great, here’s a sneak peak of how pretty it is from our next post.