Wine and Spirits Travel

It’s been a hectic few weeks getting ready to participate in the next round of the Share Istria event. I had already scheduled my June with breaks to stay home and write and relax so adding 10 days of travel in has been quite a feat, but I immediately knew it was worth it when I finally arrived back in Pula – almost nine years to the day from when I left. My travel to get to Croatia was not going to be easy. The trip required leaving my house at 9:00 am C.S.T., an hour and a half flight from Bloomington, Illinois, to Atlanta, Georgia. A four hour layover in Atlanta, followed by a nine and a half hour flight to Frankfurt, Germany, a one hour flight to Zagreb, Croatia, a two and a half hour car ride to Pula, and then, finally, a boat ride to the Porec Lighthouse! The weather was beautiful when I left Champaign , Illinois, and my flight to Atlanta stayed pretty much on schedule. Delta upgraded me in one of their economy comfort seats and, despite the fact that it was a s

It was 2006 and I was ready to take my first trip to Europe by myself. I had only been once before at that point and, as a single mom, I hadn't thought about going back. Just as my daughter was about to turn 21, the opportunity presented itself to cover a tennis tournament . I also had enough miles for a first class ticket to Europe. It didn't take me long to make the decision. The tournament was a special one. It was the Smirkva Bowl , a competition in Pula, Croatia, for 10 and under kids. They had teamed up with "Little Mo," a similar organization in the United States founded by the family of Grand Slam champion Maureen Connolly Brinker, to bring four players from the U.S. to Croatia for an exhibition event. I planned to spend time in Paris and Rome too, but it was Croatia that would take most of my time and attention. Three weeks before the trip, I developed shingles. If you've seen the television commercials for the shingles vaccine and wonder