Long-distance bus to frigid little Pula, Croatia

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Having stuck around in northern Croatia long enough to enjoy the deep recent snowfall of Osijek and Varaždin, the trip continued today: Masayo and I left the town of Varaždin and took a bus all the way across the country to Pula on the Adriatic coast of the Istrian peninsula. It was sad to say goodbye to the snow, but on the plus side I didn’t have any really high blood sugars all day.

So long, snow – for now. And so long high BGs – for now! I’m sure they’ll both be back.

Final morning in Varaždin

At 9:00 am we awoke in our room at Garestin Pansion in Varaždin, where the sun was shining, the snow was still layered thick on most everything outside, and my BG was 170. That’s surprisingly good after the hamburger and then bonus potato chips and chocolate milk before bed.

Down in the hotel’s dining area we had our second breakfast here. In light of the fact that coffee in Europe rarely makes sense to us, I asked the friendly and English-speaking server to bring us large cups of coffee. And she did – larger cups but still only half-filled.

Neither Masayo nor I drink milk with our coffee but we did today, trying to stretch out the beverage into a human amount (it still didn’t come anywhere near the top of the mugs). The tiny amounts of coffee we’ve been getting continues to mystify us. As usual, the breakfast included more bread than any human could possibly eat, and not enough coffee to bother an ant.

Shrug. You travel to see what’s happening in each place you visit, not to be served and pampered like back home. We took it in good humor; I injected my Humalog shot at the table through my Bluff Works pants as always.

We checked out around 11:00 am but left our bags at the desk since the bus for the town of Pula wasn’t leaving until 1:30. We still hadn’t even seen much of Varaždin yet, just the local bus station.

After buying our Pula bus tickets (gotta make sure around the holidays that transportation is running and that you can get seats!) we walked around Varaždin for the first time. It was very merry – quite a cute town with little alleys and warm-looking shops full of curios and crafts. It was sunny but the snow was holding fast on things, not melting too much. The town was still decorated for Christmas and people walked around, talking happily and shopping and bundled up tightly.

In one little square near a large Christmas tree I checked my BG; the breakfast had made me 67 so I had some juice. And we bought some snacks for the bus trip; you can never be sure of being able to stop for lunch or anything on a new and unknown bus route.

Goodbye to the snow came next: we got our bags from Garestin Pansion, wished them a final farewell, and soon were sitting on a bus that pulled out on time as a few snow flurries fell, despite the shining sun.

Lovely bus ride to Pula

The bus ride in the cold Croatian afternoon was particularly scenic – over ridges we’d climb, looking down on vast snowy fields with small, boxy yellow buildings bunched together in the inexorably setting sun.

We made a stop in Zagreb, our home over Christmas last week, where snow was falling heavily which I found quite exciting.

The backpack I bought back in Budapest continued its unfortunate disintegration: the zipper on the main compartment has become mangled and unusable. It’s full of stuff – my MacBook, my daily insulin and blood sugar meter stuff, my low BG snacks – and now it doesn’t close. I’ll have to carry it around, carefully, and find a new one as soon as I can, although it’s December 30 and I may not be able to find anything open for a few days.

I declined to check my BG on the bus for the snack since it had just been 67 back in Varaždin and I figured the juice had brought it up to a good number. The muffins, yogurt, and Coke Zero we’d brought were all tasty – I love bus and train snacks like this, chomping down on simple travel fare while the countryside slips by outside. I did take insulin, hoping to continue the no-high-BGs streak today.

As we inched towards the Croatian coast the sky got darker and darker as the snow cover got thinner and thinner beside the road. As we neared the actual peninsula of Istria – the prominent triangle just below the Slovenian border – we started entering frequent tunnels. One of them was 5 kilometers long – but it was too dark anyway to see the impressive hills that must have been all around us.

Unseasonal, biting cold of Pula

By the time we arrived, well after dark, in Pula down at the tip of the Istrian triangle next to the Adriatic Sea, the snow was completely gone. The snowstorm that had dumped so much on central Croatia had evidently missed Pula altogether.

But it was very cold, certainly well below freezing. A thermometer outside said -3ºC (about 26ºF), but a wind from the vast and flat Adriatic Sea sliced through the air making it feel much colder. It froze us to the bone.

Since our plan is to hole up in Pula over New Year’s I found an apartment room on booking.com that has its own kitchen called Apartments Ljiljana. We found the place near a roundabout down the street from the bus station, on a quiet sidewalk where there were no people and nothing open in the frozen evening. A large blue-lighted Christmas tree in the middle of the roundabout was cheerful, though.

After checking into the pleasant and basic room we headed out to look for dinner. Next to the Christmas tree outside I checked; my BG was 73. More perfection!

I was happy to stop by a market and get cheese and crackers for dinner but Masayo, being smarter than I am, wanted something more substantial. We walked into central Pula, past the large Roman amphitheater that a Croatian friend of mine had recommended as “better than the one in Rome”. At night it was indeed quite a fantastic sight, its tan brick color lit up and protruding from the jet-black sky behind it. Can’t wait to see it in the daytime.

We located a casual little restaurant called Zlatna Vrata that was just closing on a small and friendly cobblestoned alley; they said we could order a pizza but only a simple one. We did, and it was excellent. Not too thick and not too thin; we got bubble water with it as is our wont. Pizza has often made me very high on this trip – kind of like gnocchi – so I took a little more insulin than I usually do.

Still trying to learn the balance of pizza and insulin here in Europe – and not all pizza is created the same, as far as carbs are concerned.

After dinner we bought muffins from a bakery for breakfast tomorrow and returned through the frigid night to the room. This place is advertised on booking.com as being “air-conditioned”; presumably the tourist season here is summer and it’s quite hot. There is in fact a heater but I don’t think it’s designed for weather this cold; Pula usually doesn’t see temperatures like this even in winter. Everyone in Pula is probably struggling to stay warm in this erstwhile tropical paradise.

At midnight my post-pizza BG was perfect, 109. Success! No terrible BGs today, despite the strange food, the moving around, and the pizza. I had half of a Snickers bar since 109 is a bit low just before bed, and took a shower. The water, at its hottest, was merely lukewarm. So we were shivering, but there’s a plus side: the beds have plenty of blankets.

Tomorrow is the final day of 2014. We’re looking forward to seeing Pula in the daytime – and I hope we can find a store open so we can eat food in our kitchen over the holidays. (Unfortunately, New Year’s Eve is going to bring the highest BG reading of the trip so far, one over 400 mg/dL – but that’s a tale for tomorrow. For now, good night!)

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