I’ve always tried to keep my head up and a smile on my lips; to see a positive side to each thing. However, this year has really tested me and my resilience. After months of (so-called) home-schooling and dread about the future, summer came and we all breathed a collective sigh of relief with the days becoming longer and more full of light and the holidays on the horizon.
At the end of last summer already, we knew exactly what we wanted to do this ˝grandes vacances˝. After an absolutely wonderful and truly luxurious holiday spent in northern Africa, we decided to go low key this year and planned to spend four weeks on the Balkan peninsula, visiting places dear to our heart, where our families live. We’d spend a few days with my, then Marko’s extended family. We’d make a drive to northern Croatia and make daily trips to the islands. In the end, Bosnia and a calmer and more hedonistic way of life was how we planned to finish it all off.
But as the date of our departure was approaching and the numbers kept rising while measures kept changing, it became ever so clear that we would not be able to carry out our plans. We read and listened and had long brainstorming sessions but in the end just had to admit our defeat, followed by a quick change of direction, more than once, in all honesty, which made us land in Croatia.
In the given situation, we decided to avoid hotels and favoured glamping. Having a tiny house with a terrasse, just steps away from the sea, and the luxury of two bathrooms all for ourselves proved to be the right decision. With not much else to do but read, lie in the sun, and eat (with the occasional dip in the sea or jump into the pool), the pace of our lives slowed down considerably. We spent hours playing board games and talking, we went on long walks by the seaside as the sun was setting, usually ending in an ice-cream parlour, and the children spent every second of their waking time outside. We often slept in, went hiking, discovered new hobbies, and got better at old ones.
Although we did go on the occasional trip, we consciously avoided them and gave ourselves the opportunity to get bored.
Through the four weeks, we visited three different places, two by the seaside and one further back in the hinterland, but we mostly kept our leisurely routine wherever we went. Among old favourites, such as a cup of Turkish coffee first thing in the morning, we rediscovered long-forgotten foods, habits, places, and pleasures from our previous, pre-expat, lives. We came home energised and surprised at what a lovely holiday we had just spent in the most unlikely of places. It might have not been what we had planned to start with, or what we would have chosen had we had a wider variety of possibilities but it was amazing nonetheless and exactly what we needed at that point in time.
So if this year has thought me anything, besides not to make plans, is to be adaptable. And that plan B is not such a bad alternative, in the end.