As I mentioned in part 1, I feel that it is a disservice to not discuss the misfortunes of a situation. I will say though it is a much smaller list and bit more nuanced but important none the less. So here we go!

Misfortunes:

• Starting the drive in Ireland. As much as getting the hang of driving in Ireland was a highlight, a real misfortune was during the first 2 hours. Getting off of the overnight flight from Chicago and having H hit with a bloody nose as we exited immigration should have been the omen I needed to slow down. But I was off, I was eager, excited and filled with adrenaline from compartmentalizing what a crazy feeling it was to set off on a 9-month adventure. After a rush to the car rental area and pressured into a larger car (ugh) we set off....and were promptly hit with a sick H in the back seat.
  
  Being a typical young fellow, H still hasn't figured out the proper warning signs to give someone when they feel nauseous, so he went from the I'm-not-feeling-well stage to the dreaded expulsion state in less than 2 minutes. I (of course) also went 0-100 in 2 seconds trying to handle a sticky mess on the backseat of the rental car I picked up not even 40 minutes ago in a country I had never been to. To top that off I was driving on a side of the road with my brain constantly telling me, "WHAT ARE YOU DOING, YOU ARE GOING TO KILL EVERYONE!!!". Dark moment indeed and the closest I think I have come to an aneurysm.
  
• Still learning to slow down. This will most likely never fully happen. Anyone who truly knows me knows I have a bit of a problem slowing down. When I'm going into an unknown situation my anxiety starts rising and the tunnel vision starts taking over. I then start picking up my pace and my brain goes into INTENSE PROCESSING MODE where I make up my mind on the correct path forward and get unbearably annoyed by anyone else who isn't yet there (everyone) and can't see any other reasonable option.
  
  From here one of two things can happen: I'm either right and we can successfully move forward while making my family frustrated with me or I can be oh so very wrong, possibly making a huge mistake due to my overconfidence and making my family frustrated with me. Either way, my family is frustrated. Thankfully those moments when I'm in the wrong haven't been too catastrophic and are good reminders to SLOW DOWN and make sure everyone is on the same page and comfortable with the pace we are moving.
  
• The Turku Pizza incident. Spending over a week in Turku, Finland was a very relaxing time that was extremely important to us in developing our routine. Finland can be well known for its beautiful nature, adorably awkward culture and love of a good Sauna but what they usually arent known for is their food. One evening after the long usual debate we finally decided on pizza since H had been asking for it for a while. Once we found a place that looked approachable we gave a quick look over at the menu and noticed that they had pepperoni. Since we are in fact, basic, I just order "a large pepperoni pizza". The employee responds, "so the pepperoni pizza?". I respond with "yeaaaaaaahhhhhhhh....." after a long pause with a slightly incredulous look. So after the weird, yet, typical interaction with the employee we wait for our pizza.
  
  A short while later our pizza arrives and it has...something extra chopped on it. My logical conclusion is that it is another form of pepperoni in addition to the standard ones. One bite was all it took to realize that I was very wrong with my assessment and it was...tuna. Enter pure bamboozlement. Not many times have I felt wronged like this, almost as if someone is playing a joke on me but this time they actually hate me. H and I just stared at the pizza for a few moments, Laura got up and asked if there was tuna on the pizza. Their response was an unbelievable, "Yes, it comes with it." Through awkward disbelief, I looked up on my phone and quickly found there was, in fact, a "specialty" pizza called "Pepperoni Pizza" that actually came with both Pepperoni AND tuna. While we weren't insightful enough to take a picture of the full pizza, Laura did in fact document the disgusting aftermath after we scraped off almost a full tin of tuna.

• Extremely long bus rides. We were hit with a dilemma on how to get from Finland to Bremen, Germany. We looked at long ferry boats to unaffordable plane tickets. Eventually, we landed on our first trip with FlixBus. We found a cheap flight from Helsinki to Copenhagen and got to spend a little under 24 hours in that wonderful city. We were flying pretty high until we boarded our bus to Bremen. It left at 9:30 pm and lasted for 10 hours. An overnight flight is pretty rough but a bus is just another level of bad especially when they blast their brand color of neon green the entire night down the aisle way. We vowed to never take another overnight bus trip if we could help it.
  
  Once we were halfway through our trip to Croatia we hit the dilemma of how to get from Zadar to Dubrovnik. Take a look at a map of the Croatian coast and you'll notice that you have to leave Croatia, go through a tiny strip of Bosnia and Herzegovina and then reenter Croatia again. We originally had a car reserved for a roughly 4-5 hour trip but I had heard some horror stories about the border crossing so we eventually landed on a bus service that I had seen called Arrive. Arrive is owned by DB which is the German train company so once again tempted by what looked like a nice bus and a cheap ticket I ignored the fact that it was scheduled to be a 9-hour trip. How bad could it be? Those are some famous last words. The minute we boarded the bus I had a panic attack of, "Oh god, what have I done to us". The bus itself was fine but it just had a feeling of being...off. Well, it proceeded to act as a regional/local bus for these sweet Croatians over the course of 11 hours, stopping roughly every 10 minutes. Aa a final insult, they had a LOCKED bathroom on board. That's a problem when you finally stop for bathroom breaks and you have no spare Krona to pay to use the toilet. Laura attempted to open the door a few times and the conductor, speaking in Croatian explained something which essentially said this is where you die. We added another vow of no bus rides over 6 hours if it can be helped.
  
• Broken glasses. Laura warned me time and again to get a backup pair of glasses and I, of course, thought she was being ridiculous. Well my friends, it finally happened in Istanbul. Thankfully I had my prescription sunglasses on so I could at least see (it did make the subterranean trip to the Istanbul Cistern interesting). I then ventured out in the afternoon and bought a pair of same-day glasses for $75.

One thing I can definitely say after writing these is that this is where the good stories will come from. Many years from now I'll remember the good times we had on this trip, but I won't be talking about them. I'll be talking about these instead. What misfortunes lay ahead? Stay tuned to see.

-Jonathan