"Plitvice lakes" AKA Garden of Eden.

The last 2 weeks in Croatia have been great, as I posted in my last blog, I picked up my wife in Budapest and she was staying with me for 2 weeks. :D It was a blast! Unlike a couple wife visits in the past this time we stayed non stop busy. Trips and practices and meetings out the wazoo, but just as it was tiring it was equally rewarding! As you see in the pictures above we visited the Plitvice Lakes here in Croatia, roughly 2 hours from my apartment. Let me go ahead and tell you....I walked about 1000 miles during this visit but for every mile i walked it was worth 4!!! THIS PLACE IS INDESCRIBABLE. I cant put it into words the way this place looked beautiful, wonderful, peaceful, majestic, breathtaking....man so many adjectives fail to measure up in comparison to what these lakes have in store for there visitors! I admit even though I am a self proclaimed "good photographer" LOL I failed to capture the beauty of this place. Believe it or not my wife Jonna (SUPER WORLD TRAVELER 5000) was even in shock to the majesty of this place. She even admited that it was if not the best which it might be but at least one of the most beautiful places she has ever seen! And dont forget this girl has been to every continent besides South America! ;) So she is borderline nature appreciation expert. These last 2 weeks have been wonderful and I am extremely glad I chose the Zagreb Thunder for 2012, from Zagreb to Budapest and Budapest all the way to the lakes of Plitvice and the shoreline of Split...Southern Europe is... WONDERFUL. But dont take my word for it, check out these pics!

Buda-best!

I have to admit I was really excited for my weekend in Budapest and you might ask yourself was I let down....... NOT AT ALL! Besides the drug dealer asking me and Jonna if I wanted to buy crack rocks the first night we were there, everything was beyond my expectations. First off it was a beautiful 6 hour train ride with a beautiful view of one of Europe's most famous lakes, Lake Balaton. The water looked great, and in the future I will have to spend a weekend on the lake soaking up the Hungarian culture. When I arrived in Budapest after quite the train adventure with some new friends, I quickly learned that Hungarians dont speak the best English. Imagine this- a handsome and charming Texan with long beautiful hair asking everyone and their dog if they speak English and.........he only finds like 3 people in the whole city and they were not even Hungarian....they were from Germany and Holland.This was frustrating but easily dismissable in comparison the amount of fun I had on this trip. I will not rant on and on about things to much, so I will do like always, leave you with some great pictures from the adventure. ;)

A weekend in Budapest.

NEXT STOP BUDAPEST!!!!

From every true European traveler I speak to, there are a couple of places in Europe that are must visits. One is Prague, the other is Rome, and one that I have always heard of and really wanted to visit was...yep you guessed it. BUDAPEST! :D I will travel by train from Zagreb to Budapest tomorrow to pick up my Finnish wife, Jonna <3 It will be great to see her since it has been almost a month since I flew to Croatia for the football season. Like you might know, It is always great to meet up with missed loved ones, but it is even better to meet up with them in BUDAPEST :D while staying at a 4 star hotel and hitting the city up like Mohamed Ali. Wish me luck! When traveling in Southern Europe you never know what you are going to get!!!!

Croatia National Team Camp 2012

Hard working, smart, willing to learn, talented, selfless, players everywhere!

That is the best way to describe the Croatian National Camp of 2012. I have had the privilege to coach and play all over Europe and I have to say that the 90-100 guys that showed up to the 2012

CAMP were all true American Football Players! The willingness to learn and passion was everywhere. It was truly a honor to coach at this camp along side great coaches like Mike Mitchell (DeAnza College/Humbuldt St. University), John Trana(Hudson Valley CC), Jacob Palaniuk, and John Anderson. I was the Running Back coach and had the opportunity to work with some great guys. But instead of ranting on and on I will leave you with some pictures and a video! ENJOY!

http://youtu.be/7dTM2fPZkTM

Another Jones Journey

5 cups, Helsinki,Finland

3 teaspoons, Munich Germany

Sprinkle some Split, Croatia

Add 2 flights and a long train ride...and what do you get.....

*Zagreb, Croatia for 2012*

and a little adventure along the way.

Because I try to keep my blog post full of more pictures than me ranting about daily adventures I am going to try to keep it rather short. February 28th was the day I was supposed to fly to beautiful Croatia, but due to the fact that Malev (Hungarian) Airlines went BANKRUPT I found out the day before my flights were not only canceled but non existent...as you might assume that did not leave this Texan very confident about a trip that was supposed to take place in 12 hours.

So there I am scrambling around calling airline company s and trying to make since of the procedure of what to do in case a airline company drops off the face of the earth with flights that were already paid for. Like you probably imagine I was like tazmanian devil running around calling companies, emailing crappy hungarian websites facebooking coaches and board members etc. Well finally after what seemed to be hours got in touch with the president of the Zagreb Thunder and informed him of wonderful news. Ha, It was quite exciting to say the least, both of us working together calling travel agencies, hitting up booking websiites and calling the retarded Malev Airlines, just to realize that if you want to buy flights the day before a trip, you should probably sell a kidney or half a lung to be able to afford it. To summarize...I did not fly to Zagreb on February 28th, but instead got to spend one more wonderful day with my beautiful Finnish wife. ;) The very next day I find flights not to Zagreb, but even better WONDERFUL SPLIT, CROATIA!!! If you have never seen it I suggest a google search. The team booked my flights from Helsinki to Munich, then Munich to Split. Then from Split a 6 hour train ride to the capital city ZAGREB. Flights from Helsinki to Munich were fast and great, even the food on the flight was surprisingly tasty. Flights from Munich to Split were AMAZING!!! The plain I flew in, was a small propeller based flight with (Croatian, Airlines). But the part that was great, despite the loud and turbulence proned airplane, WE FLEW OVER THE ALPS! Some of the largest and most beautiful mountains on planet Earth! I was like a kid at a candy store, a couple times without shame doing and sitting next to a stranger to get a better picture out of the airplane. It was really quite beautiful. When I arrived to Split, even in February was what imagined it would be. WARM TROPICAL BEAUTIFUL...I cant wait to take some trips out that way later in the season with the guys on the team. Split was great. The 6 hour train ride also was rather exciting, somehow the train area I was sitting turned into a 6 hour talk with all the people in the rail car coming together and talking about topics ranging from war, politics, religion, ethics and even homosexuality. It was great, at the end of the train ride everyone exchanged Facebooks, numbers and emails and no one was disgruntled or upset despite covering the most controversial topic imaginable. When I arrived in Zagreb I was welcomed by lots of the guys on the team and got my first dose of Croatia hospitality. I am very impressed with the people here, everyone is friendly and willing to help out in any way they can. It has been a really wonderful trip. One might say even divine, "All things work together for those who love the lord and are called according to his purpose." ;) Who would of thought that a cancled flight filled with stress would lead to the opportunity to be able to spread love, hope and some encouragement to some once strangers but now, friends.