Preparing for Serbia

So we leave for Serbia on Friday. I have been doing laundry and dreading packing and carrying all my bags around with me. We are to meet at the train station early on Friday morning, so hopefully my host family will drive me!

This week has been interesting because we have really gotten deeper into our lectures and had a lot of guest speakers. Today, for example, we had one speaker talking about the feminist movement in Croatia, and another speaker who talked about LGBTIG rights and issues in Croatia, as well as sexual education in schools.

We have also been preparing for our independent study projects (ISPs), which we will do during our last month here. We get to choose where we want to go and what we want to research about. We have been talking about possible topics, as well as research methods for the projects. I am considering doing mine related to the media here and how it has changed over time with socialism and the war. Last night, we were assigned to do interviews with a young person in Zagreb to learn about interviewing. I talked to the host sister of another girl in the program about politics and education in Zagreb and how much young people are involved. That is all for now, but I will be sure to update as soon as I get to Serbia and meet with my host family.

Trip to Vukovar

Vukovar is about a three-hour bus ride from Zagreb. It is located right on the Danube River, which is also the Croatian-Serbian boarder. Even during the time of Yugoslavia, it was one of the most ethnically mixed cities, and had one of the highest rates of inter-ethnic marriages. In 1991 when it was attacked, the town was about 47% Croat and 32% Serbian. Vukovar was one of the first towns invaded by the Yugoslav People’s Army when Croatia announced its independence from Yugoslavia. The town was under siege from August 1991 until it fell (or was liberated, depending on your point of view) on November 18. During this time, the Yugoslav People’s Army (or JNA) shelled the city constantly, while its citizens hid in basements. Croatia, not yet even a recognized nation attempted to form an army to defend Vukovar, and were successful for a period of time. When the city fell, about 80% of the buildings in the town were destroyed. The citizens that had camped in basements for three months finally came above ground to see their city ripped apart by bullets, rockets, bombs and fires. Woman and children were sent away from the city in buses. Croat soldiers were sent to concentration camps, where most were killed.

As you can imagine, the city’s scars are still very visible. Some people say that Vukovar hasn’t been completely rebuilt or recovered in order to serve as a reminder of the war. However, the biggest reminders of this ethnic war aren’t the bullet hole-riddled buildings or prominent memorials and graveyards, but the segregation that still remains between the Croat and Serb population. Children go to either Croatian or Serbian schools; cafes are exclusively Croatian or Serbian; people ignore acquaintances of a different ethnicity. It is not a physically separated city, but there is a barrier there.

We left for Vukovar early on Thursday morning. My train was late, so I was late and I think the bus almost left without me. We arrived and checked in to our hotel, Hotel Dunav. My Frommer’s Guide to Croatia told me it was “built as a package hotel and despite several updates, it still is. Rooms and public spaces still have that dark, socialist aura.” The hotel was clean, had a restaurant and bar and rooms with views overlooking the Danube, but does NOT come recommended by our group (especially me). All of our rooms were crawling with, as our guide called them, “stink bugs.” Big, brown and buzzy, they smell like really bad B.O. when you stomp them, and apparently come in through the windows. Of course, the room I stayed in had the most, and although we spent some time catching them,  they still flew around our room and crawled all over everything all night. Along with the heat due to our closed windows, the situation did not allow for much sleep. I was not a happy camper. Okay, but I tried not to let the horrible rooming situation ruin my Vukovar experience.

 We had free time for lunch, and with few options around the hotel, we tried some “fast food,” aka, ćevapi. We’ve had ćevapi before; it is some sort of spiced sausage on a thing, buttery bun. This was definitely better than the ćevapiwe had in Zagreb, but I think we were all pretty nauseated by the whole situation. After lunch, we had a lecture with our “tour guide,” who was born in Vukovar, but left before the war and has done a lot of research concerning the war. We then took tours of Croatian and Serbian memorial cemeteries. The Croatian one is huge and beautiful (please see my other pictures on Shutterfly). However, the Serbian one is very small, and is actually in a courtyard of local Croat homes. You can see in the pictures how different they look and how much wear and disrepair the Serbian cemetery shows. Serbs have always been the minority in Vukovar, and since they were seen as the aggressors in the war, their fallen soldiers are not celebrated or honored by the locals.

We had dinner at a small restaurant that I cannot remember the name of, unfortunately, because we are apparently going to be pictured on their website! We had a great dinner with a variety of dishes, including crepes with chocolate for dessert. And then home to a horrible night’s sleep…

Today (Friday), we had a lecture with a man who works for an NGO which is working to create an integrated school in Vukovar, as well as improving other facets of Vukovar’s segregation. He also showed us a documentary his group made concerning inter-ethnic relationships made during the war to work towards peace, rather than against it. We then had some free time to explore the city.We made friends with an adorable puppy (as you can see in the pictures), ate lunch at a place where we had many troubles explaining what we wanted to eat and took in the scenery of Vukovar. 


There are a lot of things to process about this town, and all the things we saw.

To see photos...

Okay, I was told that people would like to see more photos, so I've created a Shutterfly account so everyone can see them. I would post more on here, but it takes a really long time to upload photos onto Blogger, and I don't want the page to take forever to load.

So please check out: lostinthebalkans.shutterfly.com

Turtles can be irritating pets

So, I havent been updating a lot lately, and Im very sorry, but at this point we are having a lot of normal days. The commute, language class, lunch break at Dolac and class in the afternoon. We usually go for a beer after class and then I go home for dinner.

However, last night was more exciting. Our second weekend in Zagreb, and the first night of Rujanfest, a big beer and music festival near Lake Bundek in Zagreb. Bundek is on the other side of the River Sava, in Novi Grad, or New Zagreb. It was a really interesting time, beer tents, vendors, sellers, and big carnival rides. I didnt take a whole lot of pictures, but imagine a state fair full of Croats. We listened to some music in one of the big tents, and decided to go home around midnight.

Here is where the unfortunate part comes in. After 1130, the trams going around the city are replaced by buses on a different time schedule. We knew this, but didnt think it would be as much of a problem as it was. After we waited for a tram for about a half hour, some boys told us we needed to wait for a bus on the other side of the street instead. So we waited some more. We stupidly continued to take the advice of the boys, and somehow ended up at a packed club on the exact opposite side of Zagreb, with little idea where we were, or what bus to take back. We waited again for a bus, which finally came and drove us all around again, with no idea where we were. Eventually, we made it to the main square, a place we were actually familiar with. With different destinations, a lot of nighttime construction, confusing bus schedules and a man from LA trying to get our phone numbers, the square was just as confusing as the rest of the city. But finding a bus did not help us much, because once we were in the right neighborhood, we wandered around in circles again for a few more hours.

FINALLY, we made it to Avas host parents house, where I decided to stay since my host parents are gone for the weekend, and I was not looking forward to a long, drunken, lonely walk in the dark back to an empty house. The night ended well, raiding the fridge and we finally went to sleep around 5 a.m. It was a rough experience, but it was a good bonding moment for all involved. I think we all got a little frustrated, but our map and some friendly (but maybe not so helpful) people made it easier.

Today I spent hanging out home alone and watching movies, until the electricity went off. This apparently causes turtles to go crazy, and they have been extremely annoying all afternoon. I had to feed them some gross little shrimp claws (or something, thats what they looked like) this morning, so maybe that got them all hopped up. I have been wanting to take them out of their aquarium all afternoon and let them wear their energy out on the floor and not scraping rocks all around and annoying me. Those crazy Croat turtles.

Zmija, Zaba

Okay, so this is a really popular Serbian "turbo folk" song called "A Snake and a Frog." The whole Serbian music thing is really interesting dynamic, because while it's really popular with people (think like top 40 hits, played in bars and on the radio and you can buy them for your ring tone via text), but there is another group of people who really hate it. Beyond just being polarizing between people, there's still some sort of cultural tension about it being Serbian and being really popular in Croatia. I don't know how to explain it; hopefully my host family will tell me more about why people hate it so much. Or like it so much. 


Here are the lyrics:

You're heat, you're steam, you're so hot
And when I look at you I want to eat honey and walnuts
I'd give everything I have for you to be mine
But when I want to grab you, you runaway anyways

And you easily turn all the guys on, then you cool them off
And you'll really make my brain go crazy
And when the others change their mind, because you made them sad
I know who you'll choose at the end, when you make your choice

Because I'm a snake, you're a frog, a frog
You can run, but it's worthless, worthless
And when you fall into my trap here in the underbrush
I'll swallow you in one bite

You're juice, you're powerfull, you're fatal
And I've always fallen for guys like that
I'd cry, if I'd surrender myself immediately to you
Because you'll think I'm easy for sure

So I run away, I growl a bit and you're chasing me
And you fight with other guys over me
I love you dear, but I'm just pretending
Because when you don't have me, I've got you

Because you're a snake and I'm a frog, a frog
You can threaten me, but it's worthless, worthless
And when I fall into your trap here in the underbrush
Exactly when you open your mouth, I'll vanish quickly with two jumps

"Normal" days

So, today was our first "normal" day of class. ("Normal" because since we travel so much we don't have a very defined schedule.) We are in Zagreb doing "normal" classes until the 23, and then we do a 2 day trip to Vukovar, and then we are back in Zagreb only until October 1. On October 2, we leave for Belgrade, and we are in Serbia (I think we do some traveling outside of Belgrade) until the 26th of October, and then on to Bosnia. After 10 days in Bosnia, back to Zagreb for a week, and then we start our ISP!!! Saying it all like that makes it sound like it will go so fast!! I already feel like the days are moving faster.

This morning was "normal;" woke up, got ready and Josipa drove me into the center of town because she had to go to work on the west side. I was a little early for class, but it was nice not to have to face the train again. I'm still kind of scared of it. We had two hours of language class this morning. I won't lie... I'm feeling a little overwhelmed by the language right now. I'm not used to feeling confused or out of it during a class but this one, quite honestly I don't know what's going on a lot of times. I'm still trying to stay positive though. I'm making sticky notes of vocab words and putting them up right in front of my face at my desk at home so I'm forced to look at "Kako se kaze...?" "sir," and "samo malo." ("How do you say...?" "cheese," and "just a little bit," among others.) After language, we had two hour's break for lunch. A few other girls and I went to a small stand in the main square that sells food to go (fast food, but not American fast food). Afterwards, we walked down the street and got sucked into a few clothing stores... whoops.

The afternoon was our first class with Orli. It was just a beginning sort of thing; we discussed terms and "ideas" and some readings that were apparently assigned... again, whoops. I also feel a little bit behind in this class. Many of the girls are political science, international relations, anthropology or "peace building" majors, and therefore have a lot more experience then I do in foreign affairs and armed conflict. So, again, a little bit behind everyone else but, whatever, I guess someone has to be at the back of the learning curve. After class, we went to a cafe to get a beer before going home. The cafe we went to has old washing machines outside repurposed as tables with tall bar stools. Apparently, the cafe was mentioned in the New York Times' recent article about Zagreb. The inside is cool too, and the walls are covered in fake flowers. One of the table's legs are made from an old bicycle without the seat; another's is the legs of a mannequin. However, it is just a cafe; pretty standard on Tkalciceva. After, I took the crowded tram home and had dinner with Bernard.

Going into this trip with SIT, I was worried that the homestay part would be the hardest part for me (especially considering how I felt about my last homestay experience.) However, it has really turned out to be great (of course, I'm only a week into it, but still). It is SERIOUSLY nice to be able to come home to a room of my own, where I can unpack my things, I have a desk and a bed all of my own, PLUS I get homemade meals cooked for me every night. Bernard and Josipa are so sweet and fun to hang out with. Tomorrow is another "normal" day; hope to get ALL the readings (that I didn't do before) done tonight, go to bed early and be ready for whatever tomorrow has to offer!

Feeling like a tourist

So, as I wrote last night, today we had a guided tour scheduled to see parts of downtown Zagreb as a group, like true Americans. The tour was great, and I took a lot of interesting pictures, but it was definitely embarrassing to be in a big group of people, all with their cameras out, wandering around and staring. We got to see the main cathedral, that can be seen from all over the downtown. We also saw the square where all the hip people go hang out on Saturday mornings to "see and be seen." I'm working really hard to try and get a feel for where things are in the town, so that I can know where I'm going and get around more easily if I want to go somewhere, so the tour definitely helped.

For lunch, three of us went to a restaurant called Boban, which serves Croatian food. It is a nicer, sit-down type restaurant, really the first we've gone to since we've been here. We all got different types of pasta. I got a four cheese penne, and it was amazing. The dynamic of restaurants seems different here than in the U.S. Waiters don't work for tips, so they seem to be less attentive. Or perhaps that's just for three American college students, it's kind of hard to tell.

After lunch, we walked down the "shopping street," Ilica. The group of us has slowly been working on getting phones, so the three of us went into T-Mobile to find something for our needs. Luckily, it is pretty cheap to buy a phone and a sim card, and put a certain amount of kuna on the card to use, and then reload. This is a pretty perfect situation for us since we won't be here too long. My phone was 150 kuna ($30) and has (I think) 20 kuna loaded on the card. So now it will be much easier to communicate with all the other girls, who live in various places around the city.

Afterwards, of course, espresso at a cafe called Maraschino. The next task was getting home. Yesterday, I was driven by car into the main square, and this morning, my "host dad" showed me how to use the train and tram to get into town. The tram is easy, but I was confused about the train. Luckily, there is an alternate route that is just a longer tram ride and more walking, so I just did that for now. But I really want to man up and figure out how to use the train, because the commute is much shorter.

The group of us have been discussing whether or not we want to attempt to go to one of the bars or clubs we were told about the other night. We're all interested but I think a little intimidated, so we'll see what happens.

(Picture above taken in the pedestrian area, Tkalčićeva ulica, where many cafes and bars are. The statue in the picture is Marija Jurić Zagorka (1873-1957), who was Croatia's first female journalist. She was given a job on a local Zagreb paper, where she started on the editorial board and introduced the first Croatian publication exclusively for women. She also wrote a few popular novels that are still well-read today. Click to make bigger!)

Police, meat and booze

Ahh, Friday. Last night was my first night with my host family. It went well, not awkward like some of the girls said theirs was. I know I can be quiet when I first meet people, but they are both very outgoing and nice, and they are so adorable and funny. I really hope they like me and accept me into their lives well.

Today, we had to get registered at the police station. It took forever. We waited in line for almost two hours with a bunch of other people to get registered. Afterwards, my host parents had to go to work, so I had until 3:30 to wander the city by myself. I walked around for awhile and then it started to rain, so I got on a tram number that I'd never been on before. I just rode it until the end of the line, and rode it back into the town center. It didn't take very long, so then I just went for a walk around the main square by myself. I was going to try to find lunch somehwere and ran into a few other girls from the program.

I ate this meaty sandwich. I was nervous when ordering it from a stand on the walkway, and even more nervous when I watched the lady behind the counter shave off sheets of meat from a huge, rotating cylinder of sausage. The lettuce and tomato made the sandwich a lot easier to eat, and there was some sort of spicy sauce on the delicious bread that was awesome. After I got tired of the sandwich itself, I just ate the spicy saucy bread.

Anyway, the afternoon we spent on language classes and two younger people came in to talk to us about places to go in Zagreb. They told us about restaurants and bars and clubs and stuff. They told us about these "turbo folk" clubs, where models and football players and famous people go and they play Serbian and Bosnian and Albanian music. They made them sound really glamorous, but violent and said that there is "people dancing on tables and stomping on glasses and Italian mobsters watching girls walk around in short skirts. And then they told us we should go to them.

This evening my host parents took me over to their friends' house where we ate dinner and had drinks. They told them that because I can't drink in the US, with them I am only allowed to drink alcohol. We had mojitos (clearly a traditional Croatian beverage), and some sort of cherry liqueur from Dalmatia. Another lovely night in Zagreb.

My Host Family

Today was our fourth day in Zagreb (already going by so fast!!) and we had another language class. We are learning how to say simple things and how to pronounce the letters. Pronounciation of the words is phonetic, but there are 30 letters in the alphabet! Je sam Nicole is "I am Nicole" and right now, that's all I remember. We repeated after the language teacher, Marija, (Maria) so I know how to say things, but not to read or spell yet which it hard for me. We have a 2 hour break every day for lunch, so many of us will go across the street to the open air market to buy some fresh bread, cheese and veggies. Today, we bought a big loaf of bread (4 kuna, which is less than a dollar) and half a kilo of tomatoes (3 tomatoes for 2 kuna) and this sort of paste-like dip made out of eggplant and peppers, and some cheese. I also bought an ear of sweet corn from a vendor off the street for 10 kuna (2 dollars). So we cooked and ate a huge lunch for less than 10 dollars, and all we have to do is walk across the street from where our classroom is!

If you're interested in Google mapping to see where our classroom is, search for Dolac Market, Zagreb, or the name of the center square, Trg Bana Jelacica. That is basically the center of the city, where all the trams go to and where all the stores are. The SIT headquarters is just a big apartment that is in a building right off this square, so it's really easy to get to, but we have to climb 8 flights of stairs to get to this apartment and there's no elevator. This picture here was taken in Dolac. The four girls at the front of the picture are actually in my group: Lila, Marisa, Claire and Julie. You can see the town's cathedral in the background, and the red umbrellas of the market. This picture makes it look small, but it is really, really big.

After lunch we covered the syllabus for the semester, and talked about when and where we'll be traveling. Then we found out who our host families would be. We had a little party in the hostel yard with the host families, with drinks and snacks and live music. It was really nice. The people I'm staying with is a young couple, the man in his early 30s and his girlfriend in her late 20s. They speak English, and he speaks German and she speaks French and she said she was looking forward to practicing her French with me. She is a physical therapist and she travels around the area a lot, to countries around here for the people she works with. They said that he is working on his master's degree, but I didn't catch what exactly it is he's getting his master's in. They have a nice apartment fairly near to where the hostel is.

They said I'll have to take the train into town and then take tram into the center of town. But the train and the tram are free for students. They're really nice and really funny, I think they'll be great to live with. And hey, if not, we only have a few weeks here before we start traveling around the rest of the Balkans! Things are moving quickly!!

Tuesday and Wednesday

Tuesday: Slowly starting to get into the language, and our language class starts on Wednesday. So far i know hvala (thank you), pivo (beer), and pala (half) which we learned when we were trying to buy some cheese and the old woman who spoke no english tried to sell us a huge block. This was part of our little "first day experiment," during which we walked around the big market near the main square (trg), Dolac, a big open-air market with all different kinds of food. Each of us bought a little something and brought it back to SIT to put together as a meal. I had my first real meat. There's another girl who is normally vegetarian but is eating meat during the trip and we tried it at the same time. I had a bite of some kind of weird meat that looked like uncooked bacon that made me gag and i couldn't swallow. The other was some kind of spicy sausage on a big, buttery loaf of bread and it had a really weird texture.

Wednesday: We started language class which was fun and interesting. I'm kind of overwhelmed and frightened by the language, but I'm trying not to get too down on myself about it. I know I will learn slowly, but I want to stay positive, at least for now. It is clear that some of the girls are good at language and are also really motivated to learn it. I am neither. But I think that I will be okay (for now.)

Wednesday night was when Croatia played England at soccer in England, so we all went to a bar and watched the game. Croatia lost, 4-1, but it was still fun to watch. I was really hoping that they would win, and the streets would be a crazy party. But everyone watching was very quiet, except when Croatia scored that one goal. I really hope to see another match before I leave. Apparently the rivalry between Zagreb and Split (on the coast) is very heated, and games can get violent. Is it wrong that I would kind of love to see that?

That sign is right outside our hostel, and that building behind it is what we look at everyday. Apparently an old folks' home. The hostel is right next to a chocolate factory so it always smells like burnt chocolate around here. Tomorrow, we meet our host families. I'm pretty excited. they go really out of their way to match us well with host families so I think it will all work out well. So far, my favorite part of Zagreb is all of the dogs that people have. I see a ton of dogs every day, ranging from a huge, horse-sized, fluffy white one on my first day, to a lady sitting in a cafe with her tiny Chihuahua sleeping on her lap, to an adorable, yellow Lab puppy that a man was trying to train to sit and stay on the pedestrian street. Of course, I feel the need to point out every single one to the people I'm with, and I've been trying to take sneaky pictures of the cute ones. Perhaps that will be my ISP topic: "The Canine Population of Zagreb."

My first few days in Zagreb

Fortunately, all my flights went very well and had no problems whatsoever. My flight from Munich to Zagreb on a tiny place was amazing; we flew over the Alps and I had a window seat and I just stared out the window the whole time. I wanted to take a picture, but I felt tacky doing that next to the large, sweaty, European man sitting next to me. A girl in my program, Eva, was on that flight and as soon as we got into the Zagreb airport, we started talking. Zagreb's airport is tiny and old, and as soon as we arrived we were spotted by our program leader, Goga. We took a taxi to the hostel, Ravnice Youth Hostel, which is very, very nice (according to someone who has never been in a hostel before, but still.)

We meet as a group, 11 girls, at the hostel. We went to lunch at a restaurant called Agava Trattoria, and had our first view of the main square, Trg Jelacica, and Tkalciceva. Agava is set on a hill up on Tkalciceva, so as we sat on the terrace, we could watch everyone walking by on the street (just like everyone here does.) The girls are from all over; San Francisco, New York, Texas, St. Louis, Seattle. They all seem very independent, smart, interesting and well-traveled. Mostly anthropology, sociology and political science majors (plus me, the lone journalism major) we have a wide variety of interests. We also met at this time our language teacher, Marija, and our main professor, Orli. We had some great food and I had octopus for (maybe?) the first time. It was... chewy.

We had some time to walk around, and see the beautiful city. Of course, it's Europe, so the buildings are fairly old and beautiful. The main downtown of the city is very small, easy to walk everywhere and the trams run at all hours, and SIT supplied us with free passes. We also are given "lunch money" so they gave us about 80 bucks to get food for the rest of the week during orientation, while we're staying in the hostel. However, seven of us went out to some bars tonight and spent our lunch money on beer, which is really cheap. The city is really safe, everyone really friendly, most people speak English. These are my impressions so far.

2 DAYS TO GO!!

So pretty much going into the final stages at this point. It's Friday and I leave on Sunday. I'm kiiiiiiiinda freaking out. The packing is the worst part. My suitcase can only weigh 45 pounds and it currently weighs.... 70 pounds. And I don't know what else to take out. How does one pack for 4 months for 70 degree to 30 degree weather? In a suitcase less than 50 pounds? I just don't know how anyone can do it.

Finally got a list of all the people that will be on the trip, and have been Facebook stalking. It's a group of 11 people, all girls! That's kind of weird, but it's cool. They all seem really great so far, although most of them seem much more... worldly than I. I'm really looking forward to meeting them.

I just found out about a week ago that I've been accepted to be a student correspondent for Global Post, an online news source that covers global news via independent correspondents living in different countries all over the world. They've started a Study Abroad page for students to contribute and talk about their experiences abroad. Hopefully I can keep up with that blog, this one, and all my school work.

Regardless of how nervous I am, and how hard packing is, I'm excited. I can't wait to see Zagreb and meet all the people in the program and my host family. Mostly though, I can't wait until the 12+ hours of traveling are over!