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."
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