This update is long overdue, and for that I apologize. I've been having very patchy access to reliable internet, lots of traveling, and SO many things have been happening. But I've kept track and I'll relay it now.
The night before I left with my program for Croatia, my host family celebrated my host mom's 44th birthday. We got all gussied up (dresses!) and biked (biked!) into town, which included the ferry ride. I felt very european, biking around in my evening-wear. We went to a Swiss restaurant called Bern and had delicious fondue. I tried a Yemeni (of Yemen) salad, and it was AMAZING. I have no idea what it was doing in a Swiss restaurant, but I approved.
After dinner Blue and I left to go see a band he'd heard about. They were playing on the other side of the ferry though, and we missed it by a hair. So we sat and played tic-tac-toe (and I won every time it wasn't a cat's game *smug smile*) and hangman (he gets kudos for playing in English). Once the ferry came again we hopped on and rode to a different dock, where we biked through a weird industrial area with lots of empty concrete buildings and rouge teens on motorcycles smoking and being loud. When we rounded a corner however we saw a low grassy hill surrounded by parked bicycles, and on top of it a big greenhouse lit from inside and playing music. There were lots of people milling around and bonfire going. I was very pleased to find the greenhouse was a bar (those Dutch... so funny), and even more pleased to find a bunch of Bellingham-looking people there. Mostly hippy-looking euro hipsters in their late teens and early twenties, sporting some impressive dreads, tie-dye, and american apparel.
The next morning I had a blessedly uneventful time finding my group at the train station. We got to the airport in time and everything went smoothly, at least for me. My friend Jenise has a hard time flying so I held her hand during part of the flight, but before we knew it we were in Croatia! We had a tour bus that took us from the airport to our hostel. We were staying near the center of the capitol city, Zagreb. Our hostel was called the Funk hostel, and was pretty funky alright. Thankfully the good "I got the funk" kind and not the "please put your shoes back on" kind of funk. However, we were bunking up 6 to a room and the water pressure in the showers left you with the sensation of having had a teacup of lukewarm water dribbled over your head... so it wasn't all peaches and cream. Nevertheless, we were excited to be there, and antsy to explore the city.
One of the girls quickly made friends with a British guy named Doug in the hostel. He was playing soccer for the Croatian team temporarily and had already been in Zagreb for a few weeks, so when he offered to show us around we were quick to take him up on it. He showed us how to take the trams (which are free, frequent, and well-maintained) into the city center. From there he walked us around for a bit, showing us the cathedral and some of the older streets. He was quite nice, giving us the little bits of history that he knew. However, we soon broke apart into twos and threes. I wandered with Jenise for a while in the city, now lit up in the dusk. We got lost in the old streets as we admired the architecture of the buildings and the mild night air. Eventually we stumbled upon a little park with two lit fountains and a gazebo in the middle of a square. There was tango music wafting toward us, and we followed it to the gazebo, where we found about half a dozen dancing couples. Joining the few onlookers, I throughly enjoyed observing a few dances. Many of the dancers seemed to be couples in more than just the dances, whispering sweet Croatian nothings into each other's ears, gazing into each other's eyes. They ranged from young adult to elderly, and all looked to be quite competent, though recreational dancers. I was hoping to join in, but it seemed to be too intimate of a gathering for me to fling myself into, especially with my rusty-at-best tango moves. But it was wonderful nonetheless, and as we left I dreamily air tangoed away, getting some weird looks from the passers-by.
The park was also full of teenagers sitting on the lawns in groups, running around, singing, playing music, laughing, talking, smoking, drinking. We were very impressed with the robust population of youngsters and it seemed this park played the role of major meeting place for the underage teens of Zagreb.
The next day we embarked after breakfast provided by the hostel, resuming our previous night's wanders. We visited the cathedral first, which was an impressive structure if a bit generically churchy from the outside. In the entrance it had a sign that forbade short skirts or PDA. As I entered I found myself captured by the air of majesty the church possessed. I have been in similar cathedrals before, and structurally this one was nothing special. There was something about the feeling of the place... for being a non-religious person I definitely felt the holiness. I just sat on a pew for a while, taking it all in. I felt a great sense of peace fall around me. My only explanation for this remarkable feeling is that Croatia is a predominantly Catholic country, and most of the citizens of Zagreb probably come to this church to pray. Maybe it hears so many of the whole community's whispered hopes and desires and confessions that they fill the air, rubbing shoulders with each other and moulding around your body as you walk through them. I also explored the courtyard between the church and the Nunnery, which had a little garden area. It was quite nice.
When I returned to the square outside the entrance to the cathedral, I was surprised by a odd ceremony taking place in front of the fountain. It appeared to be similar to a changing-of-the-guard ceremony, with soldiers in what looked like traditional garb marching, riding horses, and playing drums. There was lots of barking orders and saluting. There was no explanation offered, so we just assumed it was a tradition of some sort, and felt lucky to have witnessed it. However, we were later informed by a local that the ceremony is completely contrived for the sake of tourism, and that the Croatian army never wore those costumes or preformed that ritual. This puzzled me somewhat because the 'soldiers' never collected money from the crowd that gathered to watch them, but I suppose some elements of the tourism trade are beyond me. I felt kind of let down, having been tricked into believing I was watching something authentic, but it was still a cool ceremony, regardless of traditional significance.
Later that day, after we had lunch at an Indian restaurant and got mildly accosted by an old man (he came up to us speaking Croatia and touched some of the girls' faces in what I can only assume was a gesture of fondness but translated as a serious person space violation), Jenise and Sarah and I took a tram to the 'mountain' - about the size of the Chuckanuts - to go for a day hike. We got the the last stop and were just getting off when we were approached by a Croatian woman who asked if we were intending to go hiking. We said we were, and she said she was going chestnut gathering and wanted to know if we'd be interested in accompanying her. She assured us that she went all the time and that she wasn't affiliated with sex trafficking, but just wanted some company. We were intrigued and didn't get creepy kidnapper vibes from her, so we agreed. She led up along the tram tracks and up the mountain a ways, following a trail that was apparently there but seemed quite invisible to us. She stopped under some chestnut trees and showed us how to step in the shells to get the nuts out. We then spent the next few hours wandering around the forest, stomping on nuts and chatting. Once we'd gathered quite a lot we sat for a while to rest in a field. While she chain-smoked, our new friend Anna gave us a rundown of Croatian economics, politics and society (according to her views as a college-educated, 28-year-old grocery cashier). She was quirky but quite friendly and personable, and we learned a lot from her about religion and politics, and the aftermath of the breakup of the former Yugoslavia.
After our break we wandered back down the hill. I collected an impressive number of thorns in my feet, having had the misfortune of wearing open-toe shoes that day. The way down was definitely not a trail, and we kind of opted for the free-fall method of uncontrollable running until you hit a tree, brace yourself, and then launch yourself downhill again, pausing only long enough to remove embedded vegetation from your flesh. We found an overgrown pear orchard at one point and filled our pockets with nearly-ripe fruit. Once we found the tram tracks again we munched on our stolen snacks as we walked to the tram stop, swinging our plastic bags full of chestnuts happily.
On the tram ride back to the hostel Anna gave us an impromptu rundown of Zagreb's history, pointing out important buildings and museums as we rode along. She was very happy to share her knowledge, and we got off at our stop with a much better understanding of the city and the kind of people that live there.
That night we went out for Croatian food (lots of minced meat, mashed potatoes and beer) and passed out early.
The next day we visited the open market, had lectures, and I experienced the best cookie known to man. Our program director bought snacks for us between lectures and unwittingly introduced me to my new obsession. They are soft gingerbread cookies, not too sweet. But what sets them apart is they are not in the shape of cookies... oh no. They look like big soft bavarian PRETZELS. And as if that wasn't enough, they're coated with melt-in-your-mouth milk chocolate. I know. I bought a box because I couldn't fathom living without them and I don't know if they're available outside that country.
We had all our lectures in the Human Rights House of Zagreb, and most of the speakers focused on topics pertaining to the recent war and the breakup of Yugoslavia. When discussing this topic in terms of gender and sexuality, you get fun subjects such as war rapes, spousal abuse, trauma recovery, etc. Some other lectures we had dealt with the Sex Ed problem in a Catholic state, and how the church is trying to form the curriculum. Mostly it was heavy stuff, and we tried to do fun things during our free time so as to keep a light-hearted attitude.
Our second night me and a couple other girls stayed in and made dinner at the hostel. We roasted our chestnuts for dessert and relaxed.
The next morning i woke up to itchy bug bites, which had been steadily accumulating since my arrival. On of the other girls in my room was getting eaten alive, to the point where we was desperately trying to find bug spray or something to combat the onslaught. We weren't sure what was biting us because we didn't ever see mosquitos and if it was bed bugs everyone would have them, but it wasn't pleasant. At one point my bites turned into hives, and then later looked like the little red marks, as if a blind nurse had tried to administer me an IV. Jenise's bites blew up to the size of baseballs, and at one point she had six on her face alone. She was more tormented by the itching than I was, so while she sought any cure under the sun, I just dealt with it. But I still have no idea what was feasting on us and why nobody else in our room seemed to be affected.
The next night we got kicked out of our room by the hostel to make room for another group and were divided up into other rooms. Jenise and I got a 6-person room upstairs with a Canadian couple and two young German men who were backpacking around Europe. I got to eavesdrop on the Germans a little as they spoke to each other in what they thought was a private language, but they didn't stick around long and we ended up watching Eurotrip and going to bed.
The next day we had some free time and a group of us decided to go to the Contemporary Art Museum. For a while I was torn between this museum and the option to go to the gallery of Broken Relationships, where people send in the things neither person wants to hang onto after a breakup. The deciding factor was that the Art Museum had a slide. So we took the tram a ways outside of town and upon arrival were informed that we were there on monthly museum day and admission was free. Happily, we wandered around the exhibits for a while, taking pictures and goofing off. Eventually we realized that all the pieces had to do with the war, violence, and injustice. Slowly we sobered up as we looked at dozens of plaster face casts of women victims of violent spousal abuse that were each accompanied by the womens' harrowing tales. Eventually we were so somber that we needed to cheer ourselves somehow. This, I think, is why they installed the slide. There are actually two slides, one from the 3rd story and one from the 2nd. I took the latter because the 3rd story slide looked more like a roller coaster ride, and I was extremely thrilled. It was a blast, I don't know why every exit isn't a slide. It is obviously the superior way to vacate a building.
Sarah and I went to a really nice restaurant called Nocturno for lunch where I paid the equivalent of $6 for a huge helping of delicious pasta, a side salad and hard apple cider. It was by far the best dining experience I had in Zagreb. This was doubly confirmed later that day when our whole group went to dinner at a fancy mexican restaurant. The burrito I ordered was definitely not a burrito, they had no guacamole and no hot sauce. If you took mexican food and then stripped away everything that makes it good, then reduced the portion sizes, you'd have what that restaurant served.
The night was luckily saved by our next destination: the closest thing to a gay bar Zagreb has to offer. It's called the "alternative people's bar" but is basically just a huge beer garden that was absolutely packed with young adults. There was loud music playing, lots of bar tenders who flirted with our group and gave a lot of girls free drinks and even took shots with everyone. Apparently drinking on the job is just all in a night's work as a Croatian bartender. They said they have roughly 20 shots a night, each night they work. I wonder if that comes out of their paycheck...
After a late night out (which extended to being a late night in once we got back to the hostel drunk shenanigans lasted into the wee hours of the morning), it was rough getting up early for our bus ride to Krk. We were all a little groggy and grumpy to be driving through the mountains, ears popping form the altitude with a bus driver that didn't understand English enough to stop and let us have a pee break. Or he just didn't want to stop... At any rate, we arrived in Krk around 1 pm very ready to get off the bus. We had a hotel this time, and it was situated right on the coast with it's own beach access about 20 yards from the front steps. We had two person rooms (a huge relief after living the dorm room life for nearly a week) with their own showers (with decent water pressure, yay!) and toilets. When we got there it was beautiful and sunny. I quickly changed into my bathing suit and minimal clothing, savoring my ability to enjoy warm weather in October. Three other girls and I walked into the little town of Krk, about a 15 minute walk from our hotel. It was extremely charming, with little cobblestone streets on which no cars traveled. There were lots of little stray kitties wandering around, potted plants sitting on stucco windowsills, iron-wrought spiral staircases, quiet little courtyards...
We got delicious Kebabs and then lovely gelato as we wandered through the streets, looking at the extremely touristy shops. The nice thing was there were hardly any tourists around, so we weren't surrounded by crowds of kaki shorts and sunburns.
We meandered back to the hotel and I decided it was high time to go swimming. I went down to the beach and found several other girls already floating out in the bright blue water. They waved me in and although it was cold at first, once I jumped it it was wonderfully refreshing. The water there is also quite salty, so we were really buoyant and could bob around effortlessly in the gentle waves, peering down at the fish and rocks below us. The water was absolutely crystal clear, and a breathtaking color. We all noticed that some of the other beach-goers were wearing their birthday suits, and we quickly decided our bathing suits were superfluous and followed suit (no pun intended). We spent a long time splashing around, sunbathing, and enjoying a beautiful Croatian afternoon.
The rest of Krk was consumed with little dance parties in our hotel rooms, free meals, watching movies, exploring, and enjoying the weather.
However, we woke up on Friday to a dark and ominous sky. It sprinkled for about an hour before letting up, at which point I decided it was worth venturing out. I went with Jenise to the village to do some shopping and buy stamps. We got lunch and then went into a shop for about ten minutes. When we came out the sky had darkened dramatically and a wind had picked up. The temperature had dropped and it felt like a blustery late evening - even though it was barely past noon. We were getting gelato when the storm hit. I had made the bad decision to wear a skirt that day, and the first sign of trouble was when the wind decided to play dress-up with me and I involuntarily flashed the gelato man. We decided to make a run for it just as big fat drops started pelting us. I gathered my skirt us and we bolted. But we couldn't outrun it. The next fifteen minutes were spent partially blind, mostly deaf, and soaked to the bone as we ran through a gale of wind and rain... and then lightning. It was hilarious at first, getting soaking wet in a matter of minutes, having gelato turn into gelato soup, and my skirt turn into a drenched flag, slapping heavily against my bare legs and nearly tripping me. But when the wind and lightning started taking trees down, we realized the necessity for speed. We put our heads down, and with rain streaming down our faces so heavily that we could barely see where we were going, we pushed ahead with branches cracking down around us, pinecones flying like missiles. A tree cracked and fell on the path right in front of us, and in a fit of frightened hysteria I took a picture of it... and then kept running. When we finally made it back to the hotel we were as close to being soaked to the bone as I've ever been. The hotel staff laughed as we fell in through the door, creating instant puddles with every step. We were probably a miserable sight in our summer clothes, looking like drowned cats. We had to go up to our room and take everything off and hang it up. It was only then that we realized we'd send all our laundry down to the reception to get washed. So we were stuck in our room, naked, for several hours. Finally we had to figure out how to go down to dinner. Jenise had an fancy dress she'd brought with her, and I had a sarong and wrap-around skirt, both aggressive (yet clashing) colors of orange. So I covered myself up as best I could, looking like a colorblind homeless gypsy and accompanied by Jenise, who looked like she was expecting a date to pick her up any minute. The waiter outright laughed when he saw me, but I reminded myself that it was a lot less offensive than if I'd shown up naked and he'd still laughed.
That night I started feeling sick, and sure enough the next day I had a cold. The chill had gotten into my bones, and I was all nice and sick for the two bus rides, plane trip, four countries and 14 hours of traveling ahead of me. Fortunately I had my bright red pants to cheer me up. Every time I wore them I got compliments, and they were comfortable and flattering.
So we drove through Croatia, Slovenia, and Italy (which, by the way, has gourmet food at rest stops) to an airport outside Florence. We checked our baggage and then sat around waiting to board our flight to Morocco. I decided to go to the bathroom, and as I was walking in I took a step and simultaneously heard a "riiiiiip!" sound. My mind instantly said "uh oh!", and then when i turned around and looked at my butt in the mirror... "Shiiiit". A huge hole had decided to tear itself from the top to the bottom of my left butt-cheek. Usually this wouldn't be a problem, I could just change into a different pair of pants. Except I had just checked my baggage and was about to fly to an islamic country. Having my butt hang out was not an option. I resorted to tying my cardigan (blessedly long) around my waist and then going out to show all the girls what had just happened. We had a good laugh and I was able to get a scarf to cover my bare shoulders (shoulders are scandalous, just not as scandalous as butts). By the time we were in the air I'd completely forgotten about it. The view from the plane as we ascended was breathtaking. We got a bird-eye view of Florence from the air at night. The lights of the city, the canals... it was beautiful. I mostly forgot about the rip until after our long bus ride from Casablanca to the hotel in Rabat. Once we got to our hotel room I checked the rip again. It had worked its way down to nearly peaking below my cardigan, and was now exposing most of my butt and underwear. Although I was sad to lose my favorite pants, I was very happy they hadn't ripped a day later, perhaps walking through the marketplace in Rabat.
And now I'm in Morocco! I'll do another post about that soon, when I have the time and energy (it's amazing how draining this is!). Feel free to ask questions if you're still curious about Croatia :)
