1 Week Anniversary in Croatia

Has it really been 1 week since we've arrived?  It's gone by so fast.  On our 2nd day here, we took the tram into downtown by ourselves to meet our team and have pizza together.  Immediately we were thrown into the culture here, as Dave had his first experience of ordering water for everyone in Croatian.

Since then we've figured out: how to buy food, where to open our bank account, where the best ice cream in town is, how to order in Croatian at a Farmer's market, how to buy tram passes, etc...  Today we registered for our temporary visas, the other day Dave played soccer with some members from our team and their Croatian friends, and we've even found JJ a school to go to. 

If you were in our house, you would be able to tell right away that JJ has started school again:

• "Mom, I had no idea that the heart looked like that (he draws on the table a shape), you know with all of those tubes connected to it."
• "Daddy!  I learned about the Great Wall of China today.  It was made to protect China and keep the bad guys out.  I want to see it!  Can we go there?"
• "Did you know that there is a big room in a bank where there is lots and lots of money?  And that I can save money too if I want to?"

On day 3, we emailed the principal of a private Croatian school we had had previous communication with from the states.  Here JJ gets to learn in English but has a lot of exposure to Croatian, as he goes to school with mostly Croatian children.  The kids speak Croatian to each other, and sometimes the teachers speak it to the children, as they are teaching them English at the same time.  JJ is already attached to "Teacher B", who has taken him under her wing and gives us detailed daily updates when we pick him up. The other day she told us that all the girls love JJ.  They have all gone home to tell their families about JJ; mostly that he is so polite and nice.  We are so proud!

As we did for France, here are some of our first impressions of Croatia:

• More people are dressed athletically here than we had expected, and we even saw two guys playing basketball on an outside court, which Dave was really happy to see.  We never saw that in France.  

• Love our neighbors across from our apartment, a couple in their 80's who spend a large part of the day tending to their garden and yard.  Every day we say "Dobar dan" to each other.

• On the tram (a 35 minute ride) on our way into the downtown of Zagreb, we see tall drab, gray concrete apartment buildings and as we get closer to downtown, the buildings become more colorful, built close together, with a sort of Austrian-Hungarian architectural influence.  I'm mesmerized by the romantic and historic look of the city.  It draws me in and makes me want to learn more about her.

• American music is playing everywhere.  Today when we were registering for our visas at the Police Station, the very serious officer was listening to Beyoncé.

• Right now to us, Croatian sounds a bit like Russian spoken with a slight Italian accent. 

• Speaking Croatian makes me feel like I have too many consonants in my mouth - often words barely have vowels in them, like:
• Trg - square (like in a city)
• Prvi - first
• kljuc - key

• Overall, just really intimidated by the language.  I read this recent description which TOTALLY put me at ease:  "Croatian is a system of seven cases each of which, in principle, changes with male/female/neuter, singular/plural, noun/adjective. However, in practice there is a lot of similarity between individual declensions and the number of combinations one needs to learn is greatly reduced (for example male and neuter nouns behave very similarly)."

• (I don't know if you can tell, but I was being sarcastic above)

• Overall, the people we've met are very gracious and very kind to us.  They are patient, always with a smile and eager to help us.  

• Our team is AMAZING!  We're very proud of them, and we feel (hopefully they do too) that we've really bonded this week.  It is so great to see them in person and not just behind a computer screen.  I will probably say this a million other times, but simply, they rock.