Life has Begun Again

In Europe, the month of August is often when people vacation.  Sometimes this spans from July to August.  So, generally in the summer the city can feel dead - at least this is what we were told.  Then summer hit, and for us it still felt busy...Dave's parents came for 3 weeks from Korea to visit us (pictures below), we hosted a large group of students from America (who were living abroad in SE Europe for 3 months prior to coming here), our current team left in August, Dave went on his epic bike ride with friends, a friend stayed with us for a week, etc...

And then September came and...you could actually feel and see the change in the air.  The city seemed to come alive, people were everywhere!  There were no longer empty seats on the trams, which were now crowded with students studying at the various "Fakultets", cafes and the streets were filled with people, seating was scarce at restaurants.

And then September hit for us too.  Our two new volunteers arrived, JJ started Kindergarten in a new part of the city, we went as a team and taught at an English camp, we were preparing to move to a new apartment, and we both started preparing to study Croatian again in the fall.  And I could feel it; Life had begun again.

Here are some pictures from the English Camp:

We especially felt it this past week, when we actually moved from our old apartment (where we lived for 8 months) to our new place, we were all sick: JJ had strep throat, Dave was getting over a bad cold, and I was hit full force with a really bad cold.  This past week, I often said to myself, am I crazy??  What am I doing?  I went to Croatian class every day, to a doctor's office three times, correction 4 with JJ, to a lab once, tried to unpack AND stay on top of my homework. 

I keep telling myself this week that challenging myself will be the best in the long run for my language learning!  But I still think I'm crazy.  In the month of September I met with a private teacher and worked hard at skipping a level of Croatian.  I wanted to do this because: in my first level I often wanted to learn at a faster pace, and the second is that moms kept telling me that because I'm having a baby, I needed to push hard now so as to not plateau with language when the baby comes.  So, that's what I'm doing - I'm pushing full steam ahead...up what seems like a really steep mountain!  So, I took an exam and tested out of the next level.  I'm also fairly certain I'm the only pregnant woman going to the University (that I can see anyway).  And this week my head was literally spinning (and I don't think it was the decongestants)...often I felt WAY in over my head, often I just sat there and wrote down as fast as I could all the words and phrases I didn't understand.  But I'm going to work hard and not give up.  

Now tomorrow we head to a country we've never been to for one week, for our first Regional conference.  We are very much looking forward to this time!  I also think it's one of the first times that children are encouraged to come, so there will be a Children's Program for them, which JJ will love!  That, and the pool of course! 

Yep, life has begun again.