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Today I went for a nice long walk. I walked to the main square in Zagreb to stop by the tourist center in hopes of finding a pamphlet on walking tours in English. The last one I picked up on Sljeme was in German. Unfortunately they didn’t have any so I’ll have to go back to Sljeme for the English one.

Walking in the city is dangerous. Sidewalks are not for walking. They are for cars to park on and dogs to shit on. If you squeeze by the cars, your likely to step in dog shit. If you walk in the street, you’re likely to get hit. Ah. Se la vie!

I’m so frustrated with the cars on the sidewalk. I don’t understand why people are allowed to park like that. You see old ladies walking home in the middle of the road on a busy street, because they can’t get by on the sidewalk. I did a little search online about “cars on the sidewalk” thinking this was a European thing and I’d find a lot more people from Europe frustrated. But I was wrong. The second and fourth results were articles in Philly sources bitching about parking on the sidewalk. Heh. Imagine that.

Cars parked on sidewalk in NL - PhillyBlog

Get your damn car off the sidewalk - Citypaper

I don’t know why Philly is complaining. They ain’t seen real sidewalk parking yet. Picture to come soon…

At once the Croatia capital, Varazdin, is a cool small town. Our friends Tihana and Marko were nice enough to take us to Varazdin this past Sunday. We had a great time, visited an old castle, ate some nice lunch…

And when we got back, we played Bela all night. And we play to 1001! Bela is the craziest, most backwards and complicated card game I’ve ever had to play. Once you get the hang of it, it can be real fun. But it will take years of practice before I’m any good at it, hehehe.

Paying bills in Croatia is a strange process to me. The bills come in the mail each month, which is standard, but paying them is weird. Many families, including us, take the bills to the post office, or other bill paying location, and pay each bill in cash.

Renting apartments is another strange process. You are expected to pay the rent, apartment or house fees (similar to condo fees), and all utilities. All of the bills come in the name of the owner of the property and you have to pay them in the same manner as other bills. You can’t put utilities in your name, including telephone.

So when there’s a problem with a utility, because it’s not in your name, it can make it that much harder to get fixed when broken :)

This week the homesickness really hit. Aside from working, I didn’t really feel like doing anything. All I really did was make sure I watched American TV sitcoms that are on every morning. There are 4 of them, and 2 of them I don’t like, but watched anyway. I suppose I’m trying to connect with anything from home.

But, I realize I have to snap out of this at some point. The weather is starting to get much nicer, reaching highs of 40F rather than 20F. Hopefully with the nice weather, I will get out and seem more. I’ve got free time :)

This weekend we will be heading to Varazdin for the day with some friends. I’m excited about it.

Well, today marks the end of my third week here. Next week I see about starting my language courses. The language school in Zagreb is only running the level 1 class, which I could probably test out of, and the class is only in the afternoons while I’m working. So, I will need to get a private tutor instead. That may end up being better for me anyway.

Early this week we had problems with our lock and I couldn’t leave the apartment. The door could only remain locked from the inside. But, it was fixed by Wednesday and I ventured outside. I climbed the other side of our stairs. It’s longer in distance than ours, but only 8 more stairs for a total of 117. It’s hard to imagine from the picture, but these stairs are a lot easier to climb than ours on the opposite side. The picture is taken from the top of our stairs. Our stairs are very steep with small landings.

Once at the top, I decided to take the 15-20 minute walk to Mirogoj, the city cemetery. It’s a really beautiful place, especially in the Spring and Summer when the flowers are blooming. The cemetery is very different from cemeteries I’ve seen in the U.S. The graves are mostly for entire families and they have marble encasings above ground. The graves of course are below ground.

Today we just came back from the outside market. It’s crazy there, especially on weekends. Lots of people trying to buy fruits, vegetables, homemade jams, vinegars and cheeses. For some reason Dinko wants to try a juice diet for three days. I don’t approve, but oh well. We had to buy a lot of fruits and vegetables. We each had a hiking backpack full, then walked back with the load up the stairs. I hope the juice is worth it ;)

I’ve been to Croatia 4 times in the past. But each of those were just short visits, between 10 and 20 days. I’ve been here for almost 16 days now and the realization is setting in that I have about 124 more to go. Zagreb is my new home for a little while. It’s no longer feeling like a visit. So here are some things that I miss already

My Washer and Dryer
We have 1 small washing machine that holds only a third of the laundry from mine in Philly and it runs three times as long. It’s not a bad washer. It’s standard, like most other househholds that I’ve seen here.

Clothes dryers are not popular. When you look at shopping ads for appliances, there may be only 1 dryer (a washer dryer/combo) offered on sale and 10 washers. We must hang-dry our clothes inside on a rack. It takes about a day for them all to dry. Clothes dryers make your clothes soft and warm and smell like dryer sheets. Hang drying them can make them stiff and stretched out.

Microwave
Almost everyone has a microwave in Croatia. It’s a very common kitchen appliance. The microwaves here are super small, though. They remind me of the size you buy for college kids in dorms. We don’t have a microwave here and I don’t see any sense in buying one just for the added convenience. But it would be easier to reheat food and make quick stuff.

Living Space
I didn’t spend that much time in my new condo when I was in Philly. We only had it for about 3 months before I left to come here. But, nonetheless, it is my home and I miss it. I miss my bed, my home computer, the 1200 sq ft. The apartment we have in Zagreb is about 400 sq ft.

Personal Space
There’s really no sense of personal space when in public areas here. If people want to ride the tram downtown, they pack in like sardines and then some. When in line at the store, you can feel the breath of the person behind you. People bump you when walking and most don’t say excuse me. You’re lucky to get into a tram without being trampled. People don’t wait for folks to get off before getting on. I prefer to walk the semi-decent distances :)

But most of all I miss my family and friends.

One thing I don’t miss:

Getting up early for work
Although I enjoy the walk I had to work when it wasn’t raining, I never liked getting up early. With the time difference here, I start work at 2pm. Isn’t that nice ;) Now I get up around 9-9:30am and sip my coffee while watching TV. Then I can decide what I want to do for the rest of the morning. I could go out for a walk, watch movies, go to the store, explore the city, visit a museum or park, go running, anything really.

Living on the East Coast of the U.S. you don’t feel many earthquakes. In fact, in my 27+ years, I’ve never felt an earthquake anywhere until last night.

Earthquakes in Croatia are not common, but they do happen every few years. This one was centered in the Western part of Zagreb and registered 3.5 on the Richter scale. It’s enough to feel and see things shaking. I was lying on the couch watching War of the Worlds when the couch shook beneath me. We are situated on the Eastern part of the city, and didn’t feel the full strength. Dinko said that people from work commented about dishes shaking and glasses clinging.

I was really freaked out about the earthquake. You put a lot of faith in the ground after awhile, and when it becomes unstable, your faith in it does to. I’ll get over it. Maybe it’s good for people to experience earthquakes when they are young so they aren’t so afraid of them when they are older ;)

Today I had a special historical Croatian dish for lunch–Mlinci. I last had Mlinci on my first trip to Croatia in December 1998. While hiking, across Sljeme ontop Medvednica Mountain, we stopped at a lodge restaurant for some Mlinci, red cabbage salad, and mulled wine. It was an excellent lunch.

This time a friend of ours cooked it for us and it was everything I remembered it to be. Mlinci is a kind of pasta but it’s somewhat complicated to make. It requires baking thin sheets of flour/water/salt mix in the oven, then cooling, then drenching in hot water, then cooking in the juices of whatever meat will accompany it. Today it was chicken. Mmmm.

I’m not that fond of hanging out in the kitchen, so I don’t cook much. But there are some dishes that I really enjoy and I must learn to cook them (Mlinci, Russian Stroganoff, etc.)

Dinko and I went for a hike on Medvednica today. We were supposed to climb to Sljeme, the peak, but because of some time restrictions, we took another root to see the 13th Century fortress called, Medvedgrad. It was a nice hike. The path was pretty icy, so it was nice to have my new boots and trekking poles. Our friends, Ivan and Jelena, weren’t so lucky.

Medvedgrad is a very old fortress that overlooks the city of Zagreb from Medvednica Mountain. Part the way up, we stopped at a little lodge where we had some nice coffee, tea and pie.

Dinko wants to hike Medvednica every weekend. We’ll see about that. Maybe every other weekend ;)

Yesterday I completed my first day of my remote working situation. It went rather well. I didn’t experience any situation that needed me to be in the office, and the one meeting I had is always a conference call.

I managed to get so much more done in 6 hours than I expected. Perhaps it’s due to the minimal interruptions and better concentration. I had a list of things that I wanted to do for the day and I managed to do them all and start on an item that was slated for the next day.

I hope all the days are as pleasant as my first :) I’ll be starting my second day of remote working in a little while and I hope it goes smoothly. Three out of the six hours I work is already full of meetings :)

More later…