Never at home...

Life feels so normal here, but when I stop and think about it, none of this would ever happen at home. Take yesterday, for instance:

I woke up around 10:30, even though it was a thurs and I had school. Around 11, my 11 year old host sister came home, and when I asked her why she was home so early, she said her teacher was sick so school was can canceled. We hung out for a couple hours, and after lunch I left for school.

I hopped on the first bus that passed my stop, which happened to be my favorite bus, Dugave, which goes all the way to my school so I don't have to switch to the tram. I don't know all the buses, yet, so my strategy for getting to school involves getting on any random bus that passes and hoping it takes me where I want to go. (I only ride for 2 stops, so most of them do. I did learn, however, not to ride the Lanište bus)

When I arrived at school, I looked around for my classmates. I don't understand how they know where to go; our classes are in a different order every day of the week, and the classrooms seem to change, as well. So I follow my classmates.

Our first class was math, followed by music history, then I had french with one of the other classes. After that, we were supposed to have art hist, but it got changed to math. Since we'd already had math, every one, including the math teacher went to the cafe thing and hung out for the period. Then we had physics, and then Kesley and I took off because we had places to be later.

We got into town early, so we called one of the other exchange students, Mikayla, and got some food. Then Kelsey left for her ballet class and Mikayla came with me to tango.

It took me a good hour to get home by tram and bus. I think I could almost walk faster! I like the buses, but I'm beginning to hate trams. Then I read for a little while and went to bed.

more travels

My host family took me traveling again last weekend. We left on fri afternoon and drove about 4 hours south-ish to visit my host mother's sister and her family near a town called Šibenik. On Sat, we helped pick grapes for making wine. In the afternoon, they took me to visit a national park nearby. There were tons of little ponds and waterfalls, and it was dazzling.

Most of the people there spoke very little English, but as a result, I spoke a lot more Croatian. I'm learning to string multiple words together to form sentences and beginning to understand a little of the conversations held in Croatian.

After breakfast on sun morning, we began our journey home, but we made several stops. The first was at a rest stop on the highway, but that doesn't really count, because we only stopped for a few minutes to look at the view. Then we went to visit my host father's mom. We ate lunch and talked, and then we picked plums--I don't think picked is quite the right word. The trees were tall, and the plums were about 20 ft above us, so we put tarps on the ground, shook the branches with a long pole, and collected the plums that fell. Next, we visited my host dad's brother's family, who live in a little village, with cows and sheep and pigs and chickens, etc.

School

It's starting to feel like fall. Early fall, but fall nonetheless. I think the cold spell we had killed summer, or at least my belief in it. It was rainy and wet and cold and grey and did I mention WET? I even dug out my big pink wool socks. It's warm again, but the air smells different and I've taken to carrying a coat.

This week, school is in the afternoon, from 2 till 8, which feels so weird!

I guess I should explain how my school works; it's pretty different.
I go to a gimnazija, which is a high school like we have in the US, where students study everything. Here, students can also go to technical schools for high school, where they learn a trade. Gymnazija students pretty much have to go to university after they graduate. Most buildings house two schools, which rotate holding class in the morning or afternoon each week. So last week, I had class from 8am-2pm, and this week it's from 2pm-8pm. Classes are 45 minutes long, and students have 14-19 subjects that meet one to four times a week. My school is a bilingual school, so everyone must take English, and my class has physics and sometimes history in English, as well. In the first year, they are put in a class based on their second language, and they take all their subjects with that class for the entire 4 years. I think that explains most of it...

Alright, I'm tired of writing now, so anything else will have to wait...

more on my first 2 weeks

I'm back.

Last weekend, my host family took me to the coast. They have a flat in a town called Rovinj, which is a city right on the coast, with beautiful old buildings and narrow cobblestone streets winding up to a church. many of the streets are too narrow for cars, and on one, I reached my arms across and I could touch both walls! I have so many pictures. sooner or later I'll try to post some.

I've started school, and the school is quite nice. there are 3 floors with hallways and classrooms around the outside and the whole middle is open. it's cool to look down from the top and watch all the people walking around below. Most of my classes are in Croatian, so I don't really understand anything, but Kelsey, one of the other exchange students is in most of them with me, so I have someone to talk to. The other students in my class are nice, and they are more or less fluent in English.

I started Croatian class yesterday. I'm so glad. Hopefully I will get the hang of Croatian quickly. I also met the other exchange students, there are 6 of us here in Zagreb.

And, last but certainly not least...drum roll, please...I FINALLY WENT TO TANGO!!!!! It was so nice to be back, I missed it so much! Kelsey came, too, and I made a somewhat failing attempt at teaching and leading... but perhaps I didn't do too much damage, because she still wants to learn, and I still got dances. Hopefully I'll go again on Sat.

I guess that's all for now.
-Chandra

I'm here!

Hello all,
I've decided to start a blog, since there are so many of you who gave me your email addresses, I would never have time to email everyone, so I think this is better, but feel free to email me if you want.

I've been in Croatia for 2 weeks, now, and I love it so much! It's a very pretty country, and coming from Colorado I have pretty high standards. the countryside is really green, with hills and many small farms. The city itself (Zagreb) is also really nice. It's way prettier than any of the pictures I'd seen, so colorful! Along with the browns greys and whites of most cities, there are also buildings in so many shades of yellow, orange and red, even some blue. There are also lots of parks interspersed within the city streets.

I love my host family, My host sister, Mirela is almost the same age as Raina, and my host mother speaks quite a bit of English, which is nice right now, since my Croatian is virtually nonexistent. I can say some words, but Croatian grammar seems really different, so I haven't really figured out how to string them together, yet. Yesterday, I learned how to seay it's raining-Pada kiša! I can understand more than I expected though, and I start croatian class tonight, so hopefully I'll get it down soon.

I have to go to class, now, so I'll get back to thins later.

Chandra