The sun finally came out after 2 weeks of greyness and wetness and wet feet. I can't tell you how happy that made me. I've been celebrating for 4 days now, and have taken the opportunity to go into the center of the city almost every morning, equipped with my camera. Saturday mornings are cool in Zagreb because everyone is out. It feels really festive with music playing in the squares and people sitting at cafes.
I've been continuing to go to tango, though just once a week. The tango scene here is still pretty young. I keep hearing more and more about how it came to be. Supposedly, the main teachers of Tango Argentino Zagreb started about 6 years ago, but there wasn't anyone teaching, so they (and a few others that joined shortly after) began learning tango from videos! They also attended workshops in Ljubliana (Slovenia) but the tango scene was just getting started there as well. Several years later, they started teaching classes. There's another school, too, but the teaching is focused mainly on learning footwork and combinations rather than leading and following, so I don't really like it. Oh, and they don't dance on the beat!!!? The two schools are sort of mutually snobby against each other, and it's too bad they don't pool resources, because it's such a small community. It definitely seems to be growing, though, and I hope to be able to go to some festivals as well. (I'm going to Mantova in December!)
School here is mostly about drilling facts, but today the history teacher made an attempt at discussion. They are learning about post WWII, and he split the class into three groups, each representing a country- France, Britain or the US. Each group received a paper with some background on their diplomat and their objectives for the treaty. We also received a sheet with possible outcomes of different aspects of the treaty--who was responsible for the war, what county would get certain cities, etc--and as a group we discussed what our country would decide about each one. Then we split into smaller groups with one person representing each country and went through the paper again. The point, however, was somewhat lost on the students, who's focus was aimed only at filling out the paper, rather than actually discussing it. My group voted on each thing and for the many that out as a tie (we had a few extra people), someone would just choose randomly. Additionally, as far as I could tell, there wasn't any follow-up about what happened in each group, or any discussion about the fact that these 3 superpowers were just sitting there deciding the outcomes for the whole world.
I went to Ljubljana a few weeks ago. There's less tax there, so apparently my family goes every now and then to shop and visit relatives. I think it's rather amusing to say that I went to another country to go shopping. I'm now equipped with some sweaters and a non-tourist coat. We also walked around the city a little. It was cold, so I got to make immediate use of my new coat. I thought the city was really nice. Somehow it was pretty much as I imagined it, even though I knew practically nothing about it. It didn't have the colors of Zagreb, or the parks, but I loved the river running through the center and all its bridges.
I'm getting tired, and I can't think of anything else to say, so that's all, but here are a few pics from Ljubljana.
My host family, Bruna (the Brazilian exchange student) and me in my non-tourist coat
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