Guess what?
The name for crosswalks here? Zebra. It's brilliant.
There's a kind of rakija (liquor) made of grass.
Because it was the 10th anniversary of the founding of my school this week (Sredna Škola Ban Josip Jelačić)
we didn't have school for 2 days, and instead we had a ceremony to celebrate and it was actually a pretty nice event. The choir that I joined, founded by my friends the lovely Barbara, Tina, Stefani, and Lana, sang the national anthem and "One Love" and I royally tanked a solo but whatever, we had a good time and there were many balloons to be volleyballed. Here's a video about the school that was played--don't be fooled by its professional appearance, it's actually the guys being weird and hilarious. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wNUkmiNKPNQ. I am totally visible in the PE scene because none of the other girls wear shorts! #youtubefame.
Guess what?
We actually roasted chestnuts on an open fire this week. And it's only October!
I tried to make cookies this week which resulted in the Great Snickerdoodle Disaster of 2013 thanks to measurement conversions and the fact that the entire container of salt fell in the dough.
So, on to Bosnia! It was a really wonderful trip. We set off at 4 in the morning on friday after I "slept" at my friend's house for about an hour, and we all immediately starting whizzing around, doing backflips and rocket engineering. But actually we slept almost the entire way. I blinked an eye at the border control but that was about all the consciousness that was to be had. When we got there around noon, we were met by amazing mountain views, fog sitting in the valley, and the minarets of tons of mosques poking out of the cityscape. I have never been to an Islamic area before and being able to see people being called to prayer in the afternoon is not something I'm going to forget anytime in the near future. The mosques were beautiful, and so was the rest of the city! Sarajevo is amazingly diverse. I think it's the only city in Europe to have a mosque, synagogue and Catholic cathedral all in the same neighborhood. We went from one side of the city, which reminded me so much of Turkey (not that I've ever been there) because of the colorful items being sold, the mosques on every corner, and the baklava everywhere, and then crossed the street and were transported immediately into what looked just like the center of Zagreb. The Turkish influence made sense when I heard that Turkey had control over this area for something like 600 years.
I had a really great time with my classmates--we walked around everywhere and ate lots of ćevapčići (the only translation I could find was "grilled minced meat fingers" which really doesn't do them justice). We stayed for 2 days then bused it back to Croatia. Which turned out to be complicated because our bus kept breaking down. It took 3 charter buses to finish but we made it!
More odd miscommunications:
1) consume became consummate. Totally logical.
2) 20 more minutes became 20 Mormons
Pictures for you
 |
| Awesome bucket lights |
 |
| All the little street shops were stuffed |
 |
| Marija and Ema lookin good in Sarajevo |
 |
| Markač rocking a traditional cap- too bad you can't see the tassels here |
 |
| Cake before |
 |
| Cake after |
 |
| HAH. |
 |
| LOVED this market |
 |
| Shoes outside the main mosque at prayer time |
 |
| All the girls had to cover our heads inside the mosque. But, I forgot my scarf so I had to wear the tour guide's parka. |
Here comes the thoughtful part. Avoid if you just like the fun stuff :)
New insights: one of the things that I am finding the most interesting is talking to people, especially my host family, about preconceived notions of America. It's odd to hear some things that I can rebut by saying "but there are many varying people in America and most don't act that way," then others that I admit fully that a lot of Americans do in fact do while putting myself on a pedestal above them, as if I'm saying "Oh, jeez, those Americans" *eye roll*. But then there are American action stereotypes that I can totally see myself doing because certain things are ingrained in my culture and the way I was brought up. It's rather eye-opening. An example I heard was this: that Americans tend to do things their way and let others do things differently as means of equality, but in this culture it is considered rude not to adapt when those around you do things slightly differently. And yes, when not in exchange-student-mode I think I would be likely to say "you do things your way, I'll do things mine, and we can coexist" rather than adopt a new way of doing something simple. It's almost as if the definition of equality differs: I would see it as everyone getting their way. Here it would be someone giving so everyone does the same thing. Just something I've been thinking about.
No comments:
Post a Comment