Cold weather and what it comes with

It has gotten bitterly chilly all of a sudden. Everybody has switched from wearing light jackets and sweatpants to turning into bundles of clothes with only the occasional nose poking out. We got a teenie bit of snow but I think I'm going to have to wait a bit for a sledding adventure. In the meantime, Christmas (Božić) decorations are going up everywhere, especially in the main square of Zagreb where there is an enormous stage for the advent concerts, a temporary pub/cafe in a tent thing, lights everywhere, a 40 foot tree and an ice arena. If that isn't enough, the vendors have set up kiosks selling everything: sausages, lights, cheap hats and gloves, roasted chestnuts, gingerbread, and little fried doughnut things covered in Nutella and cinnamon, called fritule. Yum.

Guess what? I had some conversations! In Croatian! Milestone? I think so.

All of the exchange students in Zagreb were feeling a bit mournful watching people in America tuck into huge Thanksgiving dinners (thanks Facebook and Instagram) so we took matters into our own hands and had a Thanksgiving diner of our own on Sunday. Despite horrific odds of failure because none of us are exactly master chefs or have any extra money whatsoever to buy what we were lacking, we ended up having more than enough food and most of it was pretty good! The lineup was: french fries (the deli was out of mashed taters), bread, more bread, more bread, really good stuffing, a rotisserie chicken, corn, mac and cheese, barbeque sauce (?),  portuguese salad (??) and I made blueberry/craisin sauce because I looked and there are no cranberries anywhere. Que sera. Dessert was pumpkin pie and ice cream which was not, as it looked, chocolate and vanilla swirl, but actually eggnog and hazelnut (???).

Language barriers/Guess what?
It is way to easy to get some words mixed up! The two that I've had some interesting moments with recently were when I tried to say tužno (sad) and said ružno (ugly) --sorry Tina, then čudesan (wonderful) got mixed up with čudan (bizarre). Oops.     

So my folklore group had a performance in Slovenia a few weeks ago (bringing my Balkan country count up to 3! Yay!) and we did pretty well! It was my first time actually getting to wear the outfit, which is an heirloom and so pretty. There are so many steps to getting everything on, makeup done, and I don't think I've ever worn so much hairspray, but it was a really good time. The Slovenians were great hosts! They treated us to a trip to the thermal pools and gave us a great dinner with so much music and dancing. The one glitch happened when our routine switched at the last minute to begin with a song about Bistra, my village, which everyone knew but me (of course) and no one told me! It was actually hilarious, me being up on a stage and having absolutely zilch clue what I was supposed to be doing, so I grinned my teethiest smile and had to wing it. I'm not sure anyone was convinced, but it was fun.

In other news, the referendum banning homosexual marriage was passed on Sunday. Some of us were bummed. Sad day.