Strange day

What a strange day it was today. So much has happened that it feels like several days were rolled into one.

I was invited to an art exhibition opening at my sister's school commemorating war events in the city of Vukovar during 1991. Apparently an art teacher at the my sister's school talked to the kids at the time and showed them Picasso's painting "Guernica". It was Picasso's way of expressing anger over the 1937 Nazi bombing of Gernika (in Spain) and the horrors that happened there. (Wikipedia link http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Guernica_(painting) ).

Similar events were unfolding at the time at the Croatian city of Vukovar. Croatia has declared its independence from the former Yugoslavia about 5 months prior to Vukovar occupation. Vukovar was under siege for a long time and practically wiped out by the time city fell. Thousands of people were executed and tortured and it was a terrible time. I was already in the US by that time and watched it all on TV and read about it in NY Times. I called home when I could as it cost some $3-$4 per minute back then to call. Frequent air raids then sent people running into shelters on a daily basis. Many were displaced and killed. I still have all of the letters that I have received from my friends during that time and they all wrote about the new war reality they lived in. Zagreb, ended up being only some 30 miles from the front lines but the enemy never managed to make it through and the damage in the city was minimal. Vukovar, maybe 150 miles away, was nearly erased. For those that are interested, you can read more about the Battle of Vukovar here: http://www.answers.com/topic/battle-of-vukovar.

Inspired by Guernica, the kids then painted and drew what they thought and felt. This resulted in some 200 drawings that this teacher kept and has since displayed in many galleries around the world. I just kept looking through all those drawings and just wanted to cry and cry and cry. There was so much sadness there that it was impossible not to feel it. It will take an untold number of years for people to not be personally affected by everything that happened. My sister wants me to go visit the city and the memorials there but I am not sure that I want to. These things never leave you. The art teacher talked about his experience (before I saw the kids' drawings) and mentioned that some day he'd like to collect all of the drawings into a book and I thought to myself, this is so great, I could help him with the book. I should talk to this guy. In my mind I've already started on the whole thing. After seeing the drawings, I don't know that I would be brave enough to do it. Time will tell. I wanted to share some of the images that you see attached here. They speak more than any words. Just remember how very, very lucky we all are not to had to have lived through such things. Afterwards I've talked to a number of people including one of the soldiers that was at Vukovar at the time.

Then I saw a girl that I used to attend elementary school with. Recognized her right away. Then some happy moments ensued as we reminisced about how things once were when we were kids many years ago. I met a bunch of my sister's friends and we went to a local coffee shop to talk for a while.

Got home, figured the day was over and went to my computer to work. Then I heard screaming and shuffling and running around the house. Ivona (my niece), on her way to bed mind you, tripped, fell and split her chin open. So I assisted my sister to the emergency room at midnight. Ivona lived and went home scared but safe with a couple of stitches in her chin. It's 2:30 am and I think it's time for a break. I hope for a less eventful day tomorrow.

Thanksgiving post

First of all, HAPPY THANKSGIVING everyone! It's a boring, regular day here but I know that it's a little more fun (and delicious) in the US today. My sister suggested that I make a turkey for everyone here but I graciously declined. :) Maybe next year when I have my own kitchen and when I don't feel so out of place. We've been so welcomed here but I can't really fully set up house until we're on our own and our things (pictures, toys, beds, dishes...) are out of storage and back in use. Then we'll really know we're home again. I must say it's exciting to watch our place being built. Everything is taking shape and I can really see us liking it there.

In the meantime we're trying to make the best of things. We're enjoying the city and the people. I've attached a couple of pictures from two weeks ago. Kids were feeding pigeons on the main city square downtown. They loved it. Click on the images to enlarge them.

Wired

We've spent grueling 3 and a half hours today meeting with the plumber and the electrician. We went from room to room and discussed everything at great lengths and then decided locations of the plugs and the swithches and the lights and the radiatiors... That was hard. It's hard to decide how the space will be decorated when the roof is still not completed, the doors are missing and the walls are still rough brick. I hope we've made sensible decisions. Time will tell.

For those of you that are tech savvy, here is something to drool over. We've requested cat 5 cable in every room of the condo (kitchen included) for maximum connectivity. So the condo will be wired and we'll be happy computer owners. Yay us! We're so excited. Let's hope the electrician does a good job with it.

I know that you're all curious so I've included a little picture of the current state of the construction. Our condo is in the building on the right, top two floors. Click on the image to see it bigger.

To park or not to park? That is the question.

Well, some days it was not to park as I don't dare park in the street or halfway on teh curb so we would just skip an errand and come back later or park far away and then walk to the destination. Below you will find Chris' first blog entry (yay Chris!). Keep in mind that he's not yet sat behind the wheel. He doesn't have a local driver's license yet. As soon as he does, I am sure he'll have a lot more on his mind. Let's start then...

CHRIS: One of the oddest things to me in this country is not the fact that some people impatiently zip around trams or floor it to get ahead of a bus as it's leaving one of its stops. To me, seeing how people handle the parking in inventive and freaky ways amazes me. Not as much as the fact that it's generally accepted as nothing too special though.

For example, a lot of the inventive parking I can understand due to the size of the city and the general shortage of parking spaces due to the city's age (hey, it's over a thousand years old if memory serves atm -- so it's OLD). Even in the 'newer' parts of the city that have only been around for 100 years or so; the general layout was not originally designed for such a vast need for parking. And that makes perfect sense. However, even understanding that, it's hard to overlook when you see the odd behavior which is just accepted as normal.

For example, No one would be too suprised to see a packed parking lot and not only are people 'making' their own parking spaces by parking parallel to the end of a line of cars (and narrowing the driving area to a single lane). I think most Americans who'd been to other cities would recognize that as a ass-holish - but valid parking strategy on a major shopping occassion (like Black Thursday - the insanity that occurs every Day after Thanksgiving). I'm sure most people would simply do as I do in such circumstances. Namely, to wish a painful plague on the inconsiderate 'jerk' and pray that he gets a stack of very costly tickets in addition to getting his car towed. Here in Croatia though, not only is the parking NORMALLY like this on the weekends, but the attitude of the locals on such parking is a mere shrug.

The things I've NEVER seen before that I'm observing over here really flabbergasts me at times. I'll share a choice few with you and ask the reader to keep in mind that 85% of the cars over here are VERY small when you go to the city. With some more expensive mid-sized taking up the bulk of the remainder with actual American-sized SUV's taking up less than a percent I'd say. Mind you, I've never actually SEEN an SUV parked here; getting room to park in one of those monsters here would require a copious amount of patience that I have trouble asserting to anyone who would actually drive something that not just in Europe - but anywhere. I'm pretty sure most of the vehicles that sized must have designated parking already or use a private driveway if they even dare to go anywhere near the city.

With the vehicle size in mind, here's some of the choicer things that have really warped my world here in terms of parking.

One : Cars parked up on the sidewalk of a housing/commerical area - not just single up on the sidewalk, but a hodgepodge of double parallel parking and horizontal combined. Sometimes, if the sidewalk is large enough (like around a couple of the larger parks in the city proper), you actually have ROWS of them with a teeny-tiny driveway through the middle of them that if you didn't SEE people zipping down it at 20 MPH that you'd swear someone would have to go at a crawl to make it through such a space.

Two : Seeing a narrow parking lot ANYWHERE in the city. The builders provided for horizontal parking on either side of the lots - with a nice enough room for a novice driver to back out of a parking spot without damaging anything. So, what do you think we see in such lots these days? .. ... .. I bet the answer you were thinking of wasn't a Parallel Lane in the MIDDLE of the lot for it's full length with the cars in the middle being bumper to bumper. Even with the amazing turn radius's on tiny cars like they have here the cars basically end up with barely enough room to drive past each side. However, (as empty spaces in them that I've observed seemingly testify) apparently some people with enough patience and perseverence, someone on tte sides CAN escape from a seeingly hopelessly trapped state.

Three : This really has to the top one in my book and it kind of freaks me out every time we see it ('Me' being Mirjana and myself). But, apparently it's acceptable behavior here on the roads in and around the city that if you're in a marked two-lane road and you can't easily find parking to simply pull your lazy (and crazy) ass in the MIDDLE of the street and park. Then, run or walk (I've seen both behaviors) to the side and continue on your way to the bakery or whatever you were planning on hitting. Apparently the fact that they are only PARTIALLY obstructing traffic in not merely a single directions - but BOTH directions on the small streets here is not an issue to the local mindset.

Part of me wonders if there is some kind of odd game in the works that we're unaware of and the players get bonus points for nearly causing accidents - with bonus points for sudden swerving and parking or finding JUST the perfect spot to park the vehicle you're driving on the busy street outside your favorite bakery or grocery store so you can choke traffic to as much of a crawl as possible. If so, I'm sure they get more points for the length of the traffic backups they cause too, and if making other drivers cuss or stunning them counts, then they've been racking up points off me like a hyper teenager gleefully blowing me away again and again and again in their favorite 3D-shooter videogame.

Einstein

Here is something quick I came across that I wanted to share. I like good quotes.

"If you want your children to be intelligent, read them fairy tales. If you want them to be more intelligent, read them more fairy tales." ~ Albert Einstein

"When I examine myself and my methods of thought, I come to the conclusion that the gift of fantasy has meant more to me than any talent for abstract, positive thinking." ~ Albert Einstein

Weather

Month of October was warmest on record allowing us time to get used to the colder climate. Things are about to change though. Thursday it suddenly got very cold and Friday we saw the first snow flurries. No, it didn't stick but was interesting to see. The colder it gets, the closer my computer (and me along with it) get to the radiators, our source of heat. Ivor is extremely excited about the idea of snow and keeps asking about it. He clearly doesn't understand how it all works. Both Thursday and Friday he complained and didn't want to get out of the car in the morning because he was cold. He has no clue what lies ahead.

Car adventures

We finally purchased a car last Friday. Naturally, we're very excited about that as it's been difficult to keep borrowing one from my parents or to keep asking for rides all the time. We're also hoping that using a new car will stop a string of "bad karma" events that mysteriouslly followed us over the last six weeks. It's worked so far. Nothing bad happened since Friday. We've realized that the bad karma events were limited to one a day so once we would get one out of the way, we were "safe" and could relax for the remainder of the day.

Let's see if I can recall the car related ones... There are others that will be reserved for some other post. While supervised (by me) Ivor grabbed the back windshield wiper of my dad's car. Don't know why he did that or what he wanted to do with a widshield wiper. I promise you that he has plenty of toys. The wiper broke off so there was Ivor just waving the thing around. We tried replacing it but it turns out they've stopped manufacturing a wiper like that. We're still trying to correct this one. Then, the gas gauge mysteriouslly went nuts. Then after a day it fixed itself. We're trying not to question that. Then the lock on the driver's side, once again mysteriouslly, stopped working so one can't lock or unlock the car that way anymore. Now the driver has to go to the passenger door to unlock the car. Hassle? Yes. Will we fix it since it happened while we borrowed the car and drove it around? Yes. Could it have been user error while messing with the car door? No way.

Then we got hit by a bus. Yes, a bus. Driving around here is like driving an obstacle course. I figured that after driving here for a few months, I'd be ready to leave my graphic design work behind and start a new career as a stunt driver. It was during the height of a morning rush hour. There was a long line of cars so I stopped before an intersection until the cars in front of me moved and so I wouldn't block the intersection. So much for being nice. Everyone coming from the right then figured that this would be an easy way to get in. Seeing that, I crossed an intersection and got against the car in front of me. I was very pleased with myself. Car behind me got halfway into the intersection too. I imagine he was pleased with himself too. Then a bus came from an opposite direction. He eyed the gap between me and the car behind me and deduced that he can certainly sqeeze by with room to spare. Right? Well, he miscalculated and slowly but surely I felt the back of the bus lean on my car and push it aside. The bus driver just kept on going and I remained behind mouth agape. The car is now missing some paint. I called the bus dispatcher and they said that there is nothing they can do about the damage unless I can prove their fault. So I was supposed to go around and find a bus with a big smear of red paint on it? No I didn't do it. Will see about fixing this one too. Driving my dad's car proved to be too expensive so we now have our own to break.

Driving here is interesting. You never know what waits around the corner. Or in the middle of the street... Did you know that parking is at a premium here? We've seen people get extremely creative when trying to figure out where to park their car. One that tops it all is parking in the middle of the street. Literally. Apparently this is how it goes. You're in a rush and don't see any available parking. You look left, then right, then you just stop the car, lock it and go run you errand. The car stays in the middle of the street until you happily return and reclaim your car. You see, if you park on the center white line then you're not really blocking traffic. Wow! One way streets, construction, people randomly driving or walking around not paying attention, two way streets with only one lane because the other lane is blocked by parked cars... Just another day driving in our beautiful city. Chris decided to opt for public transportation for now.