Cost of Living

This one really blew my mind. I just read the Forbes' article listing the most expensive cities in the world. You know what the shocker was? Zagreb placed 49th, ahead of LA which is 55th as only the second most expensive city in the US (NY taking the top US honor, ranking 22nd). So maybe we should have moved to California instead? You know, to save some money.

http://www.forbes.com/2008/07/23/cities-expensive-world-forbeslife-cx_zg_0724expensivecities.html

Independence Day

Initially, I planned a barbecue for family and friends but, as is customary here in Croatia, July isn't a good time for such events. Everyone leaves town to start their long awaited vacations. American Chamber of Commerce in Zagreb organized an Independence Day picnic and rodeo, so we welcomed the event. It was fun despite the extreme heat and an excessively long and slow line for food. The bottom line is that kids had such a terrific time that the annoyances for us adults were worth it. We took my niece with us, and the five of us headed off to the local ranch for barbecue, ice cream, music and fun.

Rodeo, the main event was quite delayed so we nearly missed it. Still, kids managed to stay awake despite the late hour. Mia even got to see her first fireworks ever. In an awe of a four-year-old she proclaimed: "This is so neat!"

Once on the road to get back home, all three of them (10-year-old included) promptly fell asleep, absolutely exhausted from the day. I hope that we get to do it again next year.

More pictures (scroll to the bottom of the linked page): http://picasaweb.google.com/mirjana.phillips/200806.

The "sky" is back in place

The unfortunate plaster falling incident turned into quite an ordeal. Last 3-4 weeks have been consumed remedying the situation. After the initial damage, contractors came out immediately and made repairs at their expense. Naturally, the mess followed. It took a while to clean. Then just as we had them scheduled to come out to put on finishing touches by applying some nice ceiling paint, we came home to another mess. Another section came down as you can see from the pictures. Then the following morning another large section came down. This time we were home and heard it happen. This was clearly turning into a larger problem. Unbelievably though, through the whole ordeal nobody got hurt and nothing got damaged.

After a couple of spirited phone conversations, we were left with two options. One would have been to try to fix up the damage. Second option was to work on the entire ceiling (kitchen, dining room, living room) to prevent any future problems. Naturally, we picked option two which was better in the long run. In the short run, however, it made things interesting.

So, bravely, we forged ahead. The kitchen cabinets were emptied and taken down from the walls. On an extremely short notice, we managed to get the same company that put them up, to come over and dismantle their work. The entire living room/dining areas were emptied out except for couches and the dining room table. Things were all over the place. Pantry was relocated onto some shelves in the stairwell in front of the main door like a modern mini art exhibit, and the rest of the items simply scattered all over, literally. It was almost a bigger mess than when we first moved in. For 3-4 days we didn't have any use of the kitchen at all. Kids slept in our bedroom and we slept in the multi purpose room upstairs. Cleaning became the word of the day for an entire month.

Since we went through the trouble, we figured that this was just as good of a time as any to finish up some of the things that were still on the list. So, I hired an electrician to come out and put up light fixtures and ceiling fans (ceiling fans in residences are a novel concept here) throughout the whole home. That, of course, meant that the mess spread all over. 14 fixtures purchased over the last 12 months were put up over three days. Kitchen cabinets stayed down for a while but we managed to cook despite that. In the meantime we purchased an island vent hood for the kitchen. While the cabinets were down we had the wall, ceiling and cabinets prepared for the vent hood installation. That is now ready and the vent hood will be installed in a few days.

I also purchased three colorful bar stools. Kids love them and often choose to eat there while they watch what I do in the kitchen. I got some plants for the place and now things are looking pretty good. Before you know it, we won't even remember the mess that was the last few weeks.

More home improvements were going on at the same time as the ceiling repairs. Before this event came to pass, we've ordered some big-girl furniture for Mia's room. Furniture arrived just at the "right" time and was assembled right before the ceiling repairs started. Her room was completely reshuffled. So we had to make space for her old furniture elsewhere. That was a mess in itself. We turned her crib into a full size bed. We had previously purchased a frame kit just for that purpose and had a mattress at hand to use (until then the mattress was just sitting on the guest room floor waiting for us to take care of it). Turns out what they sold us didn't quite match the headboard and the footboard that we had, thus we couldn't assemble the bed. Should have seen that one coming from a mile, er, kilometer away! Chris and I tried a number of creative solutions over a period of days but weren't successful. Finally, with help of my dad, I found a carpenter. We took the bed to the carpenter's workshop so he could properly drill new holes and make custom hardware so that bed could be reassembled. I was relieved when we got the bed home. I figured that we can get at least one room fixed up. Man, was I wrong or what! The holes had to be drilled slightly higher than their original placement. Once we assembled everything and put the mattress set on, the bed was so high you'd need a ladder to get in. It was sad and very comical, all at the same time. The decision was made. We were going to just toss the whole thing and get a different bed. Then we wavered and decided to give it one more shot. We would look for some bed slats to replace the bedspring, thus reducing the monster bed height. Here is a word for you - standards! Every single thing you can think of has different standards in Europe and US. Everything from electricity to bed size, sheet size, tables, chairs, plates, threads on screws that are otherwise same thickness (found that out the hard way)... The bed slats (which here come neatly framed so they couldn't be trimmed down) would have been 1.75" too wide. It looked like the fate of the bed was sealed; junkyard eagerly awaited. Refusing to throw in the towel, and at Chris' suggestion, I went by a home improvement store, got some wood, had it cut to size (for free) and we made our very own, homemade version of bed slats for the guest bed and it looks awesome! Phillips 1 - home improvement mess zero! Next person that comes to visit us, will get to try out the bed and how wonderful it turned out. We did, however, toss the bedspring. Chris didn't say anything but I think he felt strangely pleased to be able to exact revenge on the heinous bed, when he took the boxspring out to toss. He insisted on doing it alone. "It's not heavy, it's just large." So I got reprimanded by neighbors for making my husband lift heavy objects all by himself. Spousal abuse? Naaah, when we travel our suitcases usually weigh more and he has to carry them nevertheless.

In conclusion, we got one killer place to show off. Granted, it usually looks like it's under a brutal toy attack (toys take turns, different toys on different days) but other than that, the place looks lovely.

The sky is falling

I did a couple of all nighters in a row helping out with a big, time-sensitive project at work. After a record breaking 18-hour shift, I was understandably exhausted. I helped get kids ready for school and went to bed. They woke me up at 5:30pm when Chris brought them back. Looking concerned, Chris asked me if I had heard anything while sleeping. Understandably, I heard nothing. Deep asleep there was no waking me up. Apparently while I was asleep, a large piece of plaster fell off the ceiling crashing down on the floor below. Wow! I am suspecting that the plaster was aggravated because of the stairs we've put in to connect two otherwise separate condo units to make a larger home. The stairwell opening still needs finishing touches; concrete still showing around the opening. Well, the builder still agreed to come fix the damage so we have someone over taking care of it as we speak. As a bonus it looks like we'll get a freebie and have the concrete covered up and prettied up. So, in retrospect, it all worked out for the best. Still, once is enough. I'd prefer the ceiling stay where it's supposed to in the future.

Tooth fairy incident

Tooth fairy started visiting our family a couple of months ago. Recently Ivor's front teeth got loose. It took a while but the first one finally came out. Chris was in the bathroom with Ivor. Two of them were above the sink working on the tooth in front of the bathroom mirror. Suddenly there was commotion, Ivor ran out with blood dripping out of his mouth (looked awful) looking quite upset, and Chris trekked out right after him. Apparently in the excitement of the situation Ivor knocked Chris' hand and the tooth went down the drain. Ivor was visibly upset because tooth fairy would be unable to fulfill her duties. He went as far as wanting to block the bathroom door so nobody would accidentally run the water in the sink and wash his tooth away. It took a few minutes to stop the bleeding and calm him down. We tried to reassure him that all would be OK but he was inconsolable.

Kids finally went to bed and two tooth fairies had to come out at midnight and fiddle with the drain. After much trouble, tooth fairy daddy managed to undo the drain and pull the priceless tooth out and it was magically returned to the boy along with some money that night. Unfortunately, now we can't tighten the drain back so we'll have to call the plumber for help. That’ll be one expensive tooth. In the meantime, a plastic bowl is catching dripping water under the sink while a boy, oblivious to all the trouble others go through for him, happily checks out his toothless grin in the mirror above.

Birthday bash

Ivor couldn't wait to celebrate yet another birthday. He now boasts to be 7 (even though the actual birthdate is June 25th which clearly hasn't ocurred yet). We celebrated early while his friends are still in town. This week the school is over and the summer officially kicks in with people abandoning the city for the beach in droves. We scheduled the party at a playroom. We had close to 20 kids show up and they all had a blast. Here most parents just drop their kids off for birthday parties and don't stick around. While I don't agree with the practice, especially when it comes to smaller kids like 4 year olds, we did what we had to. Chris and I tried to keep up with them, refilled juice cups, wiped noses, kissed boo-boos (quite a few of them, actually) and took them to the bathroom. Ivor barely had a moment to slow down and blow out the candles. We actually had to make him do it. He and a bunch of little boys ran around without stopping for nearly 4 hours.

You can take a look at more pictures at http://picasaweb.google.com/mirjana.phillips/200806.

Picture sharing - finally

I've finally uploaded some pictures to Picasa - online picture sharing. I'll try to be good and add a few each month. Enjoy! :)

http://picasaweb.google.com/mirjana.phillips

13

There was a tram accident downtown today (no, we weren't anywhere near it, just saw it on TV). Tram #13 jumped out of the track at 13:13, and there are 13 injured people. How strange is that?

Catch up time

A Mongolian, Turk, Croatian, American and Australian walk into a bar... No, it's not a beginning of a joke even though it sounds like it should be. :) On Friday night Chris and I went out to a club, a rare ocassion these days, indeed. We went with some of Chris' Croatian school classmates, thus the strange line up of folks from all over the world. That was really amusing. Everyone spoke English in addition to their native languages (unless English was their native language of course). We had a really good time and came home at the unusually late hour of 5:00am. The wake up time is 6:00am (or a little later on good mornings) which is when Ivor gets up every morning, but still, it was worth it. Chris got the kids that morning so I slept till noon and than we swapped so he slept till late afternoon. It took us some time to recover.

I can see that my blog has been suffering lately and it's not for the lack of things to write about. I've simply not felt like it. Life has been very busy lately and I've not had the energy to include blogging on my list of "to dos."

I am glad to announce that Chris has been employed for over a month now. He started working as a Systems Integrator April 7th at a company named Ericsson Nikola Tesla. He searched for work for about 6 weeks, which I admit, is significantly less than the average here. It all went pretty smoothly.

Every morning now I turn into a soccer mom and shuttle everyone around town. I drop Chris off at work and kids at daycare. Then I head home and do some work myself. In the afternoon I pick the kids back up and we then we cook dinner, clean, talk, do baths and bedtime. After kids are asleep, I go back to work until my bedtime. Chris goes from work to his evening Croatian classes; 2.5 hours every day, 5 days a week. He makes it home by 10:15pm every night (takes public transportation to get home) and then we start all over the next morning. The schedule's been working out but it does leave us both quite tired. This will persist until mid June when his school semester ends. He decided to go at least another one to two semesters so he can keep working on his Croatian which means we'll have a busy year coming up.

In the Fall there will be another student in the family, in addition to Chris. Ivor is enrolling in the Croatian school system. Well, sort of. He'll get to enjoy the better parts of the system as he's attending a small private school downtown Zagreb. That means tiny classes, a lot of personal attention and more time spent working on practical assignments and less time just sitting down and staring at the blackboard. So far, he's very excited. I am not sure how long that excitement will persist though once homework materializes. He's been attending prep classes for a couple of hours every day for a month already, culminating with last week when he had real classes and regular school days so he can get a feel for what to expect when school actually starts. He did well (says he), but wasn't up for sharing too many details on what they did. His typicall response: "Oh, the usual" as if he's been going to class for years. He said that there are three other kids in class learning Croatian so he won't have to feel left out. He mentioned that they spoke German. This is in addition to German, Italian and English speak children that he spends time with at daycare. If you were to ask Mia what foreign languages she's learning at daycare, she'll tell you that she's learning German and Croatian. :) They actually have German and English classes a couple of times a week. In addition to that Ivor has been taking Tae-kwon-do couple of times a week. We're going to find out what he's learned soon at a recital that he's getting ready for, so let's see if it's been time (and money) well spent. He's very excited about it, of course.

We celebrated our 11th wedding anniversary 5 weeks ago. It turned out into a really nice evening away from home. We got to go out and spend some time together. Had dinner at a terrific restaurant. Went out for our favorite desert and watched a romantic movie. About three weeks after that, we all went to visit some of my relatives. Conversation turned to many things including, what else, but food. It turns out that my cousing works as a pastry chef at the place that sells our favorite local dessert. Even better, it turns out that she made those. What are the chances? :)

As usual, we've been chasing paperwork, a standard Croatian love-beuraucracy-or-perish thing. Last week, Chris got his residency permit for another year. The process went smoothly this time (unlike last year) but was still tedious. We had to collect a ton of paperwork, do document translations (where applicable), wait in line (long waits, multiple times) to turn it all in, do another interview at a local police station then go back to get the stamp in the passport. Now that is done so we need not worry about it; for a while anyway. For his job Chris had to do a number of things as well including getting official paperwork and tax documents (I don't even have those yet). He even had to have a medical exam, a standard employment procedure here. Even Ivor had his share of things to get done in the last few weeks including a full physical and a dentist visit so we can get his stuff in order before he can be enrolled in school. We still have a sizeable list of things to get done but hopefully, slowly, we can start crossing them off the list.

Mia's fourth birthday party is behind us as well. She had a princess cake and got lots of great presents. We planned an outdoor event but fickle Spring weather (lots of rain this year) messed it up for us so we ended up celebrating at home. It turned out great and we still had a fun birthday. Now it's time to start planning Ivor's party. He can't hide his excitement. Let's see how it goes.

Under Siege

This Friday and Saturday Zagreb will literally be under siege. As you've probably heard on your local news, Air Force One (yes, the one from your neck of the woods) will be landing at Zagreb airport some time this Friday afternoon and will be leaving some time Saturday. That's all great and wonderful. George and Laura will tour the city, eat local food, talk to our president and make some speeches. All in all that would be fine four us regular people if it weren't for the whole security thing. Zagreb sewer holes are being welded shut throughout the part of the city that Bush will go through for security reasons. On Friday, schools and daycares are closing way early causing great inconveniences to parents who will have to beg their employers to take off work early. Roads and parking lots will be closed off to traffic as needed without much advance notice, and cars will be towed en masse from legal parking spaces if they are deemed to be a security threat. It's all top secret. Good luck to those who live near by. Basically, we've all been advised to stay home, close the shutters (!?!?) and keep quiet so Bush and his entourage of several thousand people (did you know that it took that many support staff for him to travel) can enjoy the city all to themselves. So we'll change plans and stay home. I suppose we'd live with that too (as if we have a choice), but so it just happens that Saturday Chris and I celebrate (or would like to celebrate) our 11th wedding anniversary. Since we're no celebrities and aren't of any political importance, our celebration can't stand up to the disarray that one simple two-day-visit will cause the city. I suppose meeting the president is out of question...