govorite li engleski?

Do you speak english???
This morning, my first true morning waking up in Zagreb was sunny, chilly, and invigorating. Just being in a city, walking and taking the tram (like the T in Boston, except electrically run and all above ground), makes me feel good. I never thought I would like to live in a city where I commuted regularly, and I might not like it after a while, but the idea seems to be much more positive in my mind right now. Last night a few of us shared our first beer in a little cafe in the Trg (square) and spoke about academia and our like and dislike for it. We all are sharing some of the same sentiments, fears, and visions of the trip: what will our host family think of us? Will we be able to learn hrvatski (croatian), what the hell will our ISP (Independent Study Project) be? But what seems to be most shared, and ultimately the most important, is our communal desire to learn and immerse ourselves here, work and play hard. The people on the trip are all very different, but extremely interesting and nice (which terminates my biggest fear of being with unispiring, mean, and unsocial humanoids like what happened in San Miguel de Allende, Mexico last summer).

After letting the tram doors close too quickly on us a few times, were quickly learning the rules of the road here. Tram doors do close quite quickly. People dont talk too much on the trams. People are more touchy and dont understand our idea of bubble space, most young people know english, and the open market is the way to eat! I had fresh figs today, and I couldnt be happier.

Today we started with a -drop off- which sounds like what it is. They gave us a piece of paper with a name of a shop, location, etc and the street name and told us to find it. We had an hour to explore, ask for help from people, and do some ethnography while we were there. I was directed towards an internet cafe about 4 blocks from the SIT office (which is in the center Trg and is amazing and ill describe it more later). It was closed, but it was right across the street from a wonderful park where many people walked their dogs around lots of flowers, a big water fountain and a gazebo. There were some embassy's there also, i noticed brazil and france among others.

The city is really interesting, and ultimately the exercise today made us realize how much it has to offer. From cafes, to bars, to clubs, to salsa classes, aerobics, yoga, pilates, to music halls and cinemas, to parks and a lake and interest specific restaurants and clubs, you can find a lot. Two younger Croats came and spoke to us today, Marko and Barbara, about our upcoming host families, youth culture, and taboos to keep in mind. If we like this type of music, this political stance, this sport, etc, we should go to this club, this bar, etc. It was really interesting.

Croats go out in groups. If you decide to go off alone into a bar or cafe, you most likely wont find someone else who is looking to talk to you, because people are already socializing with a group. Also, coffee to go is a completely foreign idea. Coffee is an hour ordeal where you sit and relax with a group of people over good conversation. And coffee is espresso, none of that -white coffee- as they might call it here!

Tomorrow we start to shape our ISPs with Orli (program director). The reason why we haven't been placed with our host families yet is because tomorrow we get interviews with Goga (the project coordinator) so she can better understand our interests, dislikes, fears, etc so she can better place us with an appropriate host family. This idea = brilliant and very soothing for nerves.

I am about burnt out. But one more thing: old drunk Croatian men are very funny and like to comment on my hat. he said, -miss, you have a very...beautiful...hat-.

Love, Erica