Putovanje u Hrvatska!

That's "a trip to Croatia" for all you non-croatian speakers. Reason number 1 why I'm unbelievably terrified.

Earl falsity #77-everyone, including homestay parents, in Croatia speak English. False. But maybe I should begin at the beginning.

After waking up at 5 am this morning, going upstairs for one last breakfast feast, only to be hurried along and then guilted because host mama thought I said 5:45 (moins quart) versus 6:15 (et quart) as the departure time (the departure that, to my relief, was from Yens straight to the airport...thanks, Lauren's host mom). After all, what would my last morning chez Andres have been without some misunderstanding or reprimand? Anyways, after having shipped off my brand new suitcase full of chocolate-find me when I'm back-courtesy of host mama and the cobblestoned streets of Venice (the suitcase that is, not the chocolate)...and the Yens post office is another story (that involves shoving a 20 kg suitcase over the counter and cash register and through the glass reception window, only to be told its actually 20.01 kg and that it'd be 40 chf more to ship)...and stepping on and off the scale about 50 times holding my suitcase to endure it was under 20 kg (ridiculous for 6 months of clothes over 2 seasons? Oui.), I was finally off. Host parents gave a sentimental goodbye at the top of the driveway as the kids lay fast asleep in their beds, and I was en route to Geneve Aeroport.

After 2 flights, a stopover in Munchen Flughafen, and 3 very cool passport stamps later, we were in Zagreb. The other SIT Geneva program is currently spending the final days of their program at a beachside resort in the costal town of Pula, but we are going once again to homestays in the very urban capital of Zagreb. Don't get me wrong, I'm all for new experiences, but not twice being plunged into an entirely new culture, language, home, and family. It definitely takes some adjustment to learn how a family functions, and with the added stress of our 30 page ISP presentations looming in the near future (ie. 1 week) does NOT help the acclimation process. I would love to get to explore the city and get to know my new host family, a process which took a good week or so in Switzerland, but that's pretty hard when we have these papers to finish. And what's more, a good 60% of the students here don't have internet in their new homes. Fail.

So as we sat in a restaurant, all awkward and nervous with a strange feeling of deja vu that we did this just over 3 months ago (oh wait, we did.), we awaited the arrival of our new host families to come whisk us away for the next 2 weeks. We were reassured that they would speak english, but quickly discovered that this was not the case for some. I, however, got lucky...for once. I live on the same street as one of the other SIT students (Mel!), my host mother is a psychologist (although she speaks no english, my 30 year old host sister is the sweetest person alive and is an english and italian teacher (perfect english and I get to brush up on italian), and the 24 year old brother speaks very decent english as well (and plays a mean game of pool, as I discovered this afternoon). The mother is a little terrifying, but I think that might just be a combination of her looks and the fact that I haven't the slightest clue what she's saying. That's the thing with Croatian, you can't even BEGIN to deduce what things mean unless you might have some background in Russian or something. Good, now I get to put my Russian to use finally. Example: "parmacy"...french: 'pharmacie,' italian: 'farmacia,' german: 'apotheke,' croatian: 'LJEKARNA'?!?!?!? You can see how coming here not even knowing how to say "hello" has proven challenging (although surprisingly many people do speak english here). Thank god I already knew how to say "I'm cold" and "I love you" (thanks Andrea), that's all I should need to get by, right??

So as I sit here alone in my new little bedroom (aptly called a barn by someone viewing it via skype) eating the last bread and cheese sandwich from Switzerland that I'll have for my dinner (they don't quite have the tradition of eating dinner together here), I can't help but think back on a) how great Switzerland was in so many regards (excluding economically...$0.18 to the Kuna here!), despite crazy families and crazy teachers and b) how...enlightening...these next few weeks are going to be.