Daily Schedule

After the hectic first day and the jet lag from the seven hour time difference, I started into the classes on Monday and got my schedule. Surrounded by the beautiful city that you see around this text, I start the Croatian class each day at 9am, taught by Dr. Tomislav of the Zadar University. He actually teaches German and French at the university, and seems to speak pretty good English, so he certainly knows what he is doing.

Then at about 11:00am we have a short break where we go out to the driveway where Mamić without fail has left coffee and Croatian cookies waiting for us. Often Sanja, another professor from the university, and Daniel, a higher level graduate student, will eat and chat with us.
We then continue classes until usually about 1:00pm.

The classes are entirely in Croatian, which has been really tough so far, but Tomislav speaks good enough English that I can ask him for any words that I don't understand or any concepts that I don't understand in Croatian. Below are all my books and the new textbooks that I am using. So far it has only been review grammatically, but there have still been a lot of new words and I still need tons of work before I'm conversationally proficient.

After my classes, the rest of the day is mine. Well, aside from homework, of course. I've spent in on things such as going to the beach, which is absolutely wonderful here, albeit a little cold from the region's long last winter. I've also gone on runs, walked about stari grad ("the old city"-- where all the old buildings and a lot of the tourist attractions are), and went grocery shopping at the amazing local supermarket, "Interspar". Mamić is basically in love with the place, and its not hard to see why. It has basically anything we could need, and is only like a 5 minute walk from our home. I'd liken it to a nicer Wal-mart. 

Well, that's basically my average schedule. It differs slightly on Wednesdays when we have presentations from Sanja, but otherwise that is my life here in Zadar. There is still a lot more to do and learn than I ever could in just six weeks, but I can feel myself improving and I think this program will have a lot to offer me. 

(As a reward for your continued reading, here are pictures of Zadar at dusk, taken on my second day here.)

Moving In

 About noon on Sunday, I arrived at my home for the next six weeks. It's a really pretty place with lots of plants and at really good location for staying in the city. As you can see to the right, its a three story building. Amber (the other student from New York taking the class) and myself live on the first floor with our own kitchen and bathroom and then the Mamić's live on the third floor.

The next picture shows the entrance, with our floor being straight ahead and downstairs being the library where we do some of the classes. 

We have nice rooms and pretty decent internet. I was surprised by how nice everything was and how easy the move in was. My room is shown below, with a bed, closet, fan, desk, and everything already there ready for me.

The kitchen is pretty sweet too, equipped with a Croatian television, a fridge, and all the dishes that we will ever need. The only thing that has taken a little of getting use to is not having a microwave.

The bathroom is nice and clean and identical to ones in America, aside from perhaps the fact that the bath is basically a shower head attached to the end of a tube that you use to wash yourself.

And finally we have the classroom in which most of our classes are held. That's right, classes are actually in the same building. I literally can just walk from my room to class without putting shoes on. Already once my first week I overslept and went from being asleep to five minutes later in the classroom.

Well, that's all of my home accommodations! It's really nice here and the host family, not to mention my teachers, are all extremely nice and are used to students still learning the language such as myself. It's more than I ever could have expected!

Flying Over

The first week in Zadar was quite an experience, nowhere near the lifestyle that I live back home. The flight there was long but the flight overseas was actually very enjoyable. I was sitting next to two interesting guys, one of whom was going to Austria for a motocross event that his friend was competing in and the other who was a fan of science-fiction novels and was visiting his family in Ireland. I didn't sleep much more than an hour or two, partially because of the seats but mostly because of the amazing personal monitors for watching movies. I watched four movies and was in a whole new continent before I knew it.

However, the flight left about an hour late so I had a very short time to connect to my next flight in Munich, further complicated by everything being in German. I landed at the Munich airport and after a bus ride to a different terminal and another ride to a completely different part of the airport where the Croatian planes were held, I boarded my plane with scarily little time to spare. Then finally with a chance to catch my breath, I flew the last leg on a tiny Croatian airline that wasn't even halfway full and instead of peanuts or pretzels they served croissants which I appreciated.

Just as soon as I had slowed down and realized how tired I was, once I landed in Zadar one of my bags was missing! I though it was strange since I checked in the luggage number, and I still don't know exactly what could have gone wrong. Luckily, my host Pf. Mile Mamić (who doesn't speak even a little bit of English) was waiting there to pick me up and was very helpful in going to the information desk and helping me get the form filled out to have it recovered and delivered to his home. It was tough to converse with him, but we got everything worked out and started the drive to my new home.

(Sorry for the lack of pictures on my first post, my time off the plane moved so fast that I never really had the chance to take any. And sorry to mom and dad for not exactly telling them about the missing luggage-- I didn't want to worry them and the luggage arrived safe and sound the next day.)