To think not even 4 moths ago I was trying to plan for navigation through the Washington DC airport and metro system to get to the hotel for Fulbright training. I was worried about turning down the wrong street, missing the metro stop I was suppose to take...I was nervous, but now that seems like nothing! I knew the language, I had a cell phone that could call anywhere in the US to any friend who could google something for me. Now today, I navigated through Zagreb, Croatia! What a difference 4 months can make!
Cassidy and I left her apartment in Skopje at
3:15am to drive to the
Skopje airport for our
5:45am flight to Zagreb. All went as planned and we landed safely in Zagreb at
8:25am! It was then off to the hotel to meet Mary, another ETA in the region. Cassidy was going on in her journey to
Zadar, Croatia to visit Erin (her roommate back in Skopje). I took tram #6 and although I got off a bit earlier than necessary, I made it to the hotel. It was a beautiful entry way!!
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| The outside of the hotel |
I waited for Mary in the lobby since we could not check-in until after 12 noon. We headed out on our first Zagreb adventure- First stop was a mall for a little bit of shopping ( I didn't buy anything...yet), coffee, and some breakfast. I had Bucnica, a pastry type food with different fillings, mine had cottage cheese, sour cream and egg- VERY good!
After our shopping/food stop we headed across the street to the
Contemporary Art Museum. It happened to be the first Wednesday of the month, so there was no admission charge! However we did decide to "rent" and audio wand that we could point at exhibits, click a little button and then hear (in English) the explanation of the piece of artwork. It was a 3 floor museum with work ranging from socialist period works, to current exhibits. There were some amazing works! To get down to the main floor you could take the stairs, the elevator, or this AMAZING SLIDE! We chose the slide!!!
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| The Contemporary Art Museum |
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| The slide ! |
From there we went back to the hotel to check in. We met another ETA, Kammi, and we walked to the center to find a bit of lunch before our first sessions started that afternoon. I will comment on all of the workshop here in this post rather than each day... Getting to meet with the other ETAs from our region was invaluable! We were given the opportunity to share with each other struggles, things that have not worked, success and things that have worked. Getting to be together has really rejuvenated me. In addition to getting to hear about each other's teaching experiences, we also spoke a lot about life in our cities/town and countries. I learned so much about the former Yugoslavia countries, but I also was reminded how much I do not know about the area and still want to learn. I would consider this workshop a huge piece of my learning thus far!!
That night we all went to dinner as a group to a pizza place in the center. I can honestly say- I do not miss or crave pizza living here... its EVERYWHERE! I for some reason did not think it would be so prevalent in the area... but it sure is! The pizza was wonderful, and the conversation was even better!
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| At dinner |
Lesson: Fulbright Program's goal is to make the world a smaller place through relationships- this week has already been just that!
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