Svježe Mlijeko, Dobar Tek!

(Fresh milk, bon appetit!)  See, I sound Croatian already.  These are a few of the words I have learned over the last two days.  I am having a wonderful time trying to learn, retain and use everything I am being taught.  I'm sure I'm doing better than I perceive, but at least I'm really making an effort, and that's what counts.

Today we went to visit a small open market and a grocery store the size of an average regular Walmart, Konzum.  Apparently they have three sizes of this store, the regular which is the size of a large convenience store, the Super, and a Maxi which I assume is the size of Costco.  That was kind of fun.  Marina walked up and down the aisles with me explaining things about various products, foods and departments, meanwhile looking for good things to take home as souvenirs.  We even picked up some different small honeys at the open market for a souvenir. 

The market was fun though.  It made me think of one I went to regularly in Nîmes, France that was located in an almost garage-like space on the bottom floor of a shopping mall, and they had everything.  Marina says she wants to take me to a huge market that's downtown, as well as the large fish market they have here.  I was able to get some fun photos as well as try the Croatian version of a "pain au chocolat" (a french pastry using the same dough for a croissant but with a bar of dark chocolate wrapped in the middle before baking it).  The Croatian version was more like the chocolate was spread on the dough before it was rolled into the croissant shape and then a zig-zag of chocolate icing is drizzled along its length after it was baked.  It was pretty good.

After lunch Marina, her mom, I and her little girls went to the best park ever!!!!!  Called Maksimir, it was the estate of an Archbishop who eventually donated the park to the city ( I think at his death).  Any way It's like walking into the forest in the middle of the city.  It's their own version of Central Park.

They have a zoo, historical buildings (designed by a Swiss architect to look authentic), and 7 small lakes.  It was beautiful.  Since it was very wet today, the ground was muddy and spongy in places. I saw the biggest slug I've ever seen.  It was bright orange and about the size and roughly the shape of a 8 - 9" medium sized carrot.  Marina says that they are actually fairly common in forested places here.

It was so pleasant and peaceful there.  Marina told me that during the summer the inside of the park is at least 10° cooler and that it's the best park to ride a bicycle in.  I told her I would come back to Croatia just for the park.

Finally dinner arrived and we had the fish we bought this morning at the open market.  Eaten with potatoes, and a kind of green like giant spinach that you wilt and a bean and scallion side.  The fish were fried in an oven outside, both a large fresh water and tons of smaller sardine-sized fish that you bend and strip off of the bones.  Both very tasty with the potatoes and a little bit of olive garlic pesto.

I almost forgot, I had Prošut (prosciutto ham) and Kulen as my meats this morning with we also later tried with a mayo with herbs called Mediterranean, I think this was my favorite breakfast so far.  I also tried another soured milk/yogurt drink called Kefir which had even more of a buttermilk flavor than Kiseli.  Marina told me that kulen comes from eastern Croatia, where they eat spicier and heavier food than they do in Zagreb.

Well, I supose that about wraps it up here.  Laku noć, everyone.

~ Fraise

Boy am I full!!

I just haven't been able to stop eating!  Between the different meal schedule culture here to trying new things to the different and heavier food we've been eating, I find I'm almost always full, almost to bursting.  I know that doesn't bode well for my girlish figure, but I'll have you know that I am exercising too.  Hopefully they will balance each other soon.  I tried to wake up at 4:30 this morning and almost did (next time I'm just going to get up even if it is just twenty minutes before my alarm goes off) but ended turning off the alarm and sleeping for another three and a half hours.  I still did the aerobic exercises I've been doing in the States, I also went for a walk this morning with my friend, Marina, and her daughter, and then later went for a walk around downtown Zagreb.  It's a really neat old city.  According to Marina, I didn't even get to the beautiful, old portion yet.

They eat breakfast (we ate ours a little late) of dried meats cheese and bread.  Then we ate lunch around noon and had burek sir a kind of fresh cow's cheese baked in a philo dough crust.  Very tasty.  Along with some more dried meat, cheeses, pickles, a red minced sauce of sorts called ajvar and a kind of sauerkraut called zelje kiseli that you put pumpkin seed oil on, and of course bread.  Then a snack of home-made cookies with jam in them and chocolate milk, with a nice guest named Radmila.  Then on my downtown walk I tried some bread with chocolate in the middle, another kind of burek sir (this time with bits of pumpkin in it) and a yummy drink of soured milk that tastes like buttermilk.  Then Marina wanted to stop at a cake and ice cream store called Vincek whose specialties include a chestnut ice cream and chestnut paste eaten with a dollop whipped cream (they even taste good when all mixed together).

Finally after coming home and falling asleep at the computer desk in my room, we ate a more German style dinner of sausage with mashed potatoes, cooked cabbage with beans and some mustard,  horse radish and really tasty mayo...and of course bread.  Needless to say, I don't think I can eat another thing.  Especially since my stomach has gotten used to smaller portions and sparsely spaced meals, over the last two or three months.

However, as overloading as my food intake may sound, I was able to squeeze in some fun sight seeing and photo opportunities.  On my walk this morning, my friend showed me an old military base turned University, that was in used during the Yugoslavian occupation originally built for WWII.

 Most of the larger buildings are slowly being converted, but there are several smaller buildings that lie dormant, and are, in most cases, in disrepair.  There was even an old bunker and random street lamp we saw all over grown in the more wooded area that Marina tells me was used for training at one point.

Downtown, I was able to see the beginnings of Christmas decorations being hung and other traditional businesses that spring up around the Christmas season. We went to the post office so I could look at stamps and even went into the big cathedral in the center of town.  I was very impressed here.  In contrast with many of the cathedrals I saw in France; this one was clean, dust free and inside, everyone was very reverent.  Marina said, that because since religion generally plays a bigger role in peoples lives here, more donations are made and better care is taken of the church as a consequence.

I had fun with my Croatian lessons today.  I looked up the word for "name," and while Radmila was here, seemed to delight everyone with asking the names for everything on the table.  That and trying to say thank you and "tastes good," for the food we were eating, in Croatian.

I was also able find a unique connection with Zdenko, Marina's father, in talking to him about the apples on the table that came from his garden and house in the country, then sharing about my own horticultural adventures of this last summer.  He had a good time going through the flash cards I had made and helping me to try to master the Croatian alphabet.  My friend's Teta (aunt) Ana is convinced that I'll forget how to speak English by the end of two weeks.  Overall,  I'd say it been a filling but wonderful day.

~ Fraise

Coming to you barely alive........

That's right folks, I said barely alive, as you would be too after  spending about a day and a half in airports or on planes.  I'm so glad to be on solid ground, even if it started raining just before I touched down here in Zagreb, Croatia.

So how did I get here, you ask?  Well, a good friend of mine happens to be from this delightful country and needed help kid wrangling.  Long story short I got the job, so here I am. ☺

I started out in the good old Salt Lake airport, from there stopped in Minnesota for a three hour layover, then a 8-9 plane flight to a thankfully almost empty flight to Charles de Gaul in Paris.  From there thanks to my excellent french and a few wrong directions from the crew at the Air France desk (I think she was just having a bad day), for another hour and a half layover.  This gratefully, allowed me to sample a bit of heaven on earth, (French yogurt is to die for!!!).  Then lastly onto a noisy puddle jumper with BritAir along with about half the plane full of silly southern french men out on holiday to go game hunting in Croatia, all of which with the sense of humor of a 14-year-old boy. ^^0  True men always do as my husband likes to say.

So here I am in the lovely home of my dear friend's parents, about to bed down for the night at what is here 8:30 pm or 20:30 for you die-hard euro-standard people, like myself.  I can't wait to see what happens next on this exciting two week saga in in the old Austro-Hungarian empire (aside from this rearranged keyboard, that is). 

Wishing you laku noć, and slatki snovi.

~ Fraise

Yes, I'm still alive

so yeah.....
I know, I know.  I'm falling back into my old habits.   But it's my birthday today, so you can forgive me right?

I've been busy too.  We had to move locations at my job and I'm getting ready to go out of the country for two weeks on the 16th.  I've also been busy with some projects, which are here for your viewing pleasure:

I've made this hat pattern several times and it has always turned out really cute.  This time however I decided to use my baby yarn and add a Scandinavian snow flake design.  I know it's hard to see since the pink doesn't exactly stand out against the white but it was my first time ever doing a fair isle style knit pattern.  I'm really pleased with how it turned out.  I only wished I had done one more row of cables as the hat is a little shallow.

A bracelet that I crocheted using a baby headband pattern that my boss had me try out with some yarn she had to see if she had the right gauge yarn.  (She didn't).  However, I loved the pattern and decided to see what it looked like using a gold pearl cotton I have that has metallic gold fibers wrapped around it.  I love this one especially since when you hold it in the sun it actually looks like crocheted gold.

This one is a hat I made for a gift.  It's the same hat pattern I've always used except I added a colored sripe and used some pretty shiny ribbon to knit some of the rows.  I think it really turned out nice, as it was hard to come up with a fun thing to do with brown neutrals.

This is a type of scarf that you knit on circular needles that connects and forms a pseudo turtle neck that you can wear scrunched up or up over your nose.  I tried a pattern with a new stitch called he feather and fan, that results in this sort of wavy look.  I had knitted several rows and couldn't figure out why it kept decreasing.  I looked up a yarn over and lo and behold I was doing it all wrong and had to start over again.  I had fun working in a bouclé yarn to make subtle stripes.

I finished the crocheted embroidery floss yarn scarf and thought you's like to see it on.  Over all it went really fast and I like the way it looks much better than before I re-did it.

These last two are head bands that I did using store bought elastic head bands from the dollar store and adding crocheted flowers leaves beads and buttons.

Overall I feel like I've been very creative and that I have learned a ton.  Now if I can only get caught up with Christmas presents. ^^0