September 25th: The Embassy Sent Me

Today (Tuesday) we had our orientation with our embassy staff and the staff of the Ministry of Technology, Education, and Sport and the Agency for Mobility and EU Programmes of Croatia. It was awesome ;-) It was a bit of a long morning but it was nice how they had so many of the embassy staff come and speak to us. I guess that is the perk of having a Fulbright fellowship. All of the grantees were in attendance including the two that are the English teachers in other cities. Right now there is a picture of us on the Zagreb embassy website, but I'm not sure long it will stay. We all went for dinner later in the day and it was a nice way to get started in the city. On Monday night, most of us met up and visited a few cafes in the center of town along with a Fulbright grantee from the last cycle that has been very helpful to me. It was nice to feel like I knew some people in the city and I look forward to getting to know them better (and I definitely stole Amy's picture from Facebook).

I also went to look at another apartment on Monday, this time in a somewhat famous socialist building, Vitićeva Zgrada. The apartment was big (two bedrooms) and the girl renting it was a German student. The apartment wasn't furnished but she had already provided some things. It was nice, but she also had 7 others were looking at it, and she appeared to be quite young. I was so desperate to get out of the dorm that I would have said yes if she offered right there, but I had to wait a few days to hear from her. I used the time to find an internet cafe and look up a bunch of other apartments to call on Tuesday. 

September 20: Minneapolis-Newark-Munich-Zagreb

Day one in Zagreb began around two in the afternoon after about 20 hours of airports and travel (Minneapolis-Newark-Munich-Zagreb). The trip itself wasn't bad. The Lufthansa Airbus A340 was a probably the most technologically advanced airplane I have traveled on thus far. I’m pretty sure I only thought this because my seat was next to a stairway that led below the passenger area to a pod like deck that housed 10 bathrooms and what appeared to be an apartment for the staff.  I saw a flight attendant punch a code in a box near the ceiling where a door slid open and I saw a massive space that looked like some type of lounge….I was impressed, until a stewardess reminded us that only 10 people can be in the space at once since that is how many oxygen masks are available in the event of crisis. Luckily, I wasn't alone on the flight. I had another Fulbrighter with me that is also from Minnesota, Amy, which definitely helped with the nerves. 

Anyway, the arrival in Zagreb was exciting and I was thankful for our host from the U.S. Embassy for the ride and the help getting situated in my room. It’s a student dorm and it is everything you would expect that to be and maybe a little bit less; however it is incredibly cheap and I only have to stay here for a few days…er weeks L…until I find my own apartment. After a brief nap I realized the room had no toilet paper. If I was like my dad always traveled with a roll, this would not have been a problem. Alas, I’m not and was pretty much screwed. Welcome to Zagreb. However if this was to be the worst of my problems, I  figured I would survive. So I had a quick shower and I was ready to start exploring:

Task #1 find TP

Task #2 food

Task #3 phone

Task  #4 find place to live and get out of dorm as quickly as possible.

Lucky for me I had a friend in Zagreb that met me at the dorm and showed me how things work in the city. People speak very fast, just like I speak English, so understanding the language wasn't very easy. In fact on this first day it seemed almost impossible, but I kept telling myself that I was tired and it was new, it was bound to get easier. After a quick bite to eat, I bought a sim card for my phone and officially had a Croatian number. Better yet, a data plan so I could chat with my people back home J. My friend also helped me by a tram card, so I was mobile Andrea with a spiffy mobile phone. I  had arranged to view an apartment that was rented by two girls near the faculty where I’ll be working so I went that way around 7pm. The apartment was very nice, not big but not small, very bright, a few balconies, and a big bathroom. It even had a dishwasher, something I've rarely had in my apartments in America. It has two large bedrooms and a walk in closet….or I should say the room they were trying to rent to me. It was tiny. I’m talking not even 1/3 the size of the other bedrooms. It is cheap, so that is good, but the rent for this place is to be split evenly between the three of us. I was thinking that pretty much sucked so instead of jumping on it like my need for getting settled in was telling me to do, I resigned myself to email over the weekend and bargain to pay half the rent they are asking.  If that works, I’m willing to live in a closet for the cheap rent and opportunity to live with locals in a good location. The rent would be less than he amount Comcast steals from me every month for cable and internet in Pittsburgh.

After viewing the apartment ("stan" in Croatian) and a quick stop at a shop (can’t forget that TP), I hopped on tram and rode half of the way home with my friend, half of the way all by myself. I managed to get back to my room without incidence and settled in for the night. Ripping the entire series of Friends to my computer proved to be excellent thinking since I have no internet in this room and basically nothing to do. Reflecting on my day, I realized I had accomplished 3 of my tasks and was thinking about the 4^th. While I would have preferred to have seen a decent room and said yes right away, my dreams of a quick departure from the dorm are on hold for a while. However, my stop at the store also included the purchase of some cookies and a few liters of Staropramen. I had a safe place to stay, TP, and some beer-all in all, not a bad first day in Croatia.