Faruk is our landlord. He is not all we had hoped for. Apparently he is a high-powered war crimes judge and works in the Hague. He does not speak English and does not live in Croatia. This makes him rather inaccessible. Although several metric tons of his belongings are quite accessible, as they are being stored in our apartment. Charming. Most recently, his personal manservant (not a joke) dropped off some nice photographs of Faruk with the Croatian president. We have not hung them yet. He also dropped off an older dishwasher to replace our broken one. The installation of said appliance resulted in a flooded kitchen, the flooding of our downstairs neighbor’s apartment, and a visit from a plumber (who I am told was quite attractive with no visible crack due to functional coveralls…). We have never had a working dishwasher. Our window is broken, our shower is breaking, our washing machine was broken, our ceiling remains broken, and we still don’t have internet. Did I forget to mention that he conned us into paying 50 euros more per month than we originally agreed to? Oh, Faruk. Why, why, why…
*If you are John's mom or know John's mom, please don't read this next part.* The other night John almost got jumped. He crossed paths with a short gypsy and a tall, dumb fellow. His shifty adversaries tried talking to him in Croatian first, then they started to come at him, and proceeded to chase him. He ran for about 10 minutes or so before his own Croatian posse showed up in his defense. John should really get his own blog so he can tell the full story (it's pretty amazing). All in favor of this say ‘Aye’. At any rate, we are glad that he didn’t get knifed.
On Friday evening we all got together to celebrate Andy and Taylor’s birthdays. It was glorious- we played this awesome card game called Bang!, ate lots of spaghetti and homemade pie, and watched the Three Amigos. It was a good time (as it always is when Chevy Chase, Steve Martin, Martin Short, and Jon Lovitz are involved). Except the meat that we got from super-ghetto-local-grocery-store had chunks of mold-ish looking nastiness ground throughout all 2 kilos of it. Who doesn’t like vegetarian spaghetti sauce?
If you hadn’t noticed, I seem to be stomping around in the far reaches of the negative end of cultural adjustment this week. I miss Seattle tremendously. I keep lapsing into catatonic periods of recollection and fantasy about all of my favorite people, places, and things in the blessed Northwest. I am pretty sure I will snap out of it soon, but for those of you who are there, know that I miss you and am jealous. How I long for the overpriced, evilly-corporate godsend that is Starbucks. Though my real favorites are Caffe Ladro, Zoka, Victor’s, Solstice…maybe it wasn’t such a good idea to start listing them.
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Hey-- Krista's favorite drink is a Zoka mocha, and she can't even get that here in Portland. Right now Krista is complaining about the "little yucky spiders" that came with our Christmas tree. About three thousand of them jumped ship and spread around the house once we got home. In the meantime, just wanted to say that I am praying for you, and that if I were there I would have forced you all to watch either "The Three Amigos" or "George of the Jungle" as these are movies guaranteed to help during days where you hate any culture. I am sure that having Carolyn with you this week will be a blessing. Be sure to tell her that I said, "MOLTMAN!" It will provide you with some laughs, I promise.
By the way... I vote "aye" on Rozelle getting a blog.
Hey, this is Shana from Mars Hill. I don't know if you remember me. My friends are in Zagreb, Cakovec and Nedelisce! If you haven't hooked up with them and still want to let me know. I know they would love to meet you, and encourage you. They are Slovenijan and Croatian. You are in a wonderful place, and you can do this. God is with you. God is using you and yes, stretching you. But you will meet some amazing people there, and learn so much. I miss my friends there. I even miss seeing the gypsies. I miss the smell of smoke coming from peoples yards, and the hazy skies; I miss speaking the little Croatian I know and having someone understand me. ;) I miss grocery shopping there. Have you been in to Slovenija yet? Outside Llubljana (my second favorite city in the world) there are caverns you can take a little train ride through. Amazing. ...and if it's still there, in Ljubljana, a little cafe...Cafe Nostalgia. Please write me anytime if you want to. I wish I could visit you there. God bless you! Shana fireflygrace@hotmail.com
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