Party of Five

Over the last few days it’s been Sunny, her mom, her aunt, John and myself hanging out in Rijeka. They explored the city a bit, we watched Little Miss Sunshine, and generally had a pretty good time. They all left today though, John for Sarajevo [he just can’t stay away from that place!] and the rest for home. On Sunday we went to a free jazz concert at the Trsat castle, which was pretty awesome.

In Which Taylor Gives Us All A Lesson In Leaving Town With Style

Like I mentioned before, Taylor flew home last Friday. There is a shuttle bus that leaves Rijeka every morning at 5:00am that goes straight to the airport in Zagreb. This was perfect because it got her there 2 hours before her flight, and it meant that we didn’t have to risk driving our ever-deteriorating car all the way there and back.

The shuttle pick-up spot is about a 15-minute walk from our apartment, but with three large bags we figured it would be better to drive. So, around 4:30 I left to go get the car. As I pulled up in front of our apartment, Taylor leaned in the passenger side window and said, “We’re locked out.”

I was slightly annoyed as my plan to quickly go back to bed slipped away. But it was an honest mistake, our building’s front door locks automatically and we were running on less than 2 hours of sleep. So I replied, “Don’t worry about it, let’s just get your bags in the car and get you to the shuttle and John and I can figure it out later.”

“Well, our apartment door is wide open, and one of my bags is still up there.”

Things were getting more complicated. Taylor and John started ringing the buzzers for every apartment in the building as Taylor pleaded into the intercom, “Please….so soooo sorry….locked out….need to get to the airport…” Either nobody heard or nobody cared because we were getting no love from the neighbors. John tried going around the back to our balcony but both of those doors were locked, too.

It was time to kick it up a notch and call our landlady, Branka. After waking her up and explaining the situation a few times, Taylor convinced her to call some neighbors. No answer. We decided to leave and make sure Taylor at least got on her flight and we would just deal with the luggage later, but we left John to keep trying the door.

Zoran met us at the station to say goodbye to Taylor, and after loading the bags she did have we had about 5 minutes to spare. Right about then, John called, “I broke in – come get me!”
I immediately jumped back in the Tiger Tank and headed back while Taylor and Zoran tried to stall the driver. Thankfully there was almost no traffic, because I was careening around corners and running red lights action-spy-thriller style. I saw John running up the street with a suitcase in tow and paused just long enough for him to jump in. We got there just in time and Tay was on her way, miraculously without any missing components.

John, Zoran and I needed to unwind a little so we went to the all-night café by the bus station for some tea and cocoa before getting some more sleep. John thought he had damaged the lock, but after further inspection we messed with it a little and got it working again.

The funniest thing about all of this was just how typical it felt. That’s just the way we roll, I guess. ☺

The Darjeeling Limited

From the fine people who brought you Bottle Rocket, Rushmore, The Royal Tenenbaums, and The Life Aquatic with Steve Zissou, Wes Anderson's 'The Darjeeling Limited' is scheduled to arrive in select theaters on September 29th.

And I can guarantee that my brother and I will do everything in our power to get ourselves to one of those theaters to see it.

Current Status

John is back here in Rijeka, Allison is at home preparing to return in September, Sunny is traveling with her aunt and mother and will fly home next week, Taylor went home today, and Andy is at home in Oregon. Just so you know.

Logging Back In...

Some of you might have noticed that over the past 2 to 8 months, my posting frequency has dropped severely. The thing is, we’ve been such busy little bees over here in Tiger-Pirate Land that there just hasn’t been much time for blogging. Also, we’ve been gone a lot lately. In fact, out of the past 41 days, I’ve only been home for 10!

As it now stands, I have just a little over 2 weeks before my adventures in Croatia come to an end. So. Here’s the plan: in between packing and saying my goodbyes and getting tangled in red tape at MUP (the police/department of internal affairs) and cleaning the apartment and slacking off and watching movies and lounging by the sea, I will do my best to do some catching up and sharing of photos, anecdotes, deep thoughts, etc. for you to enjoy/endure at your leisure. Cheers!

Overheard

"The problem with learning English from role playing games is that I know what chain mail, banded mail, plated mail, king's mail, and scale mail are, but I don't know what a nozzle is..."

Adventures in Korea

“South Korea?!” you ask. Yep, that’s where we were. CM2007 was a global missions conference 4 years in the making, hosted by South Koreans. They generously provided all in-country transportation, housing, and food for everyone who came – no small feat! There were about 9,000 Koreans and about 7,000 international attendees (mainly student leaders and CCC staff) from over 120 countries around the world.

We brought 5 students from Rijeka, and it was quite a week. Cross cultural experiences abounded as we made many new friends, ate loads of kimchi and rice, got soaked by the monsoon season rain, explored the open markets, tried to decipher the intense recycling protocol, crammed into the subway morning and evening, and attempted (poorly) to master a few basic language points – ‘hello,’ ‘thank you’… yeah, just those two I guess.

The conference was held in Busan, at the Busan Exposition & Conference Center (BEXCO). I very much enjoyed this description I found on the BEXCO website: BEXCO is a high-tech structure designed after a sea gull soaring to the Pacific Ocean, combined with a cruise ship.

The week as a whole was probably best documented by Matt here. Whatever you do, don’t miss the CM 2007 dance break footage…

Sentimentality

We had our end of the year party tonight, and John came back to join us! He's still not quite allowed to stay in Croatia, so we are headed to Slovenia tomorrow morning to spend a few days debriefing as a team. Then we'll be back in Rijeka for less than 24 hours before driving to Zagreb to catch our flight to South Korea for CM2007. More on that later...

While you wait, though, this is the slideshow we watched tonight:

Just Another Ordinary Day

Events of today:

~Three failed garbage bags: all in a row! Explosions of fermented Mexican food from the fiesta on Wednesday- one in our apartment, two in the entryway. I think it was a faulty batch of bags.

~Two soon-to-be-priests stopped by unexpectedly during our morning team prayer meeting. Here's how it went down:

Downstairs buzzer rings. [This was the 4th ring of the morning.]

Taylor answers.

Taylor says, "It's Tomislav and Dario - the PRIESTS. They're coming up!"

Sunny, Allison, and I (pajama-clad) fly into our rooms and throw on clothes as if our lives depend on it.

I skid into the kitchen just as they walk in the door, Al and Sunny follow soon after.

They are here to drop off some gifts for summer projecters and us (so nice) and we make awkward small talk for 10 or 15 minutes. We sense that they really want us to invite them to stay and pray with us, they sense that we just got dressed and aren't really ready for company. They leave.

~One spontaneous combustion. Yes, that's right. Less than an hour ago, Sunny's computer burst into flame for no apparent reason.


Thank you for reading, ladies and gentlemen. This is our life.