Chronicles of an American in Croatia

Honestly, I like having lunch as the main meal, to...

2009-05-18T16:36:00.001+02:00

Honestly, I like having lunch as the main meal, too. I do, now, anyway. But coming from the US - where nighttime is the time to chow-down, it was a difficult adjustment. For the longest time, I felt like I was gorging myself in the middle of the day because I just wasn't used to it. What part of Germany is your mother from?

that's great that you get to introduce foods to th...

2009-05-14T15:35:00.001+02:00

that's great that you get to introduce foods to them as well as enjoy their typical foods. the food does sound very German-like. My mother is from Germany and we visit relatives there. I like the idea of having dinner for lunch and a light snack at dinner time. Makes more sense to me!

I have been making my husband laugh and smile by r...

2009-05-12T01:19:00.001+02:00

I have been making my husband laugh and smile by reading your blog. His family is from Opatija and we have close friends from Omis. We have often talked about being expats and living over there. Thank you for stories that bring back many fond memories for him!

The accounts of corruption are far more within the...

2009-05-09T18:26:00.001+02:00

The accounts of corruption are far more within the United States then in Croatia. You talk about corruption on the lower level here in Croatia through small business and day to day transactions. You don’t see this in America due to the fact that there are no small businesses really left in America. Most have been wiped out by large corporations that are the exact definition of corruption. They outsource work from other countries and pay the workers almost nothing, then they jack up there prices all over the nation and you have no choice but to pay that. For example Starbucks, Target, Nike, all supermarkets, home depot, they all use minimal cost and raise prices and put so many local places out of business.
You talk about how Croatians charge tourist more then locals, how is that a problem? Everything within Croatia relies on its summer season therefore prices are jacked up then when tourists come. People who live in this town will most likely stop shopping at local places if they are price gauged and go to larger supermarkets, so in order to keep local customers why not charge less. This will keep there revenue for the summer and winter going. If they didn't do this it would put them at risk during the winter seasons.
America hides its corruption well. But you honestly don’t think that the American government is far more corrupt then the small nation of Croatia. Granted there are major issue's within Croatia but there are many more within the United States of America.
Plus Americans as a whole don’t see the corruption. The nation is taught from an early age that most things they do is “to preserve the American way” or “anti-terrorist” or just “the right thing to do”.

You are correct, corruption is more widely accepte...

2009-04-28T18:05:00.001+02:00

You are correct, corruption is more widely accepted in Croatia and for the past few years there has been some modest effort to reduce it. However, don't for a moment think corruption is any less spread here in the US. The only way to move up in government is by scratching other peoples backs, who will then scratch yours in return...

On the grill, yup. Since it's just three of us thi...

2009-04-10T07:35:00.001+02:00

On the grill, yup. Since it's just three of us this year, we're doing a hind quarter that we've reserved from the butcher.

Will you be roasting the lamb on the grill? Will ...

2009-04-08T16:31:00.001+02:00

Will you be roasting the lamb on the grill? Will it be like in the picture? Gosh that sounds good... Is it going to be a whole lamb? We'll be doing lamb too... We are going to pick up our lamb from Costco. Will you be picking out your lamb from a flock?

Yes, this whole Catholic thing means nothing to me...

2009-04-08T12:38:00.001+02:00

Yes, this whole Catholic thing means nothing to me. However I do see the dismay on folks' faces when they were asked why their children weren't religious. Their replies (mixed with embarrassment) were: "Should have brought them to church more often when they were young!"
No offense, I believe you are a Catholic yourself?
I'm just stating what I observed here. Easter has become a day of Eggs and Leeks. Not sure about the connection with Leeks. But last time I checked, the culture of giving away eggs on Easter was a leftover from Pagan tradition. That explains why Easter follows the Lunar calendar and celebrated during the Full Moon. Eggs simply means a celebration of fertility.
I "love" the reason for the new law concerning the shutting of shops on sundays. Yeah. People need to go to church more often. Hur???

Cooking by volume has never made much sense to me ...

2009-04-06T14:16:00.000+02:00

Cooking by volume has never made much sense to me either... Especially when it comes to baking breads/cake.

I don't know much about the sheparding business pe...

2009-04-04T15:19:00.001+02:00

I don't know much about the sheparding business per se but it seems to me that if shepards here are experiencing hard times it's because it's an industry - like others - in which they're just not competitive. Here in Zadar, for example, lamb from Bulgaria is half the price of our Paški lamb just down the road...And while they'll tell you that it's ˝najbolje na svitu,˝ it's not worth double the price in the marketplace no matter how good it is. It seems to me that if they would be a little more reasonable in their pricing of domaće products, the average Croatian would prefer to ˝Buy Croatian˝ but as it stands now, it just doesn't make sense to do so.

Hi!! When we were staying in a village outside of ...

2009-04-04T13:05:00.001+02:00

Hi!!
When we were staying in a village outside of Rijeka, the locals were very eager to go snail hunting. They sell each for about 20kn I think. Not bad for Escargots?
Heard it on the news sometime ago that no one wants to be a shepard anymore. It's a tough profession they said.(?!)

Heheheh... I share your sentiments on this!!! I co...

2009-03-31T20:18:00.001+02:00

Heheheh... I share your sentiments on this!!! I couldn't help rolling over with laughter when I see Cro English words.. Dres.. Trening, Tineđzer(?!), Skeniranje (this one reminds me of Sranje *pardon*).
What's the most absurd is waiting for Croatians who claim to be able to speak English trying to complete a sentence when conversing with me.. (you can hear the clock ticking in my head.. 1..2..3..). To them, it's an embarassment that a non-white person (me of course) can speak fluent English (duh.. what do they expect?? It's my First language??)!

So they point the finger back at me when I can't speak Croatian like they do (er.. excuse me I'm only here for like one year...?!). Absurd I tell you!

that's one of the joys of buying on Croatian mark...

2009-03-29T16:00:00.001+02:00

that's one of the joys of buying on Croatian markets :) just kidding!
thank you for visiting my blog!

True. The World Handball Championship that you're...

2009-03-28T13:09:00.000+01:00

True. The World Handball Championship that you're talking about was a big disappointment. It almost seemed like it caught Zadar by surprise - that there were going to be several thousands of tourists arriving in the city. Too bad. Definately an opportunity lost.

Peasent Economics indeed.

Everyone compla...

2009-03-20T11:32:00.000+01:00

Peasent Economics indeed.

Everyone complains about few tourists in the off-season, but they make no effort to attract them. Zadar had about 2,500-4,000 tourists for this in early February. What a glorious opportunity to show them that it's worth coming here in the off-season. Nope, minimal effort meant these Germans, Danes & Macedonians had to sit and stand outside in the rain while celebrating and preparing for games. No tents, no buses, no flags even, nothing. Instead of going back to Copenhagen/Frankfurt/Etc and telling their co-workers - Zadar was such a great place, let's do our company off-site there next year in February - good times at a reasonable price, these never to come back guests will say - don't bother wasting your time and money there.

However, our city fathers did a stellar job of organizing the Carnival for the locals two weeks later. Lots of advertising, a big tent, fun parties, etc.

So, it is not a question of money or know-how, but a question of effort and respect (or lack thereof) for the tourists which feed this town. Sad but true. The Croatian media wrote about these problems in Zadar, but most of the local media said - the tourists raved (about what - getting wet???) and those people that criticized the organization must be from elsewhere or hate Zadar. What a load of short-sighted and small-minded provincial BS.