Croatia!!

Ok, so I may be a week late in posting about my weekend getaway to Croatia, but to be fair, a lot has happened since them. Let me explain.

Last Friday, Shelby, Danko, Jackie, Christina and I were supposed to be driving to Croatia. The car we were renting was going to be delivered to the school between 14:30 and 15:00. Well, at 14:00, Danko received a text message saying "I am sorry, I no longer have a car for you. The previous renter crashed it." How depressing! We all thought that our road trip was being cancelled. Not to be outsmarted by a car rental guy, however, Danko had other rent-a-car places bookmarked on his computer. We went to check them out and, twenty minutes later, had reserved another car. The only problem with this one was that we had to pick it up at the airport. No biggie. The girls were working for at least another half hour, so Danko and I figured we would trek down there ourselves, drive back to school with the car, pick up the girls and be on the road by 16:00 max. False.

The airport is three buses away. We got on and off the first one without a hitch. Same for the second one. The problems began when we got off the third bus. Thinking we had passed our stop from lack of attention, we ended up getting off the bus three stops early. Seeing as the next bus wasn't coming for another 25 minutes, we decided to just walk... how far could three stops really be? The answer, it turns out, is freakin' far. A forty-five minute walk brought us to the stop we were actually supposed to get off at. We continued walking, now looking for the rental place. There really wasn't anything in sight, so we stopped at a garage to ask for directions. We figured the guy in there must know where it was, since we were supposedly on the right street. Well, he did not know. He did, however, put me on the phone with someone who spoke English and could direct me. With our newfound directions, we headed back up the street. Well, the directions were wrong. We absolutely were not at the right place.

Finally, Danko decided to call the car rental place and just ask them. They said "Get back on the bus and go one stop." Back to the bus stop we went. We missed the bus by 3 minutes so, for just one stop, we decided to walk... again. We walked another 20 minutes to reach the next stop, which was in the middle of nowhere. As we were walking, Danko's phone rang. It was the car people, asking where we were. When he told them, they freaked out, saying that that was still the wrong stop and that they were actually in the airport! We were really starting to get annoyed now, but we hopped back on the bus and, this time, ended up at the right place. We got our car, picked up the girls, and were on the road to Croatia (through the back roads of Hungary and Slovenia) by 19:00. Only five hours behind schedule.

When we finally arrived in Varaždin it was midnight. We met Danko's grandmother and a few of his friends (all drunk - except Granny), then went straight to sleep. The next day, we went exploring. Varaždin is a pretty small town, but it's really cute (hence all the photos of random streets I put up on Facebook). We visited the castle, which used to have a moat (!), went to a couple little coffee shops, attempted to buy oranges at a market (without our trusty translator - Danko), and basically just wandered the streets for the entire day.



That night, we went out to celebrate Danko's birthday. Apparently, it is a Croatian tradition (or perhaps only amongst Danko and his friends...) to pre-drink in the park. And what is the drink of choice, you ask? Wine and coke, of course. It's awful. Anyway, we drank there for a while (watering the grass a few times, I must admit) then proceeded to hit up pretty much every bar in the city. We drank, we danced, we sang, and we finally got home at 5:00 in the morning. The next day, Granny made us lunch (yummy!!!), we packed up the car, and we headed back to Bratislava. Overall, you might think finding the car was the most exciting part of the weekend, but Croatia was exactly what we needed. A wonderful weekend relaxing with friends. We are all counting down the days until we can do it again!

On Monday, unfortunately, it was back to school time. I am really learning to dread Mondays here. It's like they're cursed... there's always something going wrong. On this specific Monday, the first grade teacher did not show up for work. Catherine, the vice-principal, asked me if I would cover her class for the day, since mine is basically the only class with two teachers in it. I did it. By the end of the day, it became apparent that the grade one teacher had quit and they needed to find a replacement. Who did they ask to cover until they can find someone? Me. DAMN! I do not know anything about grade one. Nor do I want to give up all my painting, colouring, and play-doh time! Right now, it looks like I will be there for at least another two weeks. Hopefully they will find someone soon... I am very afraid to screw these kids over and never teach them to read anything at all!!

Next weekend, Shelby, Danko, and I are going to Stockholm for the long weekend!! We are starting to get really excited about it, even though we really don't know anything about the place. Hopefully, by the time we get back, I will have loads of stories to tell about meatballs, IKEA, and awesome accents!

Dovidenia!!

Steph :)