Day 76

Today I got up with a bird song near my window. So great! And I spent all the morning finding some ways how to solve my passport problem. As I got to know, my passport is valid only till 1st of July, because I have the old version - not biometric passport with no scanned but glued picture. As there is no embassy in Croatia, only a consul, who can't do anything, I have two ways - to go to Latvian Embassy in Prague or go back to Latvia. And guess what - to go to Prague by plane from Zagreb costs almost more than to go from Zagreb to Riga through Prague. I think it's quite ridiculous. But it's probably policy of avio companies. Anyway - it seems that I'm going home at 15th of June!

On Saturday I went to Zagreb to accompany my boyfriend to his way back home. 4 hours to Zagreb and 4 hours back - after that I felt like a piece of rabenshaisse :D Moreover - about two hours from Osijek on the way back home I felt that my throat is soar. And now I have pretty nasty cold. Spent all the day yesterday on rehabilitation - ate lot of oranges, grapefruits with honey, drank hot blackberry juice with honey and lemons and lots of herbal tea. Maybe it's better, maybe not, I'm not sure. But sun is shining and birds are singing, so - who cares! :)

Day 73

It's so great and sunny day today! I was putting out the laundry to dry today and it was so nice and warm and quite that I felt like in one of those beautiful holidayish summer days, when you feel so much in harmony with nature, weather and yourself.

Yesterday we went to see opening of International Theater festival (forgive me if I'm wrong with the name) were one of our friends - Mrki, is taking part. That was very interesting performance, and although everything was in Croatian, I understood a lot. Make-ups of the actors where really great and I really loved the part where they were going to public and 'mirroring' them. And of course the wine was very nice :)

Magdalena and Federika is having some problems about travelling to training in Macedonia. One more reason why I'm happy that I am not going there. I have planned to do so many things next week! Starting of course with my sexual education project which I have to write and then I'm planning to start some Latvian language lessons for those who are interested within next week. That's gonna be fun! :)

Day 71

I'm back from Denmark! And luckily will be here for some while - till April 14th when we are going to Serbia for the training. Of course, traveling and taking part in different things in different countries is great, but it's also very demanding. In Denmark for a while I felt like - ok, one more strange country, ok, people talk in strange language again, so - nothing has changed! But actually it was quite nice experience - helped me realize once and again that expectations and stereotypes about countries can be wrong. All in all I did lot of things - did some sightseeing, visited Odense and H.C.Andersen museum, participated in some workshops with watercolors, visited Copenhagen, realized that I don't like their habit about eating only sandwiches for lunch, but I like their habit of not putting curtains to their windows, so I could realize my staring-in-other-people-windows mania and lot of other things. And in Copenhagen we found Croatian Embassy, but didn't found Little Mermaid. An I didn't like the Castle. I prefer that one in Vienna then. And of course, it was snowing there.

And we also had lot of adventures on the way home, because I had to meet my boyfriend in Zagreb airport, but his plane had problems, so he had to return to Riga and he had to go to Minchen instaed of Prague. But finally he got to Zagreb. But then we were late for one train, another train was full, so we had to wait for some more ours till another train. And we had to change trains after three hours to get in one which goes to Osijek. And we almost got out in wrong stop! So it was fun!

Magdalena and Federica where away for Easter - Federica went back to Italy and Magdalena went to Serbia, Novi Sad, to visit Nuno. So we had very quite Easter. Especially because the weather was horrible and we had to stay home all the time. But it wasn't bad for the change. Maybe I'm getting old :)

But now it's time to get back to work! I have written down so many things that I have to do... Uuuuh, it's a challenge! :)

Day 58

Tomorrow morning we went to the train station to by Federica ticket - she is going home to Italy for Easter, and a bus ticket to Zagreb for me, because I'm taking some days off and on Saturday going to Copenhagen. And then I'm coming back for Easter together with my boyfriend.

Today we had a 'meeting' for three of us to decide who is not going to Macedonia, because only two of us can go. As there are really lot of things which I want to do, I voluntary gave up and said that I'm not going :) It will be interesting to be alone for a while :)

Got some rain today and feel little cold now, although sun is shining again. And there's that strange feeling in my head which not allows me think normally. And Doctor Hauss affects me too much, letting to think that something definetely is wrong with my head.

See you later, aligator! :)

Day 57

Today after a long break we went to the swimming pool again. The way seemed never ending, but good thing that there was spring all around. Green and blooming trees, green grass and flowers - that's like a blessing for my northern soul.

I worked on my application to training in Albania today. It seems that April is going to be a very, very busy month! If everything goes right, we are going to go to three trainings - one in Macedonia, one in Serbia, and one in Albania. This is really great opportunity, but it also will be quite hard, especially two trainings in Serbia and Albania where we will have only one day in between. I also have lots of plans what I would like to do here in the Youth Centre, for example to do some workshops about communication and public relations, and of course, to work on my sexual education project. Really good time planing will be needed! :)

Today we had a great Croatian language lesson with Luka. Me and Federica are planning to go to hairdresser here in Osijek and we wanted Luka to help us to get to know how much is it and so on. Of course, we had to do by ourselves in Croatian, and that was really funny. We were standing outside the hairdresser salon and begging Luka to ask it for us until the lady came out and asked us what would we like to know. And Federica was really great with her Croatian, I wouldn't do so well. So it seems that Friday will be the day when I'll get my haircut a la osječko. :D

After that we went to theater cafe - as Luka said, the most civilised place in the city. It was really nice! With chandeliers, high ceilings and big windows. Topla čokolada was really good there. And we did some grammar of course. For me it's really hard to learn grammar with all those laws and schemes, I have to do something practical, so I'm going to do some translation. And I'm planning to watch news every day, to improve my language skills.

Day 55

Ok, we're back from Sarajevo. Nice city is Sarajevo, and I definately have to go back there in the summer. Because this time snow caught us and it was really not the best weather and not the most appropriate clothes for walking around the city. Although we didn't have a lot of chance for it - on-arrival training took all our time, although we had one free afternoon.

What can I say about on-arrival training? Great hotel (huge bed and bathroom like a spaceship!), great food (possibility to choose between traditional Bosnian and something I usually eat in Latvia) and nice people (EVS volunteers from more than 12 countries. But me - only one from Latvia and even Baltic see region, except maybe Polish guys). I'm really eager to visit some of them, for example Nuno and Federico who are our closest neighbours in Novi Sad, Serbia. And it was really great to meet Jelena again! (We met her in Contact Making Seminar and in Sarajevo she made us a great guide tour. My favorite place - bar 'Hemingway', were we could feel like Very Important Persons thanks to Jelena :)

And of course, there were a lot of evaluation. We had to evaluate everything regarding our EVS aims, expectations, fears, and so on and so on. As we're doing evaluation also here in CnC all the time, it sometimes felt too much. But now I'm really sure what was my purposes for coming here to do the EVS. And I don't think that I'll ever forget it. :) However there were some really nice activities like playing Dardanians (or something like that) to raise our awareness about potential intercultural conflicts, or screaming to each other and hugging each other in order to learn how to deal with emotions. All in all it was a very nice training and great experience.

Anyway one of the best things was coming back to Osijek, which felt almost like coming back home. Of course, there were also some problems waiting for us like peč in Federica's room which broke down two times that day few minutes after it was fixed. Luckily heater in my room works very good (tfu, tfu, tfu, three times I spit over my shoulder) and the nice weather is coming back slowly, although it's quite cold during nights.

What else - for me as a person who has studied PR it always has been interesting to hear people opinions about my public image. Today I discovered some interesting things about myself like: she says too much 'maybe' and she's too silent. What to do - I have always said that I don't like to make decisions and - when everybody's talking, you need somebody who listens, don't you? You can never be perfect for all.

OK, I have to make a wish list what I want to be brought to me from Latvia for my boyfriend who's coming on 20th. That's gonna be fun! :)