Idemo na kavu?

Lately I have been struggling with nostalgia. Nostalgia – a sentimental yearning for the happiness of a former place or time. It’s not that I don’t like it here in Graz because I really do. I met amazing people who became my great friends; I discovered new cultures and tried out new things. I have grown so much in these past 4 months. I changed, in my opinion, for the good. Moving here gave me a chance to make a fresh start, in a place where no one knows me. Being able to do this is a wonderful gift and I think that I used it perfectly. Like I said, life here is great but there are times when I really miss my family and friends. Not necessarily the big things like living at home but more the small ones like my mom fixing up lunch for me or doing my laundry or my dad yelling from the living room for me to get up because I will be late again. Maybe, most of all I miss someone, anyone, calling and saying „Bok Anita. Idemo na kavu? “

Say what? I can imagine your faces now while trying to read the last sentence and thinking to yourself „What the heck does this mean? “. Well, it’s simple „Idemo na kavu“ is a way of lifestyle in Zagreb and Croatia. We just LOVE, I mean really, really, really LOVE coffee. It’s part of our culture and our daily routine, basically of who we are. According to a 2009 survey we annually drink 5 kg of coffee per person, that’s 22,500 tons of coffee per year, and we spend 2.25 million hours having coffee each year, that’s half an hour a day per person.  Coffee is such an important part of our lives and that’s why I want to try to bring our coffee culture closer to you and maybe help you understand why I miss it so badly.

In Croatia the café mentality is more than just a cup of coffee, it’s a philosophy. To us, coffee is more than just coffee. We see coffee as glue for making new relationships, keeping old ones, and making jobs done. On simple coffee meetings people can even be hired or fired. Having coffee in Croatia is very different than in the rest of the world because, as you might have guessed, coffee in Croatia is a social function. In a lot of other European countries coffee just serves as boosts to work harder, something like fuel for the body.

In a typical café in Croatia almost all tables are occupied by more than one person. Why? Because people are actually talking to each other while having coffee. Not just sitting and playing with their smart phones, iPad’s, laptops or any other modern gadget, but conversing, hanging with friends. In many European countries, or even in the USA, coffee houses are places where people bring in their laptops or iPad’s and WORK. For them it’s just a place where they are pouring liters of coffee into their bodies in order to be able to work on their projects or whatever. Like what the heck? Croatians would be recoiling in horror if they would see a scenario like this in their cafe around the block. Thinking, you don’t go have a coffee to work! You go to talk, meet, relax a little and enjoy the company of your friend. You simply don’t go to coffee houses to work on your projects or study for your final exams. Here, in Croatia, that’s what libraries are for, duh!? Another thing that sometimes seems shocking to us is coffee to go. You won’t find a lot of places that offer that here.  Putting lids on our coffee so we can go back to work, walk or jog while drinking our coffee, seems like a sin to us. Dude, take your time, sit down and have a cup of coffee. It can’t be that hard! We accept coffee to go only in extreme situations like when you really have an important meeting or exam and haven’t slept the whole night and don’t have time to sit down, but only then.

Oh, another important info about our coffee is that we don’t have varying sizes of it. You can either have a big one or a small one. The small one is approximately 354 ml and the big one 473 ml. This is for us perfectly normal. We will rather go and drink a small coffee twice a day than take a huge one. I love Starbucks; I have this routine to visit Starbucks every time I visit a new city since we don’t have it in Zagreb. But sometimes the coffee sizes they offer are just ridiculous (354 ml, 473 ml, .59 , and .91 liters). What am i supposed to do with one litter of coffee, sip on it the whole day!? That’s just not cool. We don’t do that.

When I moved here, I met in my dorm this great girl. Her name is Victoria and she is from Klagenfurt, Austria. She is such a sweet girl. I am really happy I met such a wonderful person. So one day she comes to my room and asks if I have time for coffee. At first I didn’t know what to say, I was shocked. An Austrian wants to go for a cup of coffee, like real coffee not coffee to go!? I was so excited that I immediately said yes. The real shock was yet to come. We sat down in a cafe in Zinzendorfgasse called „The living room“. Everything seemed perfect; I am with a great friend in a cozy café getting ready to drink coffee, almost like home. She drank her coffee in 15 minutes while I still had a full cup. I was looking at her like she way crazy and she was looking at me like I was crazy. Cultures clashed. I always knew that Austrians are different when it comes to drinking coffee but I maybe thought that she was not like all the other Austrians. I was wrong. Now I am teaching her how to be a real Croatian coffee drinker, after all she is coming to visit me in February; she needs to fit in ;)

To some people our cup maybe appears small but I should tell you that our cup actually has more coffee in it then it appears. Not really, it has a very, very small amount of coffee in it, but in our hands its magic. Nearly endless. We make coffee meeting last for two, maybe even, three hours. THAT’S HOW LONG WE HAVE COFFEE! Two hours are a minimum whereas here half an hour is the maximum. See the difference? You will never ever see a real Croatian sip his coffee in 5 minutes and if by chance you see one then he isn’t a real Croatian! Remember having coffee is not actually about the coffee it’s about the socializing.

Another thing that sets us apart from other coffee drinking countries is that here coffee and cigarettes go together, like in the States peanut butter and jelly goes together. It is normal to see people smoking while having their coffee; even non-smokers tend to light up a cigarette from time to time. But lately this is changing too (us, non-smokers are indeed very happy about it). Since Croatia is joining the European Union, in half a year, laws are changing. Now in almost every coffee house there is a separate room for smokers and the rest of us can freely enjoy our coffee without breathing in the toxic air.

Having coffee in Croatia is one of those things that sets the country apart from everywhere else I’ve been. It’s also one of the most enjoyable aspects of living here. Not just having coffee yourself, but seeing people having coffee is even a pleasure. In summer people are sitting on the numerous terraces that are to be found everywhere around the city, with their sun glasses on, enjoying their coffee with friends. Or in winter while sitting out, covered with blankets and warmed by electric heaters.

As you can see coffee is a big deal around here. It’s a must, it’s not like you have a choice whether to go for a cup of coffee or not. Croatians will always find time for a cup of kava with friends and if by some means you try to reject their offer to join them they might end up being insulted. We love coffee so much that even when you are invited to someone’s house for dinner you bring coffee. It’s tradition!

Now, as I am reading on Facebook that my best friends are meeting for a cup of coffee to celebrate their passed exams homesickness kicks in even more. I can’t wait until finally a friend calls me and says: „Idemo na kavu?“ and I answer like it was the greatest thing in the world „Da!“. :)

"Do small things with great love" :D

XOXO A.

Christmas in Croatia! :D

I am bad, really bad. I know. I am actually full of ideas for blogging but am just too lazy to really get to it. This year I will change though, I will do more blogging (hopefully I will be able to stick to my decision)! Now let’s get back to business!

First let me show you two pictures to describe the following post and how I feel:

Now you see why I wasn’t able to blog during the holidays, I was just too busy with eating and drinking. I am feeling the consequences now, though. :/

Christmas is my favorite part of the year. Being born on Christmas Eve, the 24th December makes it even more special. I am always so excited about putting up the lights, decorating the tree, baking cookies and everything else that comes together in a package with Christmas. Needless to say that Christmas shopping is my favorite activity. I always take my time and think carefully about what to buy for the special people in my life. The smile on my family and friends face when they unwrap the presents I got for them is just priceless. I especially love white Christmas; unfortunately this didn’t happen this year.

Christmas is not being celebrated in every country in the same way, that’s why I would like to share some Christmas traditions that we have in Croatia. We have always valued the Christmas season, and we developed a large number of customs and traditions related to the holiday. Some are similar to other countries while some are just not.

On December 13, when Roman Catholics (Croatians are largely Catholic) celebrate the feast day of St. Lucia we take small kitchen bowls and fill them with earth and plant a fist full of wheat seeds inside, which is left to grow until Christmas. We call it “pšenica”.  It is usually put under the Christmas tree, where it serves as a decoration. The wheat symbolizes “the new bread,” which Catholics link to the sacrament of the Eucharist. It is believed that the length of the wheat increases success and luck in the upcoming year. So better take care of that wheat if you want to have a good year  Once the season ends, you are supposed to give the wheat to the birds – you should not throw it in trash or anything of the like; or you could eat it yourself. My grandma always cuts it and puts it in her salad, don’t ask me how it tastes because I don’t know, I never gave it a try.

Another plant that is found in almost every Croatian home during Christmas is “Božična zvijezda” or better knownas Poinsettia in the English speaking world. It comes either in red or white with glitter on the leaves.

In Croatia, traditionally the tree is put up on Christmas Eve and decorated by children in the evening. All kinds of decorations are being put on the tree, from lights to ornaments.  Under the tree we put figurines of Jesus, Mary, Joseph, shepherds with their herds and the 3 kings.

On Christmas Eve we fast. Traditionally on that day “bakalar” (codfish) is being prepared but other sorts of fish, octopus, shrimp or squid are also being prepared.

At midnight, a lot of families go to church where a service is being held by a priest. That midnight service is called “polnoćka”.

Presents are being unwrapped either after midnight on Christmas Eve by bigger children or on Christmas morning by the little ones. The little kids are being told that Santa Claus brought the present while they were asleep by entering through the chimney with the help of his elfs and reindeers. The bigger ones know that mom and dad bought them.

On Christmas day we eat, we just eat the whole day. It is simply crazy how much one is able to eat on that day. Every family has turkey and mlinci on their table (mlinci=Croatian home-made pasta -> tastes delicious), French salad (some call it Russian, it is made of pickles, carrots, potatoes, peas, eggs and mayonnaise -> tastes delicious as well), simple bean salad, bread, soup and wine, a lot of wine. After the meal the desserts find its way onto the table. Various sorts of cookies, tarts and cakes are being served. A typical Croatian dessert is “makovnjača” or “orehnjača”. Makovnjača is just like the polish poppy cake, whereas orehnjača is the same thing only made with nuts instead of poppy seads. While talking about cookies and tarts I have to mention my grandmother that made 15 sorts of them this Christmas. Needless to say that they were all very yummy and “helped” me gain a few extra pounds. I literally ate them for breakfast, lunch and dinner!

The Christmas season ends on January 6, when we celebrate the Epiphany (the feast day of the three kings visiting Jesus). We take down the tree and decorations and start going on a diet ;)

I could go on about Christmas traditions in Croatia but that would never end. That’s why I am leaving you with pictures of Zagreb during Christmas time and a little dictionary J

Merry Christmas-Sretan Božić

Chrismas Eve-Badnjak

Christmas tree-Božićno drvce

Presents-Pokloni

Decorations-Ukrasi

Lights-Lampice

Cookies-Kolači

Figurines of baby Jesus, Mary, Joseph, shepherds and 3 kings-Jaslice

Santa Claus-Djed Božićnjak

Raindeers-Jeleni

Snow-Snijeg

“Christmas is doing a little something extra for someone.”  Charles M. Schulz

XOXO A.

America’s choice

Today is D-Day for America, it is Election Day! Today, millions of American citizen get to vote, either for Mitt Romney or for Barack Obama. They are choosing the future direction of their country.

Even though I am really interested in politics, it was not my intention to blog about this year’s election. I saw that a lot of my colleagues blogged about it so I didn’t want to bore you out of your mind with it too. But while browsing through the www.nytimes.com I came across a great article and felt the need to share my view on the election with you, the world.

The article was written by Joseph E. Stiglitz. Joseph Stiglitz, a winner of the Nobel Prize in Economics and a former chief economist of the World Bank, is University Professor at Columbia University. I am going to relate to his article in this post but won’t stick to everything he said so if you are interested in the whole article check it out:http://campaignstops.blogs.nytimes.com/2012/10/26/stiglitz-some-are-more-unequal-than-others/

Let me start with a quote from Mr. Stiglitz that probably describes this election the best: “This election has rightly been characterized as one that will deeply affect the future direction of the country: Americans are being given a choice with potentially large consequences. One arena in which there are profound differences that has not been adequately debated is the future course of inequality.”  

Inequality has grown into a really big problem the USA has to deal with. Don’t get me wrong, inequality can be found everywhere around the world but lately it is maybe best shown in America due to the election and Mitt Romney, the republican candidate.

Mitt Romney and Paul Ryan (his candidate for vice president) were very explicit when it comes to inequality, in their opinion it should be talked about only behind closed doors. In the public they are trying to portray themselves as compassionate conservatives, a duo that cares for the well-being of every single citizen in their country when in reality it could not be further from the truth. What they want to do is maybe best shown in Ryan’s budget numbers. His budget proposal cuts down the programs that serve those at the bottom and enriches those at the top. Basically, the poor will become poorer and the rich richer. Another example of how Romney & Ryan are “promoting” inequality is the health care program and education. Every advanced European country has recognized the right of everyone to access health care and that was also central to President Obama’s health care reform. Instead of supporting the health care system, from which millions of Americans will benefit, Romney & Ryan criticized it without presenting the public their idea of how the health care system should look like. What we can read between the lines is that, in their opinion, health care should only be for the rich ones, just like college. I don’t even want to start with Romney’s speech where he said that those who don’t have enough money shouldn’t go to college that college should only be for the rich Americans. Does this guy know what that would mean for the American economy and its people?

Over time America has become the country with the least equality of opportunity. What happened to the American dream?  The top 1% takes in about a fifth of the income, and controls more than a third of the wealth and the middle class is falling behind. Recession has made this whole process even worse; the wealth of a typical household is back to where it was in the 1990s. With his campaign Mitt Romney isn’t doing anything else but ruining the middle class. Many of the rich, like Romney himself, are avoiding taxes because of numerous loopholes that favor the rich, such as avoiding paying taxes by putting the money on various off-shore bank accounts around the world in for example Switzerland or on the Cayman Islands. Were the rich paying a fair share, would not only the middle class benefit from it but also the deficit of the USA would be smaller and the economy would grow.

I could go on about Romney and his “brilliant” ideas on how to govern the country during the next 4 years but then I would never end this post. His stance on abortion and women rights and his statements during the Europe tour are, in my opinion, just too much to handle for a normal person. What kind of idiot do you have to be to walk out of a building in London during the Olympic Games and state to the press that you just had a secret meeting with the MI6 chief!?

Let me just move onto Obama because talking about Romney doesn’t make sense anymore. Barack Obama may not have done as much as he should but we have to take in consideration the time he got elected and the inheritance of George W. Bush. He might have even underestimated the problems America was dealing with. When Obama became president of the USA it was the year 2009, the USA as well as the rest of the world, were dealing with the global economic crises (and still are) and that didn’t leave to much space for dealing with other problems. But with time passing by he got better and better in what he was doing. We must mention some of his achievements during these four years such as the Obama health care system, the withdrawal of American soldiers from Iraq, the fight against terrorism (locating and killing Osama bin Laden), and his education policies. Honestly said he could have done far more, had he not faced such strong opposition in Congress. But I personally think that he will be able to do more if he wins this election which I am strongly cheering for. Now the burden of re-electing will be taken of his back and he will be able to dedicate himself more to the economic growth and the well-being of all Americans. And at the end of the day he is not perfect, no one is but he did far more than his predecessors and he deserves another chance to show the world what he is really capable of. YES WE CAN and GOBAMA J 

Now America, it is all up to you but remember your choice affects not only you but the rest of the world too. So who will you vote for?

                                                       Presidents are people too :)

P.S. Last week I was home and guess who visited Zagreb!? HILLARY CLINTON!! She was 20 meters away from me! I should have shouted “HILLARY!“ Maybe then we could have had a little chat on the election ;) I missed my chance, hopefully I will get another one :D 

                                         Hillary Clinton and the Croatian President Ivo Josipović

"Be who you are and say what you feel because those who mind don't matter and those who matter don't mind."  Dr. Seuss

XOXO A.

A new beginning :)

Hello everyone and welcome to my blog :)

As you may know (if you have read the short info on the left) my name is Anita and I am 18 years old. I am a freshman in college and am currently (well, at least for the next three years) living in Graz. I am studying transcultural communications with the languages Croatian/Bosnian/Serbian, German and English. My hometown is the capital of Croatia, Zagreb. I love to hang out with my family & friends, travel, go shopping, read books, watch movies and so on. You will find out more about me if you are willing to stick with me and my blogging till the very end. :D

Let’s get this thing started then!

My blog is part of my English class, which means that I will get graded based on it. Sometimes my post theme will be given to me by my teacher (like todays one) and sometimes I will be able to blog about whatever I want. I will try to keep the blog as interesting as possible. Here you will find posts about family & friends, traveling, fashion, music, books and everything else that I have lately been into. My posts will also include pictures and music videos so it won’t get boring, I promise. Another thing that I hold dear to my heart is quotes, which means that every post will be ending with a quote that you will hopefully like and be able to relate to. 

Our first task was to check out one of the following links and write a blog post about our experience.

http://breakingnewsenglish.com/

http://eslnotes.com/synopses.html

http://www.lyricstraining.com/

I checked them all out and had a really hard time deciding on which to blog because I liked all three of them. Every single one offers a unique and fun way of improving your English. After changing my mind a couple of times I settled on the lyricstraining.com page.

What is the page about you must be asking yourself now. Here comes the answer: Lyrics Training is a website utilizing imbedded YouTube music videos of popular songs to provide language learners with a new way to practice their language skills. Language learners can choose from 6 different languages (English, German, Italian, Spanish, French and Dutch) and three levels of difficulty (easy, medium and hard). I will take you now step by step through the whole process of choosing a song.

1. When opening the page you will see videos dived into three categories: Try it!, Recently Played and Most Played (Today). You can either choose a video from right there if you like one or you can type into the "search box" on the top of the page the name of the song you want to listen to. 

2. After writing the name of the song you will get offered the videos that can be found under that name so you can choose the one that you want. When you find the one you were looking for simply click on it.

3. The video will open and offer you to choose which difficulty level you would like to play on.

4. After choosing your difficulty level (in this case the level was medium) the video will start playing and the lyrics will be displaying underneath it. As the video plays, you are expected to complete the missing lyrics. The video will not continue until the missing word is filled in. 

That is all, simple as that! It is really easy and fun to work with. This simple tutorial was made just as an example (showing only the difficulty level option) but of course the page offers more features on the videos (such as sharing it on various social networks), so please feel free to check them all out if you have the time! Just play around with it. Plus, you can always register on the webpage and unlock new stuff!

If you have any questions or comments, feel free to write them down, it would make me very happy!  :)

"A life spent making mistakes is not only more honorable, but more useful than a life spent doing nothing." George Bernard Shaw

XOXO A.