Croatia, Croatia, Croatia

Croatia has been great! The city is beautiful and its exciting to be here!

Heres a little rundown of what we’ve been doing!

On our first day we had a tour of the city along with the history. Yes, we do have classes, which was a shock to me. We have classes on a study abroad? Haha We actually had them at the University of Zagreb! It is the oldest and largest University in Croatia! Its actually a perfect time for us to come and study here at the school. All of the students are on strike. We walked up and there are a ton of signs hung up and people are everywhere just hanging out. They are striking for “free education.” Apparently before the war, all education was free. They had no tuition. Now they have to pay about $1500 for tuition. Now I’m sure all of you are thinking oh wow wouldn’t that be nice for a major University? This is a lot of money to them because the average salary here is $14,000. They have been on strike for about 25 days now. One student said he didn’t shower for 10 days. I’m not sure what that would prove, but oh well. The most exciting part about it is last night our guide (who is a doctorial student) took us to a sit in where they were deciding to keep the strike going. Apparently every night they get together and decide if its worth it to go another day. So we went there! Our guide is for the strike.

It was a big auditorium filled with maybe seven people talking (in Croatian) into a microphone and the audience packed close together. There were people in the halls listening from a speaker because there were no seats inside. We went in front of the hundreds of students and supporters two people talked. They just said something to the extend of:

We’re from the United States and attend the University of Georgia. We want to wish you good luck in the strike and hope you make history.

Everyone cheered. Someone was there with a big TV camera. So, we might be on Croatian TV! I videotaped a little on my small camera. I’m going to try and post it on facebook. You’ll have to check it out!

Anyway, we had a city tour and a couple of classes. On the next day we went to Plitvice Lake Park. It was beautiful there. We hiked around the sky blue lakes and took pictures in front of the multiple waterfalls. It was truly beautiful. Part of what we had to write in our journal was about what public health issues within the park and how would we make it less dangerous to the public. (On a side note, we have to keep a journal and write about specific things that they give us for a grade.) The park had a trail that was uneven, so we talked about a warning sign. There were also no railings in between the trail that was on the edge of a mountain. The obvious one here is that a railing is needed. We actually talked to the guy about it and he said that there has been an issue with trying to preserve the park and have safety. Many argue that by having a railing it would restrict the view and take away from its natural beauty.

The major health issue I saw was the OLD wooden plank walkway over the lakes and through the waterfalls. It seemed like it was out of an Indiana Jones movie, where the bridge was over some treacherous waterfall and the planks weren’t side by side. They were spaced out and someone could have easily tripped. We had a great example to talk about because we saw a woman being carried out by a stretcher with a wrap around her head. She had slipped or tripped on the walkway and hit her head. The most disgusting part was we walked by an area on the walkway that had a circle of blood about the size of a basketball. Gross. We were really tired by the end of the day. We started at 8:30 and ended at 4:00pm. Yet not tired enough to not go out! George (Urea), the doctorial student, took us to the best bars! It was really fun and I’ll end that there. J

            The next day we split up and did a bunch of class stuff. At the end we met with the Croatian Diplomat who’s working on Croatia’s entrance into the EU. He was a really good speaker (as you would expect.) He was a bit optimistic though. He thought that they would be in the EU by 2011. We’ll just have to see right?

            Our next day we went to the concentration camps that held Croatians that were suspected of being anti fascist and Serbs during the war. One of the kids in my group had a family member who died there. Keep in mind that this war went on in the 1990’s. This is a really recent war and all Croatians experienced some aspect of the war. Its really interesting to talk with George and our different tour guides about it. During that part of the day, everyone was really solemn and our moods were down. The lady who gave us a tour of the camp talked about how she had to build up an emotional wall to do her job.

After the camps we went to Osijek. This was a beautiful city. Our tour guide of this city explained that this is one of the safest cities in Croatia. It was normal for the kids to walk around the city alone at night. There is a really low crime rate. I found that really interesting since there was graffiti EVERYWHERE! It was a beautiful city, but on every beautiful building was some sort of spray paint. Our guide said that before Croatia was independent that graffiti was really the only form of free speech.

That day was long and the next day we got up at 6:30am to meet at 8:15am. I’ll tell you about it later!

 

PICTURES

Our masters students in the class have a blog that is graded and they post pictures. Its: www.healthforalluga.blogspot.com

 

Also we have a group in front of a waterfall and can find it at: www.picasaweb.google.com/klangston63

 

Things I find interesting

1.I can’t find diet coke anywhere!

-This is a HUGE problem. When I come home that’s the first thing I’m going to do: drink a diet coke.

2.The Croatians play music from the 90’s in EVERY restaurant.

-I’ve heard Whitney Houston a billion times.

3.  Architects make more money than doctors.

- Dad, ever thought of moving to Croatia? I bet you’d be at the top of the pay range and make at least $20,000 a year! J

4. “You’re nothing like I pictured, most Americans are fat and ugly”

-Not a good pick up line

-Croatians have no game.

5. Croatian men look deathly skinny.

6. Croatians smoke and drink A LOT.

-Theres a bar in the University of Zagreb.

7. Everyone goes to Internet cafés.

            -Does no one have the Internet?

- My Facebook is in Croatian here.

8. We went to a political rally, and they gave out soap that said, “Wash away corruption.”

-During the day we were offered beer in exchange for a vote towards a political party. ha

9. There are no traffic lights.

 

That’s it for now!