I really like it here

Hello again!

After Osijek, our next day we went was Vukovar. This city is named Vukowar because it experienced the worst part of the war in the 1990s. It was really a tough day emotionally. Our tour guide for the day was actually 25 when the war was happening. She experienced every part of the three month bombing by Serbians. This lady was truly an optimist. Everything she spoke about, she turned it into a positive thing. This lady was in her basement for a large part of the bombing and then moved to the basement of a nursing home. She said that no one walked out on the streets because bombs were hitting non-stop. As she is showing us the city, we stopped at a memorial hospital that was taking care of the civilians. Some time during these three months of hell, the Serbians tell the officials at the hospital that they would take out all the injured to another city. The hospital agreed. Once the Serbians carried them out of the city to safety, they killed all of them and put them in a mass grave. It took the Croatians a long time to find them, but once they were found the victims were all buried into individual graves. We went to the memorial mass grave, the memorial building, and the individual graves. Needless to say it was an emotionally draining day. As we were leaving the gravesite, our guide was explaining that at the time of the bombing she heard on the radio at that they could be moved to another city. Everyone in the nursing home basement got on the trains and left Vukovar. She further explained that had it not been for the United Nations poking around trying to understand the war, she and the other hundreds of people would have been executed and buried in a mass grave as well. I just don’t understand how this woman could talk about her experiences as she did. I mean, the war was less than twenty years ago! Our next stop after the memorials was a military memorial. We watched a graphic video of the UN discovering the mass grave. On a lighter note, the military memorial wanted to put a shooting range in for kids to play on. They thought it would be a good attraction. Seriously?!

Our next day was fun! We went to the Zumberak region, which is the rural part of Croatia. They had the quaintest towns within that region! They all had their own markets with jewelry, cheese, wine, and other random souvenirs. We saw a nunnery and then the wine vineyard. We drank wine and Jukovaca (Rockia), which left everyone with terrible hangovers the next day. Although, some time during the night I bought a bottle so if anyone wants to give it a try let me know! I will not be joining though. Ha Everywhere we go they keep offering us Jukovaca (Rockia) and everyone HATES it because it made us so sick. Personally we tried a honey kind and I liked it, but it wasn’t for everyone.

The next day we went to a castle. Yes, ladies and gentlemen a castle! J It was really amazing! They were still trying to renovate it, but it still was beautiful. After the castle visit we went to Tito’s childhood home. For those of you who don’t know anything about him, he was the leader of Yugoslavia and many people liked him because he kept the country together. I don’t know how I feel about contributing money to this man’s attraction site. Did people forget that he allowed concentration camps to go on under his rule? Sigh, some people bought Tito t-shits. Silly Americans.

Our next day was short, the public health students went to a school for the mentally and physically disabled. Then we had the rest of the day off. YAY!

I’ll end here!

Things I Found Interesting
1. You have to push a majority of the doors instead of pull.
2. One of our tour guides won the political election and there were people marching in the streets after! I have it on video.
3. My roommate paid $100 to get a part of her gums removed.
4. One girl got a Urinary Tract Infection and Urei had to translate the grimy details. Ewwww


Correction:
There are traffic lights, but they are not placed well.