Final Post

This final entry has been a long time coming.

It seems like "it changed my life" is the apropriate response to "how was Croatia?" but the real answer is long.

I remember an argument I had with Ian shortly after we came to Dubrovnik, in which I asserted that people in Croatia were very different from Americans, and Ian disagreed; that people are people and on a basic level, all want the same things. In retrospect, I'd pick a completely different side. People are reflections of their environment. It's arbitrary to proclaim that Americans are this way or Croats are that way, because the way we are is influenced by an uncountable number of factors. Our language, our parents' opinions, our teachers' attitudes, our experiences, the experiences of those we encounter.

This part is hard to explain.

People being reflections of their environments and largely obvious, and something I've always known, but now I really see it. In an abstract way, it's something I've experienced.

This hightened awareness that mine is a very unique model of reality creates a larger frame through which I see the world. For example, instead of considering someone naive for their belief in god, I think about what the details of their life and their story might be that - if I had undergone, might have brought me to the same beliefs.

Mine is a negligable fraction of the human experience, but to me it is valuable.

All of my travels, culminating in 3 months in Croatia, make me realize this.

Zagreb

Last Friday I got a plane with Nikola and spent the weekend in Zagreb with his sister, Ana-Marija, and her roommate, Sandra. We partied excessively on Friday night, lazed around a lot on Saturday before taking a stroll around the city to see several prominent landmarks. Saturday evening we hung about and watched a movie, and Sunday was very similar, topped off with a bus ride home. I really enjoyed Ana-Marija, who has a penchant for vampire literature.

Monday saw the end of PLC (incomplete most likely) and Tuesday, environmental science (A) and XML (C). Better than I was expecting, which is dismal, since those are not particularly stellar grades. Considering how roughly halfway through the quarter I realized how badly I had been balancing my life and didn't consider my grades at all salvageable...

Today I achieved two major accomplishments - I cleaned the bathtub and sink in my apartment and bought my mother a pair of earings.

I'm spending the evening with Nikola watching movies and in the morning helping him bring his stuff to the bus station. My plans for tomorrow include coffee with Brad, cleaning my apartment with my roommates and tracking down Ivona and Feda for hugs. Saturday morning I'll head out early to the airport. Dubrovnik -> Zagreb -> Heathrow -> JFK -> Dad! I'll get to visit with an old friend in New York, and then drive to Rochester the next day.

And then I'll spend the summer on co-op, with intermittent bouts of swing dancing and other exciting summer-in-Rochester activities.

Language Barrier

This is something I've talked to a lot of people about, but I'm blogging it for the record.

Before we came here, we were told that there was no language requirement for the trip because everyone speaks English, which is pretty much true. However, it's everyone's second or third language, which means that when I'm speaking English with someone, they're working harder at speaking to me than I am to them. This seems inherently unfair, but there isn't much I can do about it, because all I can say in Croatian is "white coffee, please."

Sometimes when I ask cashiers or waitstaff if they speak English, I get a 'yes' that sounds rather resentful.

I find that when I talk with ACMT students, we never discuss anything interesting or of consequence. This may be any combination of a cultural disinterest in things other than gossip and a language barrier. I avoid talking a lot because I doubt that what I say will be a.) understood as I meant it or b.) interesting to my present company. I spend time with Nikola nearly every day, and we've had ONE conversation about science. (Elementary theoretical astrophysics mostly, and some Stephen Hawking fangirling for my part.) Contrast this with conversations I have with friends at RIT, which if not in depth and intellectual, reference xkcd comics on a fairly constant basis, the humor of which are based in science and math. I'm not articulating this well...the point is, the connections I've made here are mostly shallow and leave a lot to be desired.

This isn't just due to language. By this point in the year, even the freshmen have made comfortable circles of friends, and aren't looking to break into a huddle of nervous looking RIT students. Even if this weren't the case, it takes me longer than 3 months to make good friends. None of the RIT students that came were previously good friends of mine, so for 3 months I've felt very separated from my normal friend base. It's one thing to miss my friends, and another to miss my friends and not have much to (temporarily) replace it with. That's not to say I don't like people here - I do - but it takes me a long time to develop a close friendship.

So to wrap up the language topic: People speak English but that doesn't mean they want to or that it's easy for them. I found myself in a group of ACMT students the other day, all laughing and speaking in Croatian. Every couple minutes Nikola or Ivona would tell me what happened that was funny, but if I got the joke, it was too late to enjoy it with everyone else. For me, that's not fun.

I'm told that earlier in the quarter, since most of the RIT students were traveling as a shy pack, several of the ACMT students talked about us in a less-than-friendly manner. I don't know exactly what they said, because the sensitive student who translated didn't give details. Anyway, it all struck me as very middle school.

But! These people I think were in the minority. I have met some great people, who showed genuine interest in why I would want to come here, had I heard of Croatia before three months ago, etc. That was nice. But like I said, not enough time to develop these potential friendships.

I'm doing a stream of consciousness. Oops.

If I had a little more foresight, I could probably have mentally prepared myself to jump into life here a little more aggressively and had a better time. Alas.

Bosnia and Herzegovina

Last weekend we (RIT students) rode in a couple of vans to Bosnia and Herzegovina. To quickly summarize, we left early on Friday and spend that night in Mostar, drove to Sarajevo the next day, stayed the night there, and drove back from Sarajevo to Dubrovnik on Sunday afternoon.

I was mostly lethargic, homesick and miserable. However, I'm glad I went. Bosnia was hit very hard by the war, and a lot of the damage is still very evident. I've never seen anything like it. Walking down the street in Mostar, I saw two tall buildings next to each other - one new and modern looking, and the other bombed and empty. It struck me how besides us (the tourists) people didn't seem to give these things a second glance. War is something very abstract in my mind. To see it this close, even if it was over a decade (only a decade!) ago, is rather shocking.

There's a really cool bridge in the old town of Mostar, and just like Evil Zoran told us, there were golden-brown Bosnian guys in speedos soliciting money from tourists before jumping into the river. I walked around a bit, looked at stuff in stores, had a Turkish coffee (mmmm) and then sat on some rocks in the sun and read Fahrenheit 451. Got sunburnt.

Sarajevo also has an old town. I'm starting to notice a trend in Balkan cities having old towns. It's really nothing like Dubrovnik - the streets are smaller and rockier, and the buildings are shorter. Mostar's old town was similar. I bought my little brother a football/soccer jersey from a Sarajevo club team from a guy with two teeth on a side street that smelled like pee. Good Zoran helped me, since he speaks the language. We got some lunch and then took a cab back to our hotel.

The entire time I was there, I kept thinking, "How did I end up here?" because of all the places I imagined I'd go in my life, Bosnia and Herzegovina was never on the list.

Parmesan Cheese Quotas

So the day I left for my weekend excursion, my roommates bought a kilo of parmesan cheese with which to make alfredo sauce. We've gone through maybe 1/3 of it, and now we've instigated a rule that mandates parmesan cheese with every meal. Pasta? Add parmesan cheese. Sandwich? Add parmesan cheese. Rice? Add parmesan cheese.

Last night, after family dinner with extra parmesan cheese, my roommates and I went on a family outing to the old town for ice cream. It's a lively group of people I generally enjoy being with. I'll miss them.

In other news, I got my official job description for my summer co-op, doing research with Professor Stephanie Ludi, from the RIT SE Department. I'm really excited, and I think it'll be a lot of fun. I've had a lapse this quarter in my usual academic enthusiasm, which has given me a nondescript feeling of being bothered about something, but it's coming back. I find myself missing the RIT library. I also read about Imagine RIT and really wish I could have been there. Ah well, I'll be there for the second one in Spring 2009.

I have a housing offer for the summer I'll probably go with. I mentioned it to Chris yesterday.
Leah: So I'll probably live with a 28 year old undergrad SE student and a 30 something year old gay guy over the summer.
Chris: I smell a sit-com!

That'll be interesting.

Wien/Hannover

So last Thursday was International Labor Day, and I went on a little excursion to celebrate Europe and a few days off of school.

I'm not sure how exactly to explain the gratuitous amounts of angst I experience around any kind of travel. I'm something of a worrier under normal circumstances, so the infinite possibilities for missing connects, losing my passport, forgetting how to speak English, sitting next to gross people on a plane/bus/train and looking stupid are almost overwhelming. Anyway. I dragged myself out of bed at the crack of dawn on Wednesday, took the bus to Gruz, got on a bus to the airport, got on a plane to Zagreb, arrived in Zagreb, got on another plane to Vienna, arrived in Vienna, found a train to the Hauptbahnhof, met up with Mittens. (I mentioned Mittens in a previous post - no, it's not his real name. Consider me to be protecting his identity. I know him from Beginning German II at RIT. [{nested parentheses!} I never took German I, for no good reason.])

Our hostel was pretty far away from the center of the city - we took one of the U-bahn lines to the end, a stop called Ottakring, and then took a bus to the hostel. On one hand, it was annoying to have to travel so much - about 40 minutes one way - but we also got to see some suburban Vienna.

Before leaving Dubrovnik, I got in touch with a girl named Veronika, who goes to Universität Wien (University of Vienna). She met us in a restaurant where we devoured a towering mound of Wiener Schnitzel, which was definitely not vegetarian. She was sweet, and showed us around the part of the city where there are a couple identical, huge museums, das Rathaus (city hall - that's right. The German word for city hall is rathaus) and the university. Later that day she had to help organize some event the socialist youth were doing - it was explained to me and I'm not sure I understood properly. There was also a parade the next day, for labor day, and I would have gone if it hadn't been at 8 o'clock in the morning.

Me and Mittens went back to the hostel for a nap, because I whined about being tired, and later went back into the city to explore the bar/pub scene. I visited a bunch of different places and consumed several varieties of beer. Some guy asked me for my number, which was flattering. We also met this really awesome deaf guy in a bar who was dancing and probably drunk. Me and Mittens both know varying amounts of ASL, and even though that's not really what Awesome Deaf Austrian Guy was using, we could communicate with him on a rudiumentary level. He (I think) told us about how he injured his hand, and thought we were a couple, and said he didn't have anyone. Also, he is young at heart, even though he is 39. Mittens bought him a beer, which he made us each have a sip of.

Mittens was rather overzealous and believed that public transportation operated 24 hours, which it DOESN'T, as we discovered around 2am. We got home somehow, and I have a very fuzzy recollection of how, and I wasn't even drunk. We did have just about the tastiest falafel from a cart on the street ever. Anyway, we got home around 3:30. Too late for Leah.

Thursday we got up early for breakfast provided by the hostel and then slept a little more. After going back to the city, we tried to get in touch with Veronika again, to find out later that she fell asleep and didn't wake up in time to call back. Most of the day was exploring, chilling out, and asking for directions. We also went to the Sigmund Freud museum in Bergasse 19, where he and his family actually lived.

I'll post photos when I steal them from Mittens.

On Friday morning we took a train back to the airport and flew to Hannover. Most people we both talked to about going to Hannover just asked "why?" but I really enjoyed the city. The Hauptbahnhof (main train station) looks almost exactly like the Bremen Hauptbahnhof, which looks exactly like a small version of the Berlin Hauptbahnhof, so I think the Germans found a design that worked and stuck with it. Our next hostel was like walking into someone's home, which was adorable. The old man who lived upstairs didn't speak any English, but was really patient with us asking him to talk slowly. He took Mittens' passport in exchange for keys to the house.

We went to a museum later with exhibits on natural history and art. They were all in German, so I learned a bunch of words by figuring out the context of what each plaque was about. It was cool, even though I didn't understand much very thoroughly. The area of the city where we found the museum is where the Rathaus (I giggle a little each time I type that) is, so we went in, and they have three models of Hannover, one in 1945 right after the war, one in the 1600s, and one in the present day. Judging by the model of 1945, Hannover was devastated by the war. I'll post photos, again, once I get them from Mittens.

I was struck by the inconsistency of a lot of the architecture in Hannover. There were several very modern looking buildings close together, oddly shaped and covered in glass, juxtaposed with very ancient buildings like the Rathaus. Walking down the street felt a little like going through time portals.

That evening we went to a Turkish restaurant, where I tried lamb for the first time. They also gave us an amazing dessert, the name of which I need to find out so I can get it again. The restaurant was family owned and small - and all the people working there seemed to be related. Our waitress was really sweet, and we asked her to sit with us and chat, and she insisted that she couldn't because she was working, but she loitered around our table and talked to us anyway. I smoked cherry-flavored hookah for the first time, and then cappuccino. The cook, who I think is also the waitress's dad, put weird Turkish hats on us and took photographs.

Mittens went out clubbing on later that night, but I wasn't feeling it, so I resisted heavily and went to bed early.

Saturday was mostly just hanging out - we were lazy in the morning, walked around, took photos, shopped, had giant pretzels, etc. We met an Australian school principle on a bench of the street and chatted with her quite a bit. She was traveling for 2 months, and she had interesting commentary on British people, of whom she is not particularly fond. When I'm middle aged, I'm going to talk to college students on benches and be cool and intellectual, too. Shortly after I met a saleswoman while I was shopping for perfume, who asked me if I needed help, we started talking, etc, and she asked where I was from, because I'm obviously not a native German speaker. I told her I was from NY but living in Croatia, etc, and she lit up and said she was Croatian, and gained 10 friendly points. She seemed really excited, even though I don't even speak Croatian. I got to say 'dragomir' which you say when you meet someone, I think. She gave me a kind of weird look, so I might be wrong about that.

I justified my excessive expenditures on clothing/makeup/perfume in Hannover by asserting that I don't shop in the US, because I don't like the styles and stuff on sale there. So if I don't shop in Germany, I'll lose my chance until the next time I'm there. It's a stretch - but somewhat believable. Also, I NEEDED the shoes, because my old ones were hurting my feet.

Saturday we smoked hookah AGAIN, because why not? The bartender was from Kurdistan, and seemed to really enjoy that I was "Americana!" I felt special. We sat outside and smoked and drank colorful cocktails and watched people going by.

Hannover is the most bike-friendly place I've ever been, and Mittens tells me Belgium is even moreso. There are special traffic lanes and lights for people on bicycles, and they ding little bells at you if you walk in the bicycle lanes. I was impressed. Hannover also has an "emissions zone" where vehicles are given classifications based on their pollution emissions, and forbidden if they are too gross. Fines are pretty hefty, so I hear. Go Hannover!

Continuing the vein of random things I noticed, people obey the little signs that light up telling you can/can't cross the street. Consider New York - where those signals are merely suggestions, and if the closest speeding cab is at least 10 meters away, there is time to cross. Hannoverians dutifully stand on the curb until the light changes, despite any complete lack of traffic. It was weird.

In general, I prefered Hannover to Wien. Wien seems to have more stuff going on, but was too large for comfort. I also find it much easier to understand German German as opposed to Austrian German, which I'm told is similar to British English versus American English. I was surprised by how much of my German came back, considering I haven't really spoken it for almost a year. It was a nice change to being in Croatia, because every time I speak to someone in English here, I feel guilty for not being able to speak Croatian. In Germany I can communicate in their language. People don't usually immediately switch to English or ask which language they should use, which makes me think that either my German is not that terrible, or they don't have any mercy for non-German speakers. Either is fine with me.

It was a great weekend. I'm glad to be back, however. Dubrovnik is my new comfort zone, and I was surprised to find myself missing it.

Study < Abroad

I've never had quite this unfocused a quarter since I have been at RIT (or any subset thereof). That's not strictly true, but let's consider the academic side of things.

XML and PLC have started to become much more demanding, what with multi-part assignments due each week and deadlines for a project in each class coming up. I have one more presentation to do on RSS.

I've gone back and forth between the extremes of wanting to do as well as I can in the classes I'm taking and then conceding that I'm going to fail miserably in the interest of running around Europe. I think I've reached somewhere in the middle, due in part to a few stern words from Axel on my excessive intake of Abroad and neglect of Study. This is going to make my weekdays very busy, because every weekend until I leave is now booked.

This Wednesday I'm flying to Vienna to meet a friend from RIT who is on co-op in Belgium, Nitin, fondly known as Mittens. We'll spend a couple days there, then fly to Hannover, and then I'll head back to Dubrovnik and he'll go back to Belgium. I have days off of school for International Labor Day, which I didn't know existed. At RIT one forgets that there are federal holidays, let alone international ones.

Weekend after I'll be with the RIT folks in Bosnia. Weekend after that I'll be with Nikola in Zagreb. Weekend after that I'm heading back to the states.

Now that I've just typed that, my previously mentioned "somewhere in the middle" seems like it has a distinct disinclination to Study. Hm.

I can rationalize this: I don't know when I'll be in Europe again. The cost and logistics of a flight to Vienna/Zagreb/Hannover are significantly easier to manage from Dubrovnik than from New York.

Speaking of traveling, yesterday I spent the day with the CS group in Montenegro, which was amazing. I have never seen geographical formations like there are on the Dalmation Coast and it's even more impressive in Montenegro than in the parts of Croatia that I've seen. I was expecting to find Montenegro very similar to Croatia, but as soon as we crossed the border it became evident that they're very different. The buildings seem much more run-down, but in between a lot of decrepit looking structures, there would often be some fancy looking establishment sticking out like a sore thumb. Only without the negative connotation of that expression.

Part of the trip involved a steep and zig-zagging drive up and over a mountain on the coast. Any preconceived notions I have about road safety were beaten to death as we zoomed around hairpin turns on a road with no guardrails that really should have been one-way. We saw cows sitting almost in the road. Cows. In the road. Later there were goats and chickens.

We drove through a handful of tiny little villages on the top of this mountain in landscape that reminded me of The Secret of Roan Inish. And I thought I came from a rural town. It made me wonder - how do their restaurants stay in business when people have to drive for half an hour up a scary road to get there? Where do the kids go to school? Where do the people work? Who collects the garbage?

I'll write more later, but I have to pick Brad's brain on How to Use Keys to Validate a Sudoku Solution for XML.