Dread. That’s honestly mostly what I was feeling the
days leading up to us leaving. Dreading
saying goodbye to family and friends.
Dreading putting Lucy on the plane.
Dreading putting myself on the plane.
The night before leaving, I asked my dad to give me a mini-sermon to
help me feel better. He helped me to put
things in perspective. Like for instance
when I said, “What if the plane crashes and Lucy is stuck inside the plane and
we all die.”
“Well first
of all, that just won’t happen because planes are the safest way to
travel. And even if you did die, it
would be okay because you’d get to see Grandma.” And then my mom threw in a sermon of her own
by saying, “You have to remember the peace you felt when you first decided to
move to Croatia. You knew it was the
right decision then. And it’s still the
right decision now.” Sometimes I really
need two preachers in my life.
The next
morning, we woke up bright and early and climbed into the van with our 8
suitcases, 2 backpacks, dog crate, and puppy.
Once we reached the SeaTac exit, I was feeling sick and anxious all
over. But here’s the thing. I know that God went before me and took care
of several things that He knew would throw me into a tailspin. For example, when we arrived at the airport
there was absolutely no one in the Lufthansa line. Therefore, we could put our ridiculous amount
of luggage on several carts and wheel them right up to the counter without
having to wait in line with them. You
know the paperwork that we were sure they would check as we left the
country? They didn’t need it. I could have a nice long rant about the
absurdity of spending $60 each way to FedEx the state USDA department so that
someone in a cubicle can charge me $37 to stamp a piece of paper to make it
look really important and cause us to lose sleep and panic that we can’t take
Lucy with us. But I don’t want to bore
my readers.
So we
dressed Lucy in her Thundershirt, fastened her water bowl to the crate, put a
ridiculous amount of stickers on her crate giving every address that she could
be sent to in the event that she got lost, and said goodbye. She honestly stared at me through the tiny
holes of her crate until the elevator door closed. It was really scary, but I honestly felt
relief that it was out of my hands and I didn’t have to dread it anymore. But then we had to say goodbye to my parents,
which was a whole different kind of sadness.
I consider myself very lucky to have such a close relationship to my mom
and dad. I go to both of them for advice
and direction and encouragement. It’s
been a rough couple of years in my family and I know that leaving them behind
means putting all of my trust that they will still be taken care of. I was dreading this most of all. But knowing that I had their prayers and
support and the fact that we’ll be seeing them at Christmas gave me the
strength to say goodbye. I know we’ll still
be able to Skype, call, Facebook and email whenever we want to. Plus I’m excited to scout out Croatia so that
we know all the places to take them when they come in April.
After
sending Lucy off and giving my parents a hug goodbye, I felt ready to leave the
dread behind and start getting excited about the adventure that is ahead of
us. The flights were uneventful, which
is always wonderful for a person who’s more than a little afraid of
flying. Plus we had individual
television screens, so in typical American fashion, I watched TV for ten
hours. We flew so far north that we
skipped nighttime altogether, even though we left Seattle at 1:15pm and got to
Frankfurt at 8:30 am.
As we flew
into Zagreb, I could feel the excitement building for both Sam and me. We were here.
We had made it. The hours of
packing, cleaning, moving, planning, emailing, traveling, and worrying were
over. It felt amazing.
We scurried
through customs very quickly and headed straight towards the baggage claim. The
first thing we saw was our little Lucy, coming down the conveyer belt. She made it.
We let her out and I could tell that she was just as relieved as
us. The thing about Croatians is that
they have a certain “look” towards people.
I call it the Croatian stare.
When we were here last time, it made me feel really uncomfortable and
out of place, like everyone hated me.
But now I realize that they’re just a little slow to trust newcomers and
that they do it to everyone. That is,
unless you have a Lucy. The airport was
full of people just smiling, knowing how happy the three of us were to be
together again.
From there
we had 2 people from our school pick us up.
Lidija is the main HR person and Robert does some random jobs for the
school including taxiing people around.
We had emailed Lidija back and forth so many times with so many silly
questions that we felt we were old friends.
First, they drove us to our new apartment. My first thoughts of Zagreb were: wow, they must really like corn (it’s planted
everywhere) and graffiti. It wasn’t exactly what I had expected at first. The truth about Zagreb (now that I’m not
sleep deprived and have seen more of the city and have had a pep talk from my
mother) is that just like any other city, it has pretty parts and ugly parts.
You just have to focus on the pretty parts.
A lot of
the city still has communist architecture from the 70’s and 80’s. It also has a lot of graffiti. But lucky for me, I came from Yakima. Our apartment is even better than the
pictures. I will be spending the next
year of my life out on that terrace because it is that amazing. Our landlords are so nice and also just love
Lucy. They’re even going to paint over
their son’s blue and yellow room, which is one less thing that we need to take
care of. Just so you know, we are
expecting visitors.
After that
we went to our school. What a contrast
from the neighborhood of Adams. I am
definitely going to be teaching a different set of kids, that’s for sure. We also picked up our new car, a Chrysler
Sebring. Isn’t it everyone’s dream to
own a Chrysler in Europe?? It is
actually more out of necessity. We
bought this car from the previous principal because otherwise we would have had
to wait until we got our residency permit in October to buy a car. It’s really not that bad.
Next,
Lidija took us to our hotel for the night (we don’t actually get to move into
our apartment until August, but we were able to leave 6 out of the 8 suitcases
there.) You really just need to jump right in to driving in Croatia. Otherwise you will see how crazy and awful
the other drivers are and you will be too scared to ever get in a car as long
as you are here. After a quick detour,
(initially we couldn’t get into the parking garage) we got to our hotel. At which point we realized that we had left
our computer charger, cameras, and Lucy’s dog food in one of the suitcases at
our apartment. But by this time, it was
7:00 at night and it was time for food.
My first meal in Zagreb was not what I expected it to be. I thought I’d be wearing a cute little dress,
have my hair recently washed, and be ready to enjoy the café culture. Instead, I sat down at the café near the main
square, having been awake for 30 hours, wearing yoga pants and TOMS, and with
shampoo, conditioner and dog food on the table (I had to make a quick trip to
the Konzum to get some necessities). Oh
well.
Finally we
were able to get some sleep, going to bed at 8:00, waking up from 1-3 with
sheer panic of all things we may have forgotten and all the things we needed to
get done. Why does anxiety strike the
most at night? By morning, we were
feeling much better and ready to explore our new city. Zagreb is unlike any other city I’ve ever
seen. It is spectacular. If you enjoy sitting outside with your puppy,
enjoying a Schweppes Bitter Lemon and some great food, then Zagreb is the place
for you. I am so excited to get back there
and spend hours outside under an umbrella.
We were also able to register with the police (not a fun experience, but
something that had to be done) and have lunch with some new coworkers. Even though we had been out of the country
for about 48 hours, it was nice to speak with people in English and know that
they were feeling the same things that we were feeling. And again, the food…wow. I want to have that focaccia bread with 4
types of olive oil every day for the rest of my life.
Right now,
we’ve moved down to the coast to escape the heat. On the way down, we stopped at Plitvice Lakes,
which are some of the most amazing lakes I’ve ever seen.
And today, we’ve spent the day at the
beach. We are now sitting seaside,
waiting for our Cevapcici and enjoying the fact that we can finally enjoy our
summer. I’m focusing on one day at a
time and not thinking too far in the future.
For now, all I have in my future is sun, relaxation, food, and my Sammy
and Lucy to keep me company.
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