Hello!
Today I will answer some of the questions that you sent me. I had two question on the French version of my blog and I figured the English version might be interested in knowing the answers as well, so I'm going to start my post with that.
Céline Bélanger asked me: "So which language do you speak? Serbian? Croatian? Serbo-Croatian? Or is it all the same thing?". I have to be careful with the answer because there are both Serbian and Croatian people who read this blog haha :) In my personal opinion, both language are very very close, pretty much almost the same thing (no wonder we sometimes call it Serbo-Croatian). However there are some differences. For example, to say milk, Serbians will say "mleko" and Croatians will say "mljeko" ("j" is pronounced like a "y"). There are many words like that in Croatian that are identical to Serbian but you need to add a "j", for example videti/vidjeti (to see), razumeti/razumjeti (to understand), etc.
There are also some differences in the grammar. For example, to say "I want to try", Serbians are more likely to say "Želim da probam" while Croatians are more likely to say "Želim probati". Probati is the infinitive (equivalent of "to try") while probam is conjugated at the first person, equivalent to "I try". Of course they will both understand each other regardless how it is said.
And finally, there are some words that are totally different. For example, bread in Serbian is "hleb" while in Croatian it's "kruh". I believe that they pretty much know all the different ways that each other speak, so if I say hleb in Croatia they would understand I mean bread, just like if I say kruh in Serbia. The only thing is that since some people are still upset with the other group, I guess I have to be careful not to use too many Serbian words in Croatia, depending who I speak to. I don't want to generalize because the people I have met so far couldn't care less which version I speak, but from what I heard there are still some frictions in some cities. I don't foresee it as being a problem for me since I am Canadian but I'll keep you posted ;)
Question #2 was from Laval Hudon, the question was: "Have you seen any Wal-Marts so far?" The answer is no.
And here is what happened today.
Last night, the owner of the house where I'm staying asked me what time I would like my breakfast in the morning. Yahoo, free breakfast! I said 8 o'clock so today at 8 I came downstairs and here's what was waiting for me on the table:
Delicious! After eating, I called a cab to go to downtown Osijek again. I took more pictures of the amazing church but I won't include them in this post since I think the picture I took yesterday was better anyway. But I just wanted to show you this one which really made me laugh:
I walked some more and took more pictures of nice buildings but again, not as nice as yesterday except that one which really looks like a scary hunted house and I thought I'd show you:
By walking some more I ended in Osijek's market (I am so unorganized that I didn't even know they had one).
And here are two instrument-playing-astronauts at the market, not sure what the purpose is but I thought they were cute!
Like I said yesterday, part of my plan was to discover Osijek's fortress. I don't think it has a name like the other cities, people call it "Tvrđa" which means "fortress" in Croatian. So the next pictures are all taken from inside the fortress area
I had lunch in a very cosy little restaurant inside the fortress, it was a cute place so I took a picture!
And then after lunch I walked some more and took more pictures of nice looking things. Here is the Evangelical church.
I told you already that I have a cold... I still have it, you guys didn't pray hard enough for me yesterday :) So after all this walking I was getting very tired and not feeling so well so I sat down to have a drink, and I can confirm that Croatian lemonade is just as bitter as the Serbian version which is awesome. Look at the nice view I had from my table (this is the most amazing church in the world that I showed you yersterday).
After the drink it was approximately 3 o'clock and I decided I was done for the day since I was still not feeling too well. I told you yesterday that I was going to meet someone from couchsurfing.com but she never really contacted me back so that was out. I am meeting someone else tomorrow and this time we have a place to meet and a time so this one should work (hopefully).
Back at the hostel, the lady was surprised to see me that early so I said I was not feeling well. She was so sweet she put her hand on my forehead to check if I had a fever. I told her I would go take a little nap. So I go in my bedroom, get in bed, and 10 minutes later someone knocks at my door so I get up, open the door, and there's my hostel lady bringing me hot tea with milk and sugar. How sweet!!!
I didn't end up sleeping, since I was drinking tea, but that's ok I can sleep tonight. So the rest of the day was pretty relaxed, I took that opportunity to plan ahead a little and figure out in which cities I'm going to go to in the next few days. It's not fully figured out yet but I'll tell you more about it as it comes.
Once I am done being so sick I will start having more interesting stories again, sorry that today was not the greatest. Since many of you told me that they are living through me, I feel like I'm letting you down when my days are not filled with action from morning to evening! Tomorrow will be better I promise! :)
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