2012-04-11 Osijek, day 11

Oh I have many stories for you today, you will be happy!!

First of all, yesterday evening I didn't tell you about it but I decided to do something CRAZY and I decided that I would rent a car! The reason is that this will enable me to see the cities of Đakovo and Slavonski Brod tomorrow, and Varaždin the next day, on top of Zagreb. Without a car, I think I would only have been able to see Zagreb (theoretically I could still see the other places without a car but it would be way too complicated)

Here's my car!!!

I absolutely hate it hahaha. First of all it was super expensive (220$ for 4 days). Also, it took me forever to figure out how to start it (I have to push on the break otherwise it doesn't turn on). And finally, I think it's some kind of double transmission car (not sure how to call it). It can be both manual or automatic transmission, but when I put it on automatic it changes gears very weirdly, it slows down a lot and then it changes. Well anyways... I have a car now, but I am quite stressed out when I drive so I don't think I'll rent another one haha. But it's a good experience, tomorrow I'll do lots of driving and we'll see how badly I get lost. If you don't hear from me tomorrow it's because I am somewhere in Croatia trying to find civilization again :)

Today was a bit warmer than the other days but still cold, so after lunch, now that I have a car, I decided that it would be good to go back to the hostel to get my jacket. So I drove back and the nice lady greeted me and said "I have to go to the market, you wanna come with me?" Just to put you in context, communication between me and the hostel lady is very difficult because she doesn't speak much English. And when she tries to speak in English, she's actually speaking in German. One sentence can sound like "Ich will to see America" (I want to see America). So I'm not always so sure what she's telling me... Anyways I figured we were going to the market and I didn't have much plans so I said sure!

We ended up going for a coffee haha. So we go inside this place which is owned by a mother and a daughter, and all 4 of us sat together. They all spoke very quickly so I missed most of it but they spoke to me a little bit in English. I told the mother that her English was very good and she was quite proud of that. Later on her daughter was laughing at her so the mother said in Croatian: "Didn't you hear the lady say that my English is very good?" so I said (also in Croatian) "this is the truth!" I guess they were not expecting that so all 3 of them started laughing and I felt so proud that I made people laugh in Croatian, that was my highlight of the day :)

After that, we did go to the market so I had understood properly after all!

Once we were back at the hostel, the lady wanted me to explain to her how to use Twitter. I've never used Twitter in my whole life so I figured it out as we went, and tried to explain to her the concept of following people and tweeting in Croatian, it was horribly complicated but somehow we got her account set up (thank you Google Translate for all your help!) Once we were done, the lady asked me "Can I take a picture of you to put on my website?" Yes, believe it or not, I will soon be famous in Croatia because I am on the welcome page of my hostel!!! Go see this, I'm the girl standing by the car: www.biljski-krokodil.com. Isn't that completely insane? So in exchange, I took a picture of the nice lady and she agreed for me to put it on my blog, so here she is:

At 6 PM, I was meeting a girl from couchsufing.com, it was a different one from yesterday and this time she didn't cancel me so it's perfect :) We went walking by the Drava and we had tea in the fortress. Later on, she brought me to this monument which has a very interesting story behind:

As you can see, the plate of the car says "27.06.1991". On that day, the army came to Osijek. A young man, owner of a red car decided to park his car right in the middle of the road to block the tanks from coming further, but the tanks simply drove on top of the red car (see Youtube video here: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Z1oMYfSsOl4)

So this monument was placed to commemorate the event, but this time, it is the car that goes on top of the tank. I thought this was a very interesting story!

I am now back at the hostel and planning to get up at 6 AM tomorrow to drive to my many destinations. Please have a prayer for me so that I don't get lost or that I don't get killed on the streets of Zagreb! I'm just kidding of course, do not worry about me I will be fine! :)