We go every other day or so to tiny nearby markets selling fruit and vegetables, as well as to local bakeries with extraordinary bread and pastries. Now that we're regulars, the shop owners often greet us in both Croatian and English. We also continue to order on-line from (and occasionally buy in-person at) Konzum, a large grocery store. It can take us quite awhile to figure out what we're buying, and we've had some surprises!
It's been interesting to us that people often do NOT assume that we're American. "English? Deutsch?" "No, American." "Oh! Where in America?" And then our Croatian questioners often talk about visiting the U.S., or living there for a short period, or an adult child living there now. I'm guessing that we're not automatically assumed to be American because, at least at this time of year, there are so few Americans here.
J.D. and I have been taking Caroline to a twice a week after-school program at Linguae, a private, English-language school for Croatians. Yesterday while there, I talked with the mother of a girl in Caroline's class. This woman is from Italy and sends her kids to a bilingual Italian-Croatian school here. The family moves to a new country every few years because of her husband's work in the oil industry. Her seven-year-old son, with whom I talked briefly, can speak Italian, Croatian, English, and Portuguese (the family lived in Portugal before moving here). This seven year old's knowledge of multiple languages puts me to shame!
Not surprisingly, many people here speak multiple languages. Rijeka used to be part of Italy, so a number of people in this area speak Italian, Croatian, and English (the last of which they learn in school). In fact, the city has an Italian name, Fiume, as well as a Croatian one, and both mean "river." The director of the university's International Relations Office, a native of Rijeka, told me that he can understand 10 languages. Yesterday we met a woman my age (I think) who explained in broken English that she wished she knew English better but that when she was in school, the emphasis was on Russian, which she sees as no longer terribly useful. It's really sad that in the U.S., many schools put so little emphasis on foreign language instruction. We should be doing so much more to support the work of people like my friend Patty, a French teacher in my hometown!
On a related note, I joined a fitness center last week, and the stair master has nine language options (no Croatian though). The first two are: “press 1 for UK English" and “press 2 for US English.” I understand that there are differences between American and British English, but I’m not sure how they apply on a stair master! By the way, back in the States, I like to run outside or, when the ground has snow or ice, in an indoor track (hello running partners!), but here I've seen only ONE person running outside during the entire time we've been here. I'm not sure why that is. The girls' homeschooling tutor belongs to this fitness center, which is less than two blocks from our apartment, and introduced me to it. I feel more like myself now that I'm running again (on a treadmill--no stair master for me!).
But who needs the stair master when you can (well, must) climb nine flights of steps?
My department is on the ninth floor of this new office building. Today I went to my office, and I saw that neither elevator was working. Then, when I got up to the ninth floor, I saw no faculty or staff around. It's exam time here, so faculty and students have very individualized schedules, but still I wasn't expecting an empty floor. Later in the day, I learned from my mentor that we've been advised not to work at the office this month because heating and bathrooms (and evidently elevators) are not working properly.
I'll end with the everyday. Each day, as Caroline indicated in her last post, we look out the windows of our apartment and watch the boats, islands, mountains, sun, clouds, moon....Here's a photo of a sunset that J.D. took from our balcony on Monday night. You're looking at Mount Ućka.
Laku noć (good night)!
Laura
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