Okay so I know I'm not exactly a world class writer. I'm not planning on doing any journalism or anything like that for a reason of course. So I'm sorry if I lose anyones interest while reading this.

But first off I want to say that this past Wednesday was a sad day. Mama/Emma left and went back to Vermont. She was one of the exchangers and I love her and already miss her super dooper much. It's hard. I think it's hard now just having to say bye to one exchanger. Who knows how I will handle saying bye to all the others, let alone a whole country.
Before Mama left, she was really sad, of course. To make her feel better, some of the other exchangers brought up the idea to tell her all the things she has to look forward to. I sat and listened to her tell me how she was excited to go back and drive, see her friends and family, eat taco bell, play soccer, and be home. It made her feel better, so I'm more than happy that it did. But after listening to all of it, I realized how much I missed home.
I've been putting myself in her place for a few days so I could understand her. But spending too much time in her place made me extremely homesick. I keep thinking I've hit rock bottom to this homesickness I was warned I would have. But it just keeps popping up and worse than before. I'm not sure if I'll ever get used to it really.

School here is okay. It's boring, go figure, but it's school. Laura and I go to a lot of the classes in English. But we don't feel so pressured to show up for Croatian classes. And having conversations with our classmates can be difficult. Everyone speaks in Croatian so joining other people's conversations is almost impossible, so Laura and I just hang on to each other for the most part. Sometimes we're able to talk to kids in our class, but most of them just like to keep to each other.

I think if I didn't have Laura, I would be drowning at school. It would be terrible and gruesome to have to do it all alone. I'm so thankful I have her because when I talk about any issues I'm having, she understands.It's such a relief when I have her around. I love her to death!

I'm grateful that I have any of the other exchangers as well. They were my first friends here and my main friends here. If I didn't have any of them, then I would not be enjoying my time here. They make the experiance for me.
I have a few Croatian friends too. But they study A LOT and ALL THE TIME.

So there was no real point I guess to this blog. Just an update I suppose on my life in Croatia.
I'm missing Mama dearest ever so much and wish she didn't leave me behind. But I'll deal, I suppose.

Oh and also trying to scholarships while in another country on a year abroad is probably one of the hardest things ever. So is looking at dorms and doing placement tests and all the college jazz.

Oh, and I've gotten more comments about looking like Ke$ha. Not sure if I'm feeling insulted or complimented.
I'd appreciate Britney comments a whole lot more, but I guess Ke$ha works for now.

First off
Britney's new song...AMAZINGGG!
everyone should go on youtube and check out her song "Hold it Against me"
she's soo amazing! i love her and everything that she is. her new album comes out in march i believe
you bet your darn tootin i'll be there buying her new CD the second it comes out

Anyways
Two words

LES ALPS!

 Mama and I

 Dani and I

 Dani and I

 Dorothy, Dani, and I

 I recommend never chewing huge liquid advil pills

 Dani, Mama, and I

Me and Dani going skiing!

I put up a lot of pictures because there are so many good ones and everyone has wonderful memories that just make me smile

if there's one thing everyone should plan to do in their life to complete it, I would without a doubt or hesitation say it's see the Alps. There's nothing like it. At all. Ever. Just looking outside of my appartment building to be smacked right in the face with the Alps surronding me, it's breathless.

I went with 3 other exchangers and 6 croatian friends of the other exchange girls.We left New Years Day and spent 16 hours on the bus with the added smoke breaks, instead of bathroom breaks. It was a long bus ride and it was cramped, but it was worth every second.

I did in fact ski in the Alps. I cannot say I was good. But I tried my best. I SKIED THE ALPS MAN!!
I can't get over it. I want to go back soo badly!

I partied it up with people from all over the world. It was amazing. I was with Australians, Croatians, French, British, and of the course Americans. Everyone spoke English and everyone knew how to have fun.

I loved being soo independent. Yes, I know being abroad is already independent enough. But we had to cook our own food, buy our own food, wake up on our own, get some sleep (kind of). We were adults. We were on our own. I loved it!

Oh and I got to speak French. Lots of it. It felt good to be the one everyone else needed to translate for them. Here I need someone else to help me. I got to be on the other end for once.

Honestly, there are days, weeks, or even moments that everyone packs away in their brain to remember for the rest of their life. I want to stuff that whole week into a box and never let it go. I became closer with my exchanger friends. I laughed. I cried. I went crazy (as always). And I laughed some more. 

The whole week was filled with nonstop laughter and I know I'm going to miss everyone more than anything when I leave. The idea of leaving all of them now makes me want to cry. This is what this year is about. Making friends. Having experiances that I will never forget. Having memories that make it impossible to let go. Laughing until I cry.

I also switch families the day after I got back. 

It was sad to pack up my room. I'm going to miss my family so much. They were the bomb. Dani moved into my old family. And she came over while I was still packing up and thats when it hit me how weird and sucky it is that I have to leave them. She was in the living room bonding and I was trying to make everything i have fit into the 5 bags I had...impossible, I had to use a garbage bag as well.

If it were the end of my exchange, I'm sure I would have cried. But it's not. And I can still go see them whenever I want.

My new family is still awesome though. I got little Emma's/Mae's/Mama's family. I have a big room with a cool bed. I love it. And they feed me delicious food. It's not bad. I have to walk like 10-15 minutes to get to a tram though. Only downside. But I still would rather have this over Dani's old family who hated her far to much and lived in the middle of no where.

I'm happy. Ja sam sretna.

I'm healthy (with a cough). I'm comfortable. And my croatian is picking up. I've moved up from understanding 1 word per sentence to understanding maybe every other word in sentences. I eavesdrop a lot because people underestimate my knowledge of the language. 

I LOVE CROATIA! I love this year. I love everything.

I love my friends here. This is all I ever wanted out of this year and for a second, I doubted that I would ever reach this point of happiness this year.

 These are my best friends, my memories, my family. This is what people live for.

p.s.
i got my lovely mother's "who" nose blinged out
oh and the french lady asked me what to call the stud in english. I told her to call it bling.

Soooo.... back from Salzburg!
It was AMAZINGG!
I had so much fun.
We had to leave at like 630 on thursday and the trian ride was like 7 hours long. But soooo worth it.
We met all the Austrian exhange students on friday. There are about 80 some of them. And there are 11 of us. I can't even begin to explain how excited we were to meet everyone.
Soo they all came and we met each other and everyone was super nice.
I made some friends and it was just an awesome weekend!

I don't even know how to put into words how much fun this past weekend was
I don't ever want to forget it!




But on to a more depressing matter
Christmas is this weekend...
I love Christmas and it's spirit and the shopping and the decoration and snow and the family stuff and everything
i love it all!
But it's hard now. Because while I know my family is spending it together, I'm halfway across the world.
It's difficult at this time. This is one of the hardest hits of home sickness I think I'll ever get.
It hurts. And it's sad. And I haven't ever felt like this before.
I miss my family. I miss my friends. I miss Wisconsin.
But I'm pushing through it and it'll still be fun.

I'm going skiing in the French Alps in like 3 weeks and that'll have to be my motivation!

Christmas in Croatia....I'm gonna give it a go

Sretan Bozic!

Sooo I just want to talk about something.
One of the most important things to do when you're an exchange student in another country is to learn.
Teaching isn't why I came here. I didn't come here to educate everyone on the way the U.S. does everything.
Some people might tend to forget that. Sometimes I do. But if people ask me about the U.S., I'll tell them and I'll explain, since they were curious.
But to constantly be telling these people how the U.S. does things can come off as condescending. It may not be on purpose. But people may feel offended, as if I'm saying "Hey, my country is better, so you should follow my way, because I'm just so cool"
Not what I want people to think about me. No thanks.

What Rotary explained to me very clearly before I left is that it's best for everyone's sake if I just keep my opinions on politics to myself. Totally understandable. Differences in opinions can sometimes set people apart. It can make or break you. It starts tensions when what you say isn't what they want.
So it's safe to stay clear from that.

I never knew how much of a challenge that would be for me.
I'm a vocal person. I'm stubborn, headstrong, loud, and opinionated. I come from a vocal family full of stubborn loud mouthed people who are just as headstrong and opinionated as I am. Together we're chaos. Back to my point though, keeping things to myself is a task I figured I could succeed in.
But it's a little different than how I had expected.

I figured people who ask me my opinion and explain their point and then move on. No big deal.

But what happens is that while I'm playing dumb like I have no opinion what-so-ever, everyone else sits there and talks about the U.S. in such a negative manner. They turn every deed that the U.S. has ever done into some kind of  plan to take over the world.

That's how these people, who are not citizens on the U.S. see us. Power-hungry, money-thriving, weapon-filled country. We're monsters to them.
When it comes to our society and the way people live, they would do whatever to live like us.
But when it comes to any of our international affairs, they mock us, ridicule us, and criticize us.

It's strange because for me, whenever someone does something bad or rude and whatever, I ALWAYS make sure I look at it form both ways. I might be on the side that got hurt or was effected by this action, but that does not stop me from trying to see it from their side. There are two sides to every story. I do not believe there are bad people out in the world. There may be manipulated people who might be mentally unstable or mentally harmed. But everyone has a reason for what they're doing, and most people do things because they believe it's whats best.

So when I always take the time to see the good in people, there are people out there who love to see the bad.

Why? Beats me. But I guess it makes people feel better.
It's easier for some people to see the world as black and white, good and bad. That way, nothing has to be complicated. People chose to be naive because it's less scary.

I'm sorry, I tend to get side tracked and ramble about stuff. I'm bad at this.


MAIN POINTT!!
People see the U.S. as bad people who are trying to take over the world. And I'm not sure if or how I should defend my country. I'm not really a nationalist or patriotic person. But when you've been living in a foreign country for a while, you tend to have a little more pride for where you're from.

But everyone everywhere criticizes the U.S.. We're either gods, or monsters. Depends on the reporter and who took the pictures.



Changing the subject real quick before I end this.
This weekend I'm going to Salzberg (austria for those dumbasses)
I'm excited!!!


I'll update on how it is.

Also, I just HAVE to share this short conversation that I had with my crazy little sister Leah

me- I'm like the fat girl who sits near the cool kids on the bus but never with them. Or the loser girl invited to the birthday party out of pity and ends up eating all the cake.
leah- You're more like Lilo. You're really interesting but not everyone sees it.

GOod lorrd
that girl sometimes make me want to pull all my hair out but i love her...sometimes

IT SNOWED!
I just want to write a short blog about the snow!
I'm excited because I was told it doesn't normally snow here until AFTER christmas which is a bummer.
But it snowed yesturday. Everyone told me a few days before that it was suppose to snow on friday, but I figured it would turn to rain before it hit ground because it ALWAYS rains here.
But we were leaving school and a girl from our class ran up to Laura and told her that it was snowing.
Laura is the exchange student in my class from Mexico. She's probably my closest friend here. But being from Mexico, she's never seen snow before.
I can NOT put into words how happy she looked. She kept touching the snow and looking at it and trying to catch it. It was the cutest thing in the world. It made me so happy just to see her that happy. She was telling me, in her broken English, that she could not imagine snow when it's piled up on the grass. She said that if she had to imagine it, she'd think of it like icecream.
I've never thought about the fact that some people don't really know what snow is. I mean I figured everyone knew that it's like crushed ice basically. But Laura had no idea. Lots of people have no idea.
It's weird, but I guess I've always taken snow for granted.
I love looking out my window in the morning after a full night of snowing and just seeing the perfectly smooth soft blanket of snow piling up everywhere around me. It's beautiful. And it's peaceful. And I love that feeling.
I hate snow when it's touching me because, Hello, freeezing cold. But it's nice to look at. And to sled in. And to lay in because everyone knows there's nothing more comfortable than a pile of snow underneith you (as long as you're wearing snowgear, like i said before, freeeezing)
So for all those out there reading this who will have snow this winter, appreciate it. I know how lame, snow. But like I said, some people don't ever even get to experiance gtting annoyed with the snow for making their car slide, or making them late for something, or just getting inside their boot.
Anyways, it's raining now
Goodbye snow. It was nice while it lasted

Okay so this blog is more about how i'm feeling instead of fun stuff i've been doing.

I specically rememeber packing, saying goodbye to my friends, getting in the car, hugging my family goodbye, walking through airport security, boarding the plane, and flying away from America and my first steps on Croatian land. During that entire time, I never was hit by the realization of what I was doing. It just felt like I was sleep walking through life. I was aware of what was happening, but I felt like it was all out of my control. Like I was just going with the flow or everything.
But I did chose this. I wanted this. I did this. Even though all my friends we're staying in the States and doing the normal thing and going to college. It was in my control.
Anyways though, so since it never hit me all at once, I figured I was just already okay with it.
But the thing is that it's not something that hits you all at once and then it's over. I spent everyday of my life in the U.S. doing what Americans do. That was my life for the past 18 years. And when I did my everyday stuff, I wasn't constantly being reminded I was American.
Here, I wake up and have to remind myself where I am, who I am, what I'm doing, and what is going to happen. It's an everyday chore for myself.
And tuning out of it by watching shows I watched in the States, or reading, listening to music, or whatever my homesickness therapy is doesn't help. It just makes it harder for me to get back into my life here.
I still do it because I need something to do when I'm at home, but still. Sometimes I'll watch a movie and think I'll go play with Ava, text Helena, bug Leah, see if anyone wants to go to Perkins. And then I have to be like, oh yeah, can't do that. It doesn't make me sad, not anymore than usual, but it's just a wake up call every time and it gets annoying having to go through the steps of reminding myself.
And whenever I go out, I'm always reminded by the fact that I'm different than everyone else here. I might be able to act like I blend, but I'll never feel like I blend. Well maybe not at the moment I won't be able to.

I love being here. I love experiancing new things. I love learning everyday. I love practicing Croatian.And I love my family here.  I can't bring myself to regret anything I've done in the past 18 years that has brought me here.

Yeah, I won't lie, I'm anxious to get home and see everyone and start college. But it'll have to wait. I'm busy this year.

Off the subject
I finally made Veronika watch Mean Girls with me. I must say it has changed her life. Especially since she said "Boo, you whore" to her math teacher. NOT MY FAULT! ahaha!
I also made her watch Crossroads. No one should have to suffer through life without watching that movie. It's amazing and Britney is to thank for it.

Also, they played One Tree Hill here on one of the four channels. I got really excited! Generally when I watch t.v. here, it's in Croatian or German or Turkish or French sometimes. And if it is in English, it's not a good show. But they have ONE TREE HILL!! I'm happy about it.

I'm still in the process of reading Three Cups of Tea. It's a good book so far. I like it. I just don't read it so much. It's been taking me about 2 months and I'm almost to the halfway point. But so far it's really mind changing. It makes me want to go to Pakistan and build or teach or just do something. It's really cool!
So I recommend it to anyone who has a heart to read.

I still have the ened to read Textsfromlastnight
It's encouraging to me and prepares me for the college life.

btw i'm listening to a rap song that is suppose to be a recreation of Video Killed the Radio Store
bad idea. dear rap singers, never again. please. for my sake.

okay so once again this is a long long blog
and i put in  pictures because for those who don't stalk me on facebook, you probably haven't seen any pictures of me in croatia. so you're welcome.

 this me and another exchanger from Colorodo, Danielle, in Omis. It used to be a pirate bay!

 Me in Zadar on a nearby island.

Me and my sister Veronika

later losers