About Croatia
Happy Wednesday!
Welp, in July or August we will begin our life overseas. To help me (and YOU) prepare, I jotted down some high-level information about our first post: Zagreb, Croatia.
I won't lie - when I heard we were moving to Croatia, I had to ask, "Where the eff is that?"
I was not familiar with the Balkans, and I was skeptical about moving to a place I had never even heard of. Lucky for me, Croatia seems to be a hidden gem tucked away in Europe. I hope this post helps you imagine our soon-to-be home and gets you as excited as we are!
Let's start with where in the hell Croatia is located on the map. Croatia is in Eastern Europe, across the Adriatic Sea from Italy. Like, literally a ferry ride away from Italy. Buongiorno, bella! I need to brush up and make those two years of Italian work for me. Here is a map to put Croatia into context:
The pin in that map is in Zagreb, the capital of Croatia. That is where we will be posted. According to the always accurate Wikipedia, Zagreb has about 792,000 people living in it (Croatia in total has around 4.2 million) and is thought to be founded as early as 1094 AD. The temperature in Zagreb will be very similar to what we had in Kansas and Virginia (can I still shop for a new wardrobe though?!).
More than 93% of the population in Croatia is Croatian... so by American standards, Croatia is VERY homogeneous. I will look super tan, lol. Croatia is a republic and has experienced a bit of an economic slump in recent years.
In Croatia, they speak Croatian, also known as Serbo-Croatian. Each Balkan country has dialects, just like all English-speaking countries have individual dialects and accents depending on the country (America vs England vs Australia). Want to say hello? You can say "bok" or "zdravo"! Luckily, Croatians use the latin alphabet, so we did not need to learn a whole new alphabet (at least not yet). I will write a separate post about learning Croatian later. Want to hear how they talk (and let your jaw drop when you realize how fast they speak)? Check out this video from Easy Croatian on YouTube.
There was an episode recently of Andrew Zimmern's Bizarre Foods in Croatia; I will not try field mice, but it was exciting to see the rich history of Croatian food. The video below is one the hubs and I watched to start our Croatian learning. He's a little goofy, but the video is fun and actually helpful.
Croatia has majestic mountains and lavish beaches, plus everything in between. We can't wait to explore! This is a picture of Dubrovnic, one of the most popular tourist attractions. If you come visit us, we will probably take you there. Twist your arm, right?
I suppose that is enough for now. I plan on updating the blog at least once a week. Before we leave, it will be similar to this in that it will contain information about the place we will call home for two years. After we get to post, I will share our adventures (or maybe we will be boring adults there, too LOL) so you can all read and see what we are up to.
If you want to hear about something in particular, please comment! Can't wait to share with you all. Also, please sign up HERE to receive an email when a new post is up on the blog.
Love you all (and sending HUGS),
Morgan and Bret