its been forever..

i never really realized before how hard it was to keep up on a blog. seriously.
so im officially on my third week of school. wow, three weeks. ive almost been here a month. thats crazy to me. on one hand i feel like i just got here and time is going way to fast. yet at the same time i feel as though ive always lived here. i already consider this to be my home. my life here is all i know. its like a dream when i think of living back in pennslvyania, its not a real life to me. and oddly enough, i dont really miss it either. not yet at least.

so where to begin? i dont even know.
im going to try to keep this kind of short so.
first week of school: was great. i feel like i made a lot of friends and that everything is going to be okay this year. emma and i have, what i consider to be, our best friends in our class. dora and tina. we went out with them after school most of the days that week. theyre great. actually, i think everyone in my class is great. theres not one person i dont like. id say i got pretty lucky :]
wow, that was corny. i really mean all of it though.
so back to my first week of school. i think i need to say a little something about gym class. uhhhh. lets just say, i didnt know i was going to boot camp. okay, maybe its not thaaat bad, but i feel like im seriously about to die after. we dont play games like back at home. no. we run. a lot. and do sittups, and pull ups, and jump over hurdles and do the high jump (which, god, i cannot do) oh and more running. yeah lots of running. that about sums it up. its just awful. the only thing i truely dont like about croatia.
so about my other classes. physics. hahahhaaha oh my, physics. if i even knew what we were doing in that class i could tell you how its going. i do not understand a thing. same with my math class. okay math isnt as bad, i get some of it. but well, lets face it, my teacher is not good at explaining thing. at all. and it doesnt help that well, for example, instead of saying ˝pi over 2˝ for the fraction π/2 she says ˝P halves˝ and  get all confuse like ˝uuhhh wtf is p halves?˝ and therefor miss the rest of what shes trying to say. she is super nice though. i feel bad.
english class. my english class is intense. its not like ˝ ´see spot run` said jane. ´come home, spot.` said dick. ´come, spot, come` ˝ as most people expect for an english class taught in a non english speaking country. (and yes, i am old enough that i did learn to read from those books.) no, right now in english we are doing hardcore shakespear. memorizing lines every night. learning all the plays and what happens in each. i think it honestly might be a harder class than my english class at home.
i have other classes like, phycology, religion, history, geography, and logic.but theyre nothing special. except maybe religion. but thats for another post.

second week of school: afternoon classes. this week was pretty boring. class from 2-8 every day, so we didnt go out after school since it was so late. the whole sleeping in part was just awesome though. but i feel like i waste my entire day when i have afternoon classes. my days go: sleep in, get up and get ready for school. go to school. come home and do homework, go to bed.
the only exciting part of last week was we had a few free periods one day so emma, and i went to the main square to meet up with another exchange student, also named emma, to buy lady gaga tickets for when she come to zagreb in november! :D
yeahh!
last thursday emma spent the night at my house because we had a rotary orientation friday.
orientation was really dumb. pretty much we just sat there and were told alll the rules that eventually will most likey be broken anyways.. juuuust kidding! ;]
saturday we went on our first rotary trip to the zagorje area in croatia, which is literally like on the border of slovenia. im not going to lie, i didnt have the best time. the bus trip and just being with the other exchangers was great and we had a lot of fun. but it was cold and raining alll day. the day consisted of a guided tour of this new caveman museum all about the creation of the earth and life. it was early in the morning and honestly, kind of boring. then we went to a beautiful castle, and again, had a guided tour. except this was worse because the tour was in croatian. awesome castle, not so awesome time because of the tour.
after that we drove to a town, varaždin, where three of the other exchangers live. we went to a nice hotel and had the most delicious lunch ever sponsored by the rotary club there. it was awesome. then once again, we had a guided tour through a cemetery which i think is considered one of the most beautiful in europe. and it was. it was so pretty with all the bush tree things and the big graves. but it was raining and we were wet and kept getting yelled at for stopping to admire the graves and not keeping up with the tour. ugh. so after that, guess what we did? OH YEAH another guided tour walking around the city. in the cold. and the rain. it was great. again, beautiful town, horrible conditions to see the town. now i dont know about any of you, but if i was going to take 11 teenagers on a day trip i would not fill the day with boring guided tours. oh welllll.

okay your almost caught up on my life now.
sorry this was so long haha. ill try to write less and more ofter now.
:]

first day of school!

so lets see. recap.

thursday night my host sister come home from her senior trip. [: she speaks pretty much perfect english, which makes communicating so much easier. friday we went out to see what bus and tram im taking to school then we went to the main square for a drink. saturday i went out clubbing my host sister, her best friend and some other friends. that was so much fun and well, what an experience. hahah

anyways, today i had my first day of school. 

last night i was so nervous that i couldnt fall asleep until about 2 am. now, i had set my alarm for 6:00 being as i was to leave at 7:10. but of course, if never went off and it wasnt until 6:45 when my host mother woke me that i got up. figures.

so i got ready as best as i could in that time and off we were, to my new school. i seriously wish you could have seen my face as we drove around the corner and i see this mass of kids on the stairs outside the school. im sure it was just hilarious and i think my mouth dropped, just like in the movies. but, this was it, there was no turning back. my host mother and i walked into the school to the headmasters office so we could be introduced to our homeroom teacher. he seems nice, but he talks bout WWll an awful lot. emma was there too, which calmed me down a little, at least were in this together. so when the bell rang we followed him up to the third story of the building, to the end of the hall. all the other kids were in the room already but he made us wait in the hall before going in. then he had us stand in the front of the classroom and introduce ourselves. so i go 'hi im dorothy schaadt and im from pennsylvania.' smoooth, right? right. so emma introduces herself and we take a seat in the back of the class. there arent desks like in the us, but tables with two chairs at each. and the classrooms are really like, i dont even have a good word to describe them. they are very plain and old looking. it definitely feels like a city high school to me. not that is bad, its just, very old. 

so after emma and i sat down everyone started coming over and introducing themselves. not that i remember like any names, or that i could even pronounce half of them, but still, i think everyone wanted to talk to us. 

so since it was the first day of school we were supposed to have just four classes. we were supposed to have physics, math, free period, then psychology. physics was awful. i didnt understand a thing. luckily though after class everyone else said they didnt understand it either, which made me feel better. then we had break. now normally we have seven classes a day, and since there is no lunch we have a 20 minute break inbetween 2nd and 3rd period where we can leave the school and go to a bakery or cafe near the school, which i must say, is pretty freaking awesome. so we went with some girls in our class to a bakery and i got a delicious chocolate croissant. then math class. math this year is trigonometry. so far its not to hard, but i have a feeling its going to get much harder because my teacher doesnt seem like shes good at explaining things. after math we had free period where a lot of people came up to us and were talking to us and asking us questions about the us and high school and if the things they see in movies are real. like “do the cheerleaders really rule the school?” i thought that was funny. so anyways after free period we were supposed to have psychology. but the teacher didnt show up and so after five minutes everyone got up and told us that if the teacher doesnt show up in the first five minutes that we dont have to stay for class. okay, cool. :] so we all left, and school was over. it lasted a whole three hours. 

after school emma and i got invited to go with some girls from school around the city to get something to eat and go buy school notebooks. we ended up hanging out for like 6 hours and having an awesome time. 

all in all, my first day of school was great. i have a feeling the next 174 days of school wont be so bad. [:

so some facts about my school:

• it has four stories, and all my classes so far seem to be either on the first, or fourth floor. of course.
• there are 17 subjects a year, about 5 are taught in english and the others in croatian. there are seven periods a day, with different classes everyday.
• since emma and i only take english classes we have two, or three free periods a day. but unlike in the us, we are allowed to just leave school and go to a cafe or walk around then come back for our next class. or if we dont take the class thats 1st oeriod that day we can sleep in and come into school later for out other classes. 
• your allowed to skip up to two classes a day without a written excuse. 
• my school building actually has two schools in it, one school has morning classes, then the other has afternoon. so my first week of school goes from 8am to 2pm and my second week goes from 2pm to 8pm and switches like that every week after.
• most of the time we stay n one classroom and the teachers switch, except for special classes like foreign language and art.
• my school used to be a mental hospital so there are bars on the windows

differences

i know that when i read blogs of other exchange students my favorite part is when they post a list of differences between where they are and where they are from. 
so. heres mine!

• the stop light go from green to yellow to red, then from red, to yellow, to green. 
• cars park on the sidewalks.
• there are no yellow lines on the roads. they are all white and i sometimes get confused what lane is supposed to go what direction. 
• people here drive fast, so there are random speed bumps on the roads that dont have tram tracks.
• there are no fat people. sure, they are a few people who are not sick thin, but no one is fat. not like america.
• they have one fast food place, mcdonalds.
• there is no tax when you buy things and you do not leave a tip.
• all the girls wear high heels. they would rather be pretty than comfortable. this ive been told.
• you kiss on the cheeks when you see your friends and when you say goodbye.
• everybody smokes. 
• man purses and fanny packs are very common.
• everyone dresses nice, no one wears sweatpants, hoodies, sporty clothes and, for the girls, tshirts.
• almost everyone is at least bilingual.

im sure there are more but thats all i can come up with in my one week here.

[:

first few days

ive been here for, what, four days now? this is bad, im already losing track of time.
anyways. i feel so welcome here. this country is just beautiful. im in love with it already.

at the airport my host mom had brought one of my host sisters friends, ana, and her little sister, paula, with her to pick me up. my host sister is in africa right now on her senior trip so, clearly, she couldnt come with. i get in the car to go back to my new house and guess whats playing? yeah, blink-182, only like my favorite band. i took it as  sign that everything is okay.
we drove though the city and they pointed out different things to me, not that i remember where anything was. back at my house i put my suitcases in my room and started to unpack while vesna finished preparing lunch. here lunch is the biggest meal of the day, not dinner. its weird to eat a big meal at 2 pm then not eat again until like 9 at night but im getting used to it. there is so much food here. i eat until im full, but ive been told i barely eat at all. my host mom told me i "eat like a little bird." i thought that was so cute, but really, im eating as much as i usually do!
so after lunch ana, paula and i went to my room. i told them about silly bands and gave them some. i also made them try reese cups because they dont have them here! i think i got them addicted. [:
then we went to their house to pick up their mom and we went to the top of the mountian overlooking zagreb to this beautiful old castle. we just walked around for a little and then went back to have a drink at anas house.
when i got back to my house i went straight to sleep as i was super tired.
on monday my host mother and i went into the city to go to the police department because i had to like register that i was staying in zagreb for the next year. then we went and got delicious ice cream. it didnt quite taste like ice cream back home, it was more rich. i really like it.
after that i went to anas house and her, her friend whos name i dont remember and i went to avenue mall. her friend speaks really good english so i loved talking to him. its weird not hearing english anymore.
after that we rented 'the proposal' and went back to her house to watch it. then i spent the night at her house.
tuesday ana, paula, one of paulas friends and i went into the city. they showed me upper town and the cathedral and some other things.
it was a lot of fun. then we went to mcdonalds for ice cream!
we went back to anas house, had lunch and hung out.

today i went to my new school to sign up for classes. i forget what im taking though. this is all a lot to take in in just a few days. tonight im going to the movies with ana and emma, the one i flew here with.

i feel like im writing every detail of my life so im gonna stop now. i promise things will be more summerized from now on, as this is to much to write.