Driving.
Our house is located in "the hills" of Zagreb, north of the city center and just beneath a castle. The terrain is ridiculously hilly, the streets are narrow, and the natives drive aggressively. After leaving the driving to Scot for the first several days, I figured it was time for my debut on Sunday. Not that I felt ready, but with Scot on a trip to Germany next week, I wasn't going to have him to fall back on anymore. So, I started with a relatively short drive to a dinner at Scot's boss's house on Monday. It was pretty scary, yet kind of exhilarating, and also made me feel like playing a little more MarioCart on the Wii would be to my advantage. Happy to say I delivered my family to our destination in one piece! Oh. One more tibit. Right now, the only car we have is a 1993 Volvo which has seen better days. At least one or two check engine lights are on at all times. This makes driving even more exciting. It's anyone's guess as to when our SUV will arrive. Until then, we'll keep driving the Volvo. Scot has also poked around at used cars and has a nice little Beamer picked out...we'll see.
And then there was today. Ava's school had a "World Family Assembly" today from 8:15 - 9:00, where the students were asked to dress in their country's colors and they would parade around in groups (I'm picturing something like the Olympics opening ceremony?). I really wanted to go, but Scot had a meeting he needed to get to, so I was left with the option of driving him to work and then going back to the school to watch the assembly. Hmm. OK, I'll give it a try. We do have a GPS after all. So, getting him to work wasn't a problem. We dropped him off and he thought it might be easier if I wnet back towards our house and then to the school instead of driving through downtown. It was going well, until Ms. GPS told me to go right on a road that was under construction. She corrected the route, but then I ended up at the end of a dead end road, and really had no opportunity to turn myself around so I had to back the car up about 1/4 mile. That was awesome. Ms. GPS really couldn't seem to get me in the appropriate direction to get myself to our house (and I can hardly blame her, if you'd see these streets you'd understand). So I ended up almost back by Scot's work and then went from there. But, traffic was busy and I didn't make it to the school until about 8:45, so I decided to forget it and go home. We did make it home. Only about an hour later ;-) I'm sure, like everything, driving will get easier with time. And I'll have the taxi number on speed dial.
School.
Ava will be attending the American International School of Zagreb (AISZ) for 1st and 2nd grade. This has been one of the easier processes of getting ready for our international move - the Embassy was a huge help and so far the staff has been great. Ava was assigned to Miss Michele's class back in August when we thought we were coming. When the move became delayed, Scot sent an email to Miss Michelle and copied Ava's Woodbury Elem. teacher (Mrs. Solheim). After that the two teachers connected and began sending emails back and forth as sort of a pen pal effort between the two classes - very cool! Ava was able to see pictures of her classmates and ask questions about life in Croatia.
Last week, our host Kim arranged a visit for us to meet the teacher and see the school before Ava's first day. Ava's class has 13 students in it, and just she and one other girl (Jane) are the only Americans. There are a few from Croatia and then a number from other European countries. I love that she will have such a diverse group of friends! AISZ is a private school and they teach in English. The good news for us as an Embassy family is that we don't have to pay tuition (which is around $20K/year - yikes!). The visit was great - it was fun to see her classroom and then Ava joined the class for recess and circle time at the end of the afternoon. She couldn't wait to go back!
Tuesday was her first day of school (Monday was Croatian's Independence Day). She was so excited! Unfortunately there was a miscommunication with the bus coordinator, so she didn't get picked up in the morning...but Scot was able to drive her to school and he got the logistics settled so that she came home on the bus that afternoon.
She had a great first day! She was disappointed that her American friend Jane wasn't there (we had met her at a dinner party last week and could be her twin sister), but was able to rattle off some other names of friends she had made. She tried hot lunch and had her first French lesson (we were able to choose between French or German). She came home with some homework which she will have every day - writing practice and 10 minutes of reading.
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