Only a couple of weeks earlier I had given my Atlanta office notice of my imminent departure for Zagreb and, in a related development, my exit from my job. But in those rushed days leading to blast-off we negotiated. This resulted in my working for three more months at 50% time from Zagreb. This was not a tremendous surprise; it was normal for departing employees to hang on for a few more months in order to ease such transitions, and I had given 15 years of my life to the group. But it was good to have that formally agreed upon. This provided a much-needed financial cushion, especially when one considers that I was flying to Zagreb with about $10,000 to my name. Ten grand might sound like a lot, but it wouldn't have lasted me terribly long by itself. And one cannot realistically plan to just spend it all. How much of that ten grand could I go through before I felt I was in a financial danger zone? Half? Three-quarters?
In those final days I also learned that I would be losing my health insurance on 1 January due to a change in the rules at my organization (one must work 75% time beginning 1 January in order to be entitled to health benefits). I assume that during the next two months I'll be able to resolve the health insurance issues somehow.
I spent most of my first full day in Croatia secluded in my new apartment, for a few reasons:
1) I wasn't sure when Ana, the landlord, would come by to settle the last of the payment issues. I had suggested 10 AM to Rent in Zagreb's Dragan the day before. I got up around 8:30 AM. A text from Ana came in around 10 AM proposing 3:15 PM as our rendez-vous time.
2) I wanted to have a moderately stress-free day concentrating on my music and writing projects.
3) I wanted to save some money. I learned last night that even a kebab costs a relative fortune compared to grocery food.
4) After months of medicating my worries with alcohol in Atlanta, I was not yet in the mood to go out drinking in Zagreb (a Facebook update I posted last night pledged I'd be hunting down a beer, but in reality I was in no mood and did not indulge).
Most of all, after all the stress of Twensday, I just wanted to crash.
I went to Raiffeisen bank to withdraw euros, the preferred currency for rent despite Croatia being on a different currency called the kuna. I withdrew kunas from the ATM outside and then converted the currency into euros inside the bank. There was no conversion fee penalty for doing that then, but months later there was. Maybe the change was in reaction to the growing euro woes? Anyway, the woman at the bank chatted a bit with me, and she expressed concern about the economic problems in Greece and the fragile state of the euro.
Before noon, I swung by the Tommy grocery store to pick up a few more items. I got some brown eggs which, in what I thought was a nice touch, had a few downy feathers on them.
A few months earlier I had applied for press credentials in order to cover the Eurovision Jr. Song Contest. On 3 November I received an email from Eurovision saying I was accredited to go to Yerevan to cover the event. This was inconveniently late notification; the competition was only four weeks away. Having just experienced the exhaustion of Twensday travel to Zagreb, and still nursing my never-ending financial headaches, the idea of buying a $1000+ plane ticket and flying off to Yerevan so soon in order to write about something that, let's face it, most people don't care about, was unpalatable. I wrote to friend Liana, a talented young journalist with ties to Armenia, to see if she had any connections I could use for accommodation. Liana replied a week later, on the 10th, apologizing for having overlooked my original Facebook message. She proposed some good general ideas, but by then I knew it just wasn't going to happen.
I ate some baguette/cheese/salami combos. I drank pear juice (which was nearly as thick and sweet as syrup from canned pears) and downed a yogurt shooter. I drank Coke Zero (Diet Coke's European cousin, Coke Light, is now extinct in Zagreb). Then, I killed an hour practicing Croatian with Pimsleur's audio language course.
Landlord Anja arrived at 3:15 on the dot. She was a young woman, I'd estimate around 30. She had settled down (she sometimes referred to herself as "old" when discussing—and dismissing—the notion of going out), but having married only in the last year she remained opinionated about Zagreb clubs. She was very businesslike and professional (as her punctual arrival time demonstrated; her square-rimmed glasses also enhanced this impression).
If you live in Zagreb, you have to register with the police in order to procure a piece of paper with an official purple stamp on it that explains how long you are staying in the country and where you are living. Anytime you walk down the street, a police officer can ask to see this paper. This strikes Americans as being a bit Nazi-ish, but so it goes. In case you are wondering, you don't have to do this if you're staying in a hostel, because the hostel registers you themselves (that's why, at many hostels, you temporarily hand over your passport so that they can take down information from it).
Ana and I walked into the police station, and then we climbed one flight of stairs. The station had the slightly shabby look one typically associates with government-run service providers anywhere in the world (like, say, a DMV in the United States). Employees sat behind glass under the harsh glow of fluorescent lights, the walls were painted a sick yellowish hue, and the worn wooden counters looked like they dated back to Tito's time. There was no waiting time once we walked up to the proper window, but unfortunately the station stopped processing new paperwork at 3:30 PM, so I will have to return tomorrow to finish the job.
I got back to my apartment and cleaned up my "Death" essay, and posted it to the "EorE?" blog. I received a kind thumbs-up from a couple of friends for this effort.
I dug through some more of my big backlog of Euro tunes. As a DJ, it is a weekly ritual for me to listen to all the new songs appearing on the European pop and dance charts each week, but with all the time spent planning for my Zagreb trip I had fallen behind.
Despite my only just getting here, my Mom is popping up on Skype a lot, with too many questions I cannot answer. The lack of answers of course only stresses her out more, and I have enough stress of my own to contend with without having her worrying for me as well. So, I will probably not be on Skype much in the future.
I cannot figure out how to work the kitchen burners. I am also not sure the thermostat is working properly. I began writing down questions for Ana. (Regarding burners, I learned later that night to turn a valve to get gas flowing—duh. And one of Ana's friends later came by to show me how the thermostat worked.)
Plan for tomorrow:
1) Morning: send Chris (my Atlanta office supervisor) my timesheet for October.
2) Eat.
3) Go to police station around 10 AM to finish registration.
4) Return to apartment. Do Atlanta work stuff.
5) See how I feel about finally getting out a bit.
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