The Foreignist

Since it almost never snows here in Split, we decided to take the boys to Bosnia to go sledding. We borrowed some nice plastic sleds from a friend of ours, and took off over the mountains and into the winter landscape. We had been waiting for several days for the weather to clear up, and Valentine’s Day was the first day with clear skies for a long time.

We had been to Kupres before. It’s a small village at the base of a 4,000 mountain in southwest Bosnia. It takes about two hours to get there by car. Last time it took us five hours to get home because we got caught in a blizzard. The road to Kupres is only a road in the cartographical sense. It’s hard enough to stay on it when there isn’t snow covering it.

We packed all of our ski clothes, coats, hats, gloves, and long johns and headed for Kupres. It was a beautiful day. We got to the Bosnian border at Kamensko, and the Bosnian border guard would not believe that we owned our car. He wanted to see our rental contract, but all I could give him was the registration with my name on it. He took the registration, my insurace card, and some green paper that I’m not sure what it is into his superiors. After a few minutes I found where he was inside the building and starting speaking Croatian, telling them that we were just tourists and wanted to come spend the day in their country. He let us go after stamping our passports. We rolled to the next guard shack and they searched our car. We had just got a package from Lindsay’s mom as we were leaving that morning, so they made us open the box and show them what was inside. In all, we killed about 20 minutes trying to cross the border. During that entire time, no other cars came across the border. Obviously, these border patrol officers are very bored.

The toilet at a rest stop in Bosnia. It’s not really a toilet. It’s a porcelain hole in the ground.

Once inside Bosnia, the road get even narrower and more crooked. Garrett got carsick because of the road and the bright sunshine, so we stopped in Tomislavgrad (TG). TG has a nice mosque that is a good reminder of how close to the Muslim part of Europe we live. As we were leaving TG, we got pulled over by the Bosnian police for no reason. They checked our tags, registration, insurace, driver’s license, lights on the car - looking for something to ticket us for. They found that I was missing a stamp on my registration, and start telling me that I need to pay a fine for that. I understood exactly what he was saying, but acted like he was speaking Klingon. This is my standard move when dealing with the police - wear them down with my ignorance. Eventually he let us go.

We arrived at Kupres around 12:30, got changed into our ski clothes and went out to play in the snow. Although there was plenty of snow and the weather was perfect, the chair lift was not running. They said it would be another day before they got the snow conditioned for skiing. (Last time we were there, it was snowing so they closed the mountain. This time it was sunny, so they closed the mountain.) So we had the whole place to ourselves. We went sledding, had a snowball fight, built a snowman, and made snow angels. Caleb made friends with the ski patrol dog (a Croatian shepherd) and tried to get him to go on the sled. He would chase Caleb down the mountain and then follow him back up the hill.

We played in the snow for 4 hours and then decided to head back to Split. Both boys fell asleep while I could still see the ski lodge in the rear view mirror. We took a different route to get back home to see if we could find a better road. It was better, but we got stopped by the police again. Again, it was for no reason. He checked everything he could, and then let us go. I laughed at him. What a slacker. He wasn’t observant enough to find the missing stamp that other guy had found.Back at the border, the Croatian border guard noticed that our visas had expired. We filed for new ones 7 months ago, and were rejected. We filed an appeal, and they are still reviewing appeal (6 months and counting). Luckily, the guards boss was headed to the coffee shop and just waved us on through without checking our passports. We were back home in time for dinner. You can see more pictures of our trip at http://photos.conrady.org.

One of the many pitfalls of living in a small European country like Croatia is that many products in the store don’t have any Croatian or English written on them. I know enough Croatian to be able to read labels in the store, and some products even have English on them somewhere under the heading ‘GB’. However, many products have only German or Italian, since Italy and Austria are the two western European closest to Croatia. Most Croats know a little Italian (named Luigi) and can read labels.

Anyway, I go to the store to buy candles for Garrett and Caleb’s birthday cake and end up buying those trick candles that won’t go out no matter how much you blow on them. Small things like that don’t get the sticker where the translate the label into Croatian. So when the boys started trying to blow out the candles on their cake, I was as surprised as anyone when they all lit up again and kept burning. Only then did I realize what I had done. I let the boys keep trying to blow them out until it looked like they were getting light-headed and about ready to pass out. Then I came with my fingers and squeezed the wick on each candle. My thumb and finger are devoid of any finger prints today. I’m sure all the Croatian parents were thinking, “What a cruel trick to pull on your three-year-old.” Click on the photo to see more madcap birthday party pics.

Everyone here has been sad this week because the heavily-favored Croatian handball team lost in their first match in the elimination round of the World Championship of Handball in Germany. After cruising through the round-robin portion of the competition undefeated, Croatia was unable to sustain their level of offense once they started playing the tougher competition… wait… you mean… you don’t know what handball is?

Well, the best way to describe handball is… just imagine playing soccer with your hands… and you have to shoot from outside the three point line all of the time, and you have to dribble the ball and then shoot it past the goal-keeper. Sound familiar at all? I’m convinced some Europeans got together for some recreation and disagreed on what they should do. Some wanted to play basketball, but others wanted to play soccer. So in a very “United Nations” type of way, they invented a sport that is a kludge, albeit all inclusive. I’m still not clear on all the rules, and it has the feel of a game that is being made up as they go along.

BUT, I find it ten times more entertaining than soccer. The scores are typically in the 20’s or 30’s, and the referees enforce a semi-shot clock. There’s no actual clock, but if the referee thinks the team is not being aggressive enough, he’ll just give the ball to the other team.

Enjoy the Croatian music with these example video clips of handball.