Cricket in Croatia?

Last weekend I was invited to cover a Cricket match in Zagreb.  When I told people where I was going I got a lot of surprised looks and head scratching.  Cricket in Croatia?

The sport, born and bred in England, was brought to the British colonies where it became extremely popular and an important part of their cultures. Over the years that popularity has spread around the world including the United States, China and Japan.  But still, many are surprised that a well organized Cricket club exists in this part of Europe.

Cricket is similar to baseball in that it is a bat-and-ball game, played by two teams who either try to score runs or get the runners out. But this is where the similarities end.  Terminology such as wickets, stumps and creases, number of players and field size are just some of the differences. Cricket is normally played outdoors but here in Croatia it moves indoors in the winter.

The sport has been called a “gentlemen’s game” because there is an expectation of no cheating, temper tantrums or arguing with the umpire. But don’t let the word “gentleman” fool you. These players show up with one thing on their mind and that is to win.   As you can see from some of my pictures, players aggressively chased balls, often diving into the ground and each other.  I spent much of the time trying to avoid getting tackled or protecting my gear.  I’m afraid one catch was missed because I was in the way and the player chose not to slam into me.  While I appreciated it, I felt a little guilty. He must have read this on my face because he responded with, “It’s just a game”.  So it appears to be a gentlemen’s game after all. 

 

I loved watching the bantering and camaraderie between the players.  I especially enjoyed listening to it in a multitude of accents and languages, switching back and forth between Croatian and English. 

But for me, the more interesting story is how the players all came together.  The team consisting of men from Great Britain, Australia, New Zealand, South Africa, Zimbabwe, India, Canada, Croatia, the United States and Jamaica all share an immense passion for Cricket and a love for Croatia. Each has a different story as to why they are here.  Some met Croatian women and moved here to get married.  Some are Croatian by heritage but were raised in other countries and then returned as adults.  Some moved here for education or work.  But all have the common appreciation for the lifestyle here.

I got a chance to interview some of the players after the match. They shared with me what they liked most about the sport and how they got involved in the club. Eventually the conversation came around to life in Croatia.   One of the players told me where he is from the attitude is to "live to work" and sneak in a small break on Saturdays.  Here they "work to live" and always find time for family and friendship.  No matter if it’s a Monday or Thursday there is time for a coffee or beer to catch up.  Another player told me it was a fantastic place to raise children and loves the school system.   His friends back home in South Africa can't believe he only travels 10 minutes to work and conducts his business meetings in coffee shops. As I’ve written in earlier blogs, people have shared with me similar stories about this relaxed lifestyle. But this was the first time I heard of so many people who moved half way around the world to return to this way of life.  This shouldn’t surprise me, though.  I returned here, didn’t I?

The passion for Cricket may have brought these men together but the love of the country has sealed the bond.   Or possibly it is vice versa. 

For more information on the Zagreb Cricket Club go to www.zagrebcricket.com. 

Dobar Dan

•  /dôbar dân/

dȍbar dȃn

1. good day
2. good afternoon

Dobar dan is the first Croatian phrase I learned here.  It is what is said between store clerks or restaurant employees and customers; a formal greeting between people who don't know each other.  Since my two favorite things to do are shopping and eating I have lots of opportunity to use this phrase.   However, both of my habits require a little more preparation here than I’m used to. 

 

There are no fast food restaurants in Bjelovar, or at least not as Americans know them.  If you want something to eat you either go to a grocery store and make it from scratch, go to a sit down restaurant or order something at a walkup bakery. (or hope someone invites you over!)

Grocery stores are small but there are quite a few in walking distance.  Grocery carts are also small and in one store they were the size of the children’s pretend carts some of our stores provide.  (This is actually a good thing.  It keeps me from buying too much since I have to walk home and then up 5 flights of stairs schlepping my stuff!)  You must bring your own bags or pay for one at the checkout. Most of the brands I am unfamiliar with and the western brands I do recognize are usually much more expensive than one of the Croatian brands so it is hard to justify the extra expense.  Remember I am living on a Croatian salary.  Besides, buying the local brand adds to the authenticity of my experience.  Often I can identify what the product is because it is self explanatory so I have limited myself to those so far.  Sometimes the package lists its ingredients in English (along with Slovenian, Serbian, Albanian, Bosnian-Herzegovinian and Croatian) but not always.   

I made homemade chicken soup last week that I was able to eat on for several days.  Of course, this was the most economical (and healthiest) option.  I’ve made chicken soup back home before but nothing has ever tasted this good.  I’m not sure if it was the fresh vegetables, fresh chicken or the bullion I used but I was really impressed.  However, once you’ve eaten something for 4 days straight you are pretty much over it.  Next I'm making a beef stew since potatoes, onions, and carrots are cheap and plentiful at the market.  Beef is expensive here and I haven’t quite figured out the meat counter either. But let’s face it I couldn’t tell the difference in a chuck steak and a rump roast back home either. I really want to buy a ham bone for my next soup but I think I’m going to need a translator for that one. 

 

Now I can buy produce at the open air market.  Most of the vendors are from the villages so I had yet to find one who spoke English.  But today I stumbled upon a nice man working one of the produce carts who spoke English.  It was such a relief to have his help I told him I would always buy from him.  His response was "Hopefully I will be here.  I am a police officer and I am only helping my parents today."  Well...there you go.

 

The Butcher

 

Countries in this part of Europe are known for their sausage.  Each individual country and specific regions of countries has their own flavor.  I think I ate a sausage and cheese sandwich every single day for lunch when I lived in Hungary.  Well, the same is becoming true here.  The traditional sausage of Croatia is ćevapi.  They are usually served as 5-10 pieces on a plate or in a flatbread.  I skip the bread and just pop the pieces of meat in my mouth.  Another traditional sausage is kulen.  This is a spicy dried sausage that is very full in flavor.

ćevapi

 

Deli meets often come in tubes that you slice.  This photo is of a tube of chicken I bought for sandwiches.  I found something that looked like bacon the other day.  It’s not pre-sliced but looked just like what I am used to.  However, the package said Hamburger.  I was really scratching my head at that one.  It's not beef or a patty or from the city of Hamburg.

Bread is good and inexpensive but only lasts a couple of days.  I remember this from my time in Hungary.  I guess we put preservatives in our bread back home because I know a loaf of bread is good for a week or more.  By day 3 you can use the bread here for batting practice.  But it’s great on day 1 and 2!

Not all milk is refrigerated.  Some is in what is called Tetra packs.  I've been told we have these in the US.  Maybe we do, but I'm pretty sure most Americans have big plastic gallons of milk in their fridges. I have not been able to find fat free milk just reduced fat.  I have not been able to find sugar free soy milk either.  What I bought was soy light and I assumed it was what I was familiar with.  But when I drank it,  it tasted like melted ice-cream.  I thought, “Wow, everything tastes better in Croatia!”  But when I looked at the ingredients, high fructose corn syrup was the second ingredient. The other thing that is glaringly missing from the store shelves is peanut butter.  I usually only eat natural peanut butter however I would pay a bunch of Kuna for a jar of Jiffy!  I asked some of my students if they knew about peanut butter and most of them had heard of it but none of them had ever tried it.  Can you imagine a childhood sans peanut butter?  But if it's Nutella you want, entire aisles are dedicated to it and its competitors.

 

They eat ketchup and mayonnaise here.  Mayonnaise comes in tubes but Ketchup is packaged in familiar bottles.  I did notice a "McDonald's" brand of ketchup.  I'm a little doubtful that the

McDonald's Corporation knows anything about it, though.  Butter is for baking not for spreading.  They only use margarine for that.  During my first shopping experience I asked Slavica if they had soy butter.  I'm afraid I might have appeared a little high maintenance at that question.

I have yet to see diet coke or any other diet drink.  I’ve been told it is available but just not very common.  I don’t think Croatians care much for sugar substitutes.  None of us should be drinking that stuff anyway.

 

Aluminum foil is available but  comes in small rolls.  As a matter of fact, everything comes in small packages.  No super size anything here.  Perhaps this is the reason they have so much less trash than we do.  Trash cans are tiny.  The one in my classroom is 8 inches high.  It looked like a trash can for Barbie.  Slavica asked me what we put in all of those big trash cans.  I couldn't answer her, because I have no idea.  I just know that one of my Starbuck's Venti coffee cups would fill up the entire 8 inch trash can. I suppose Croatians don't get the mountain of unsolicited magazines at their houses on a daily basis like we do.

 

In Zagreb and other large cities there are McDonald’s restaurants but not here in Bjelovar.  I am actually glad for that.  Last year I went to McDonald’s in Rijeka.  In order to use the restroom you have to buy something and then you are provided with a door entry code on your receipt.  Or you can stand by the door and wait for someone to come out and sneak in. 

I’ve been told that Burger King is actually preferred to McDonald’s because of the grilled flavor of the meat.  They were surprised to hear that Burger King has become much less popular in the US.  I don’t think I’ve been to a Burger King in the last decade.  I can’t even tell you where there is one. I wonder how long before Chick-fil-a makes it to Europe.  Oh, the French are going to hate the name! 

I’m not sure what the exact ratio is but I think it is safe to say something like 1/3 of all businesses in the town are coffee bars.  Sometimes they are right next to each other.  Bjelovar has a reputation for the most coffee bars per capita in all of Croatia and there seems to be plenty of business to go around.  At any given time you can find a large portion of the town’s population enjoying their espresso sitting in outdoor cafes. (when it is not snowing, that is!) 

If you’ve ever travelled to Europe you know there is nothing on the continent similar to a cup of Folger’s coffee.  This is what I drink, black.  I find it difficult to drink the coffee here without milk and sugar.  Like I mentioned before, you almost never see sugar substitute.  No pink and blue packets here. (does anyone still use the yellow packets?)  Your choices are white sugar or brown sugar. A cup of coffee ranges from about 1 ounce to about 3 ounces.  That’s a far cry from a Venti (20 ounces) at Starbucks.  I think if I could pour one of the coffees here into a large glass milk I could probably get something I am used to.  But I might start an international crisis if I did. By the way, there are no Starbucks in Croatia.  As a matter of fact “to go” coffee is a new concept in Bjelovar and not widely accepted.  Drinking coffee is something you experience with your friends not an item on the “to do” list.

On a continent where brewing coffee is an artwork I find it surprising how popular instant coffees are in the homes.  Nescafe which is a brand of instant coffee is extremely popular.  In Croatia there are plenty of cheaper brands to pick from with an array of flavors including cappuccino.

Tea in Croatian is called ćaj (pronounced chai).  So when I was buying tea bags I thought I was buying chai tea.  I wonder what they call chai tea?  ćaj ćaj??  I have switched to drinking mostly tea instead of coffee because of the earlier mentioned reasons.  I would like to make a pitcher of iced tea but I have no ice cube trays and I am doubting their existence here.  Of course, I could just break off some of the icicles hanging from my balcony.   

American Kolache

As it is everywhere, people here like their sweets.  Kolači are one of the favorites.  But Kolači means cake. Can you imagine a Croatian’s surprise if they ordered a Kolache in Texas and were served a pig in a blanket?   (I guess that needs explanation for my foreign readers.  Sausage baked in dough is called a pig in a blanket.)  Chocolate is VERY sweet here. Chocolate candy, cake, and cookies are almost too sweet to eat.  I did say almost.  

All other types of shopping appear to be represented here.  There are shops that sell bedding, jewelry, apparel, school supplies, children’s items, etc.  I have noticed a disproportionate amount of hardware stores that sell things like hot water heater parts and motor parts.  Of course, that is completely lost on me.  Each store is small but has a nice selection.  I bought a hat my first day here because it was snowing.  It was 20 Kuna, about $5.50.  I’m still trying to figure out how much things cost.  Sometimes items seem very affordable like my hat.  Other times they cost just as much as back home but the salaries here aren’t the same.  So there seems to be some inequities. According to the Croatian Bureau of Statistics, the average Croatian salary is $1385/month or about 8000 Kuna.  (I've been told that in the small towns it is closer to about 4000 Kuna.)  But when I peeked in the window of a clothing store I saw a Nike jacket for 900 Kuna, 11% of the average salary.  Gas is about $7 a gallon.  Can you imagine?  I am sure this is why almost everyone drives small cars; for the fuel efficiency.  I am also sure this is why many people don’t even have cars. Can you fathom filling up a Lincoln Navigator at $7/gallon.  That would be one hard pill to swallow no matter what your monthly salary was.  At this point we could discuss Europe’s dependence on foreign oil compared to the United States.  But that’s a topic for another time...or never.

 

I have learned a valuable lesson in frugality in the short time I have been here.  Not that I am a big spender back at home but I am afraid I did have the "there is more where that came from" attitude.  Regardless of your financial situation there is just no reason to be wasteful.  I am adapting to only buying what I need, eating every single thing I buy, and buying only fresh food, not processed.  I turn lights off when I leave a room, turn the water heater on 30 minutes before I need it so it's not constantly running and I disconnect my Internet when I'm not using it.  I imagine it's a lot like how our grandparents lived (well, minus the Internet part).

Hit the Ground Running...

This has been an exciting first week in my new digs.   With lingering jet lag, I began my first lessons on Wednesday.  Both classes were high school students who were extremely bright. The assignment was to debate one of two controversial issues and use the vocabulary I gave them.   One particular girl’s answer was not only grammatically perfect but her opinion was profound as well.  I have a feeling these kids are going to keep me on my toes. 

Even the bowl is made of cheese.

Thursday, I taught 2 lessons to the employees at Sirela, the local cheese factory.  In a welcoming gesture, they put out a fantastic spread of many of their cheeses for us to snack on during the lessons. Their pièce de résistance was a hard cheese, similar to parmesan that has aged for 2 years.  It had such a rich flavor that I couldn’t believe my taste buds.  They were very proud of it and rightfully so because it was amazing. We spent the next hour and a half working on letter writing and conditional sentences.  I’m not sure I made any friends with these assignments and they possibly wanted to take back their cheese by the end of it.  Of course, I’m joking.  These employees made me feel very welcome and I’m excited to return for future lessons.  Even Theo got his picture taken.

 Later that day, I taught a lesson to the employees at Erste Bank.  I actually had met most of them last year when I toured their company.  Throughout the lesson we exchanged comparisons have how banking is handled in the US and Croatia.  My first job out of college was in customer service management at First Interstate Bank (which was an ironic name since there was no interstate branch banking in the US).  So I am fairly familiar with the banking industry.  I shared some of our Federal regulations, which I admit sounded a little ridiculous when said out loud, and they shared some of theirs.  I am looking forward to preparing lessons that will be well suited for use in their field.

 I finished up the day with 2 more classes of kids.  The first were high school freshman who already knew almost every word on the vocabulary list I had prepared so I had to pull out the more difficult list I had for a more advanced class.  It was much more challenging and they were probably wishing they hadn’t said anything.  The last class was a group of little 4^th graders.  We played Apples to Apples and boy did they have fun!  They were just as sweet as they could be.  One little red haired boy was quite the character.  He had a great personality and kept me entertained.  

We ended the week with language testing on Saturday.  Representatives of the British Council came to conduct the testing of the students from the Gloria Language Center.  It just so happened that one of the testers was my friend Mark from Zagreb.  He was the one that helped coordinate my trip last year.  I was really great to reconnect with him.   It was also Gloria’s 20 year anniversary.  So we celebrated with a cake decorated with British and American icons.  The kids loved it!

 

British Council representatives, Mark, Eva, and Iva

 

Language books made out of icing!

Cake should be a food group.

 

 

 I can’t tell you how much I enjoyed my first week of classes.  Slavica, Ana, and all of the teachers at Gloria have made me feel incredibly welcome. It’s going to be a very good semester.

 

 

 Next time…grocery shopping.  That is an adventure all by itself.