Coming back home for Christmas

Here I am back at home with my family. Returned to my roots, to my old house, old room, same old people and friends. Same all, but still different. Some things never change but a lot of them do, especially when you're away.

I had an interesting journey from Zadar to Šandrovac. My bus was at 10:30 in the morning but I got up at 8:30 because I needed to give some document to one of the girls from our ESN section. Of course, lazy and totally-not-a-morning-person-never-in-my-life-no-way-a-aa I am, instead of having a cup of coffee and breakfast, as every normal person would do, I went back to bed. Woke up an hour later, packed a few things I had left (I actually packed the evening before, it took me maybe 20 minutes - I am soooo getting good at this) and dragged the suitcase down the stairs. That was probably a funny scene to watch, if anyone saw it; the top handle on the suitcase got broken when I was moving back to Zadar (Mr. Cabdriver, it's totally your fault and not the fault of my overloaded/overpacked suitcase - of course you can put a 100 kilos in the space appropriated for 50 kilos!) so I had to grab the whole suitcase by the side handle and the suitcase itself. And there's many stairs to go down from my apartment to the front yard.

So, I went back for my guitar and headed towards the main bus station. I didn't buy the ticket the day before, as, again, normal people would do, nor did I leave the apartment somewhat earlier in order to have time to purchase the ticket. Oh no, couldn't change my lovely habit of being late wherever you can. I got to the bus station 5 minutes before the departure of the bus and... Once again, had more luck than brains. The nice-but-slow lady working at the bus station told me someone just returned the ticket 5 minutes before I came, so she had the last ticket for me. I took it, happy because of the fact that I got the ticket but also because the seat number was 32, hence not the back back seat which can sometimes make me nausy and is quite uncomfortable.

Of course, as it always goes, when I entered the bus, there was a woman sitting on my seat. You know, usually I couldn't care less for the seat number and where I'm sitting, if there's place, I'll sit anywhere. But the bus was packed and there was no other seat left. I don't know how they're selling bus tickets there but apparently they sold one too many. I was standing there with my guitar, everybody looking at me, I didn't have coffee nor breakfast (read: was sleepy, hungry and thirsty), no makeup, my eye started to be painful that morning, red and tearing, so all of that added to the lovely picture of me, while the nice ticket-cheking lady was trying to find me a seat. Finally, she took me to the front part of the bus and told me I'm gonna sit on the front seat next to the driver. The honorary seat, as I call it. I sat down, while the guy who was accompanying the driver and who usually sits on that place was standing beside me. Funny, normally I would feel nervous/ashamed/uncomfortable by the sudden (negative) attention I was getting as a girl with the guitar, a weird eye and not having a seat to sit on, but that day I couldn't care less. Although I did feel a bit bad that the guy had to stand during the whole trip, I felt it only for like 5 minutes because hey, after all, I did pay for that ticket. So I just leaned back and slept the most of the journey. Like a president, sitting on the front seat next to the bus driver. The bad side of it was that I had to get up every time the bus stopped to debark the passengers, but luckily that was only 3 or 4 times.

Once in Zagreb (ah ya, there is no direct bus Zadar-Bjelovar when out of season), I took the tram to go visit my aunt. As I have no sense of direction at all and from two options almost always choose the wrong one, I decided to ask a man on the tram station if the direction for the tram I was supposed to take was the right one. He confirmed and continued talking to me. He was taking the same tram, so he was sharing his wisdom with me and another guy standing next to us in the tram all the way to his stop. We were talking about technology and how the world has progressed more in the last 20 years than in the period of a 100 years, then the man and the guy standing next to us started to discuss how their children don't even know what a black-and-white TV or movie look like, how it is to live without electricity etc. It was actually an interesting conversation, the three of us belonging to three different eras and giving opinions from three different sides.

One more time in Zagreb, I didn't get caught driving around in the tram without a ticket. Yaay for me! When I got out in front of the building where my aunt lives, I didn't realize that the building was behind me, so I crossed the road and wondered how did I get out on the right tram stop but nothing seemed familiar to me. When I crossed the road, I turned around and realized how stupid I was so I crossed the road again. Then I didn't listen carefuly when my aunt said through the interphone that she lives on the 6th floor so I got out on the third, saw the apartment wasn't there, called the elevator again, went to the fourth floor, same thing; finally I arrived on the 6th floor and I probably would have missed the apartment if the boy who was in the elevator with me didn't get out and said hi to my aunt. Driving around in the elevator like a fool, woohoo, welcome to my world! (Ya, it happened before.)

I spent a nice afternoon with my aunt. She was making lunch and apologizing the whole time that she didn't have the lunch ready when I got there; that's just like my aunt, apologizing even when there's no reason for it. She was a bit sad as well and I didn't know what to tell her; that day was supposed to be the fiftiest anniversary of her marriage, but oncle died last year. I wanted to hug her or something but I didn't. I suck in situations like these, I never know what to say, what to do. So I just turned the subject to something else. She asked me about my time in Ireland and I started talking about it endlessly, after all, it is a subject I have a lot to talk about. To be honest, I didn't really feel like talking about Ireland that day - I would get this awful feeling in my stomach every time I mentioned Ireland because it made me think of my Irish drunk-ass-boy with whom the situation wasn't (isn't) the best at the moment. But better that than the awkward silence with my sad aunt.

Apart from that, I really did enjoy that afternoon. My aunt made a great lunch (her cooking is yummy), I ate a tone of delicious cookies, and later I went home. Well, not actually home, to tell the truth... You see, my brother was supposed to pick me up in Bjelovar (the town 20 min from my home) when I arrive, but I was about to arrive like 2 hours after he was in town, so I told him I will try to get a ride home. As well, since it was Saturday, that afternoon I asked one of my friends if he's going somewhere out in the evening. So, while I was waiting on the bus stop, he answered me that he's gonna be in town and stay there and that I should stay as well. I told him I'm still in Zagreb and that I wasn't dressed for going out, plus I had a big suitcase. He said to put it in his car. Well, first I said I can't, but then I thought again and called my mum, told her I'll stay in town and come home in the morning. I was waiting for her reaction. All she said was: "Ya, ok". I love my mum so much.
As you may guess, that's what I did. I came to Bjelovar, Sven (my friend) picked me up and we went to a Christmas party of his political party - we ate, we drank, we danced, and later we went out. There was another friend with us, a very funny one. We got a bit smashed, but not totally. I know I got fairly drunk because at one point I got mad at Sven, refused to join them and get into the bar so I waited outside the bar for like 10 minutes. I got mad over I don't even remember what, something utterly stupid, as I sometimes do when I'm drunk. Anyway, all in all, it was a fun night. It ended by stealing Christmas decorations from a Christmas tree on the square (if you can call it a square), buying food (2 times, haha) and sleeping in the car on the way back. My mum was already awake when I got home.

Ya, like I said, it was an interesting journey back home.