Aug 17, 2006

Useless Facts About Croatia :0)

**This is for you Mrs. Cathie!! **
Okay some normal day to day things in Croatia.
FOOD
We pretty much eat like Americans do. I mean I only know how to cook like a good Texan so that's how I cook. The only difference is pretty much everything has to be from scratch. We have almost no prepackaged foods here. I pretty much prepare meals like our grandmas did.
When we first arrived in Croatia in May, 2000 we went on a radical diet. Really, I couldn't read the packages and couldn't find the Hamburger Helper anywhere (the base of all Bible college students menus) so we didn't do alot of eating, or at least we ate tons of sandwiches. :0)
Okay the price of food here in Croatia:
  • 1 liter milk is about $1
  • We don't have Mrs. Bairds or Wonder bread here in Croatia so we buy the huge loafs of bread daily at the Pekarna (bakery) around the corner.
  • We do have COKE for any of you fans out there, they are about $2 a two liter.
  • For 10 eggs, (eggs come on 10 not 12, strange I know) are about $2.
  • Chesse is pretty expensive, we pay about 32 kuna a kilo for the cheap stuff which is about 7 dollars.
  • Sugar is about $1 for a lb.

Food items Croatia knows nothing about:

  • FF cooking spray
  • Black eyed peas (for those southerners)
  • BBQ sauce
  • Kraft Mac and Cheese :0)
  • Maple Syrup
  • Cake Mixes
  • Cake Icing
  • Biscuits
  • Chili
  • Tortillas
  • Salad Dressings (Croats and Europeans in general only use vinagar and oil)

Supplies that i've yet to see in Croatia and I miss!

  • Zip lock baggies (Thanks Shawna :0)
  • Fabric softner sheets
  • Crayola Crayons

Misc prices

  • Gas is about $5 a gallon (yea you guys thought you had it bad)
  • We pay for every call placed from our phone, there are no "local" calls in Croatia. :0)
  • We have to pay to have a TV (which we don't) and to listen to the radio (don't do that either) It is still required to pay for the use of the TV and Radio whether they are used or not.
  • The chimney sweep comes yearly and you have to pay for his service whether you want it or not.

Wierd Things:

  • Each child is required to remove his shoes before entering the school building and wear house shoes while at school. Really, I'm not joking!
  • Europeans love playing soccer on asphalt.
  • Croatia doesn't have any amusement parks or mini golf places.
  • Most kids in school have cell phones from the age of 7.
  • Mom is always the boss of the family
  • Croatians never cook green beans
  • You never eat sweet things for anything but dessert. No sweet baked beans or cole slaw!
  • Croats believe that if you eat raw potatoes you will eventually die from a high fever.
  • If you sit on cement it will ruin your kidneys and it very dangerous.
  • Croats almost never eat ice, it will give them sore throats but they love to eat ice cream.
  • It's totally legal to make moon-shine.
  • Pink is a very popular color for wedding dresses.

There are tons of other things about Croatia that are oh so interesting but I can't possibly think if them now, as soon as I publish this post I'll remember, always do!!! :0)

21 comments:

  1. Thanks for sharing, even though you think it is useless, it was fun learning about Croatia. Some of it was kind of funny. ;0)

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  2. Wow! Those are very interesting!
    Some strange, but still interesting. *Ü*
    Thanks for sharing those. We love being able to look into 'your world'.

    By the way, thanks for the tip about thicker/crispier crust and about freezing the bread crumbs.

    Have a great day!

    ~ Christina
    HsKubes HomeSchool Haven
    HsKubes Haven for Home
    Christian Military HomeSchool Mamas

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  3. That sound a lot like Chile, 23 years ago, when I arrived here as a child. Eventually I learned to make my own BBQ sauce. Now we can buy it! We can also buy mac and cheese and ziplock thingies, even the funny shower-cap things for bowls. The only thing that would make going to the US no longer a necessity would be to be able to buy corn tortillas! You know what I mean?

    I am going to Santiago tonight, tomorrow or Sat, we are going to Applebee's! It is such a different place now.
    R

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  4. LOL, the legal moonshine might explain the more "weird" rules. LOL Just kidding. Some of them are strange. Like the house shoes at school. That's different. Can you see that happening in the states. And as far as cell phones go, it's pretty much like that here now. Everywhere I go I see kids with cell phones. Maybe not as young as seven, but we are becoming increasingly close to that age.
    Thanks for sharing some of those facts with us. They were very interesting.

    :D
    Kristi

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  5. I loved reading the "little things" about Croatia. It's those things that make up the culture, and it's fun to see more than just the official political stuff. I think I would enjoy buying bread at the bakery daily - I think. If I had to, it might get old. Thanks for the peek into life in Croatia!

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  6. Anonymous6:54 PM

    WOW!!! Thanks for the facts - not useless though :) How would one go about sending some things to you in Croatia???

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  7. Wow, how interesting! Thanks Tori.

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  8. Oh, Thank you thank you thank you - I enjoyed every minute :)

    I printed it out for my daughter Sydney and I too enjoy :)

    Cathie

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  9. This is SO interesting!!! Strange that you posted this, though. I was wondering JUST TODAY what your life is like in Croatia! I'm sooo glad that you shared this!

    His,
    Mrs. U

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  10. Tori, send me your address at majormomof3@msn.com. Crayolas are on sale here right now and I can send you some. 15 cents for a 24 pack.

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  11. Oh, I just remembered I live in moonshine country in SW Virginia. You are not allowed to buy but so much sugar at a time in the area grocery stores due to illegal stills. We made applebutter with our church one year and my husband had to fill out paper work and be fingerprinted to buy the amount of sugar we needed.

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  12. Rhonda,
    I'm doing my best not to be jealous of you. Applebees, I think I would move to Santiago and become a missionary to the workers there are Applebees!!! :0)

    Kate,
    It's pretty simple to send things to Croatia. We usually send through the normal post office, that's the most inexpensive.
    I will say though, with us coming home for furlough in 3 months I would suggest not sending anything now. I don't want you to waste your hard earned money when we'll be able to get the things in 3 short months. Thanks you a million times for the thought, the desire to be a blessing is the real blessing. Thank you Kate!!

    Cindi,
    That's so funny. I guess I don't think there are still moon-shiners in the hills, but I guess there are. How funny to have to sign for sugar. :0)

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  13. That was very interesting, Tori. Alot of things are much the same in Germany.

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  14. Thanks for sharing all those facts! I would love to visit another country someday!

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  15. I enjoyed learning more about Croatia. Some of their ideas were pretty funny! Thank goodness icecream doesn't hurt *my* throat!! ;0)
    Kelli

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  16. Very strange & interesting!

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  17. Playing soccer on cement is the same in Mexico city. There is not that much grass! And where we are learning Spanish, they have no problem playing basketball on dirt--uneven dirt. They pretty much carry the ball.

    Thank you for all the facts! Did you get a "from scratch" type of cookbook?

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  18. Hi! I stumbled across your blog and I am a bit confused honestly... OK, so some of the things your wrote down are quite true for Croatia, but seriously, where did you get this stuff from??? I am a Croatian, born and raised here, and I never knew these stuff, probably because they're not true. OK, so maybe they're true for your first door neighbors, but you shouldn't extend that to the whole nation because it most definitely does not represent the way Croatians live. No hard feelings :)

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  19. I just came up you blog and these facts. I am a Croatian, and I can tell you that there is BBQ sauce in the stores. All bigger supermarkets have them. I lived in London, and there was normal for children at kindergarten and school to have sleepers in which they would change once they got to school. It is because of dirt and germs from the shoes, so it can only protect our child. We do cook green beans, especially inland Croatia, and even make soups and stews with them (I don't know which part of Croatia you lived, but that statements is completely untrue). Our Cole slaw is a different version than you guys have it here. It is more like cabbage salad, which you can also find in Germany, Hungary, Poland etc (No mayo). Although you will find mixes for muffins, chocolate chip cookies etc (Podravka makes them), they will never be a priority since most of Croatian don't believe in processed food full of chemicals. It is true that there is no mac and cheese, but it was very unnecessary to mentioned this since this is a traditional American food, and I am not sure that anybody else favors it as much. I am also not sure that you will find it anywhere else in the world...also, there are no American communities that live in other countries so selling mac and cheese would be needed or prosperous. To be honest, I don't know on how many weddings you went, but white is the most traditional color for weddings (but that is less important since there are absolutely no rules what color your wedding dress should be).

    Despite the differences I hope you had a great time and experience there.

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  20. Even though people have said they aren't true, I thought they were interesting, even if they aren't true. I've visited Croatia as well. PLease visit my blog at http://mjgds.org/students/sabrinam. I love getting visitors and comments!
    From,
    ~Sabrina~ xxx

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  21. Actualy kida dont need to take their shoes off in school and about potato thing it little bit diffrent we belive if you eat it you will get feaver wich modern day kids use to get out of.exams in schools but good facts.Here are few more. In dalmatia part of croatia wich is near sea people play sport called picigin and this sport only exist here and until few years ago we didnt have many fast food stores and still today there are about 30-40 mc donalds in hole country mybe less

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