Welcome back to sunny Greece

Or how the Greeks would say... "Welcome to Bangladesh"

Here are a couple of things I have noticed about Greek culture that I didnt know before..

First of all, smoking is pushed to the max! Everywhere, any time, all the time..
Here is my top three spotted most unusual places to smoke in Greece:
3. Furniture store - more like a big mall only with furniture and almost all sales people working there have an ashtray in front of them. One of them also assisted us by putting a cigarette in front of my face to point in which direction we should continue.
2. Fruit store - An obviously bored girl spotted reading her favorite magazine and smoking a cigarette inside the fruit store. Doors closed.
1. And the winner of them all - AMBULANCE van! Yup, a nurse sitting next to the driver smoking his death stick in the ambulance vehicle. Dunno if there were patients behind or not though.

Then..they have tiny little chapels all around the country. Usually next to some road, and they are usually really small (like a dolls house). They represent a memory stone for the people that died. So very often you can see pictures of young motorcyclists inside.

There are much more people begging on the streets than the other European cities Ive visited. And the worst thing about it is there are more and more young people or teenagers that dont look like junkies or homeless. They look like regular kids that go to school, college etc... Its very sad..

Then, homeless dogs.. all around just laying around looking sick and ready to die. Apparently, these are city dogs and people feed them. But still...

OK< these are not such bright things, but I like it here and there are many other nice and positive things.. Next time I get some time :) 

I feel sLOVEnia

At this point my Slovenian experience is loooong gone and I am already finishing my Big Fat Greek experience, however, I will do my best to keep up the good work - finish the Danish chapter blog, Slovenian in short, maybe one post will do.. and finish with the Greek one. In 2 weeks I am off to Spain.. I guess I should type faaaast...

Exams are done!!

So at the day of the last exam, I got home and felt such an incredible relief. There was no more going straight to the room, opening the books and typing.. Typing.. Typing.. Sustainable tourism.. Tourism development.. Tourism and leisure.. Economics.. OMG.. We were all so exhausted. Physically and mentally. Finally a moment to breathe. My roommates and me sat in the kitchen and just talked, and talked and talked for a long time. We haven't had a chance to do so without being rushed to go back to our rooms and write the projects for over a month.
Since then I had the time to participate in organizing an International dinner at the University, Godfather movie night at our place and we are planning on doing a big party in the near future as well. The only problem is that we dont really have an appropriate space to organize stuff. Our place does not have a living room so everything has to take place in Milica's room which is the biggest. We were like 12 people there watching a movie on two laptops.
Every wee there's a party at the St. George dorm and usually it turns out to be sh#%!t. But this Saturday was nice. We played some games and had fun. It was funny on the way home; we had the best intention to crash a party at the high school Gymnasium, but we were 2 minutes late. It just finished as we arrived. There were hundreds of cars in front, from the professors as well as from the students. So we were standing there with our bikes, getting cold and wet in the pouring snow, with 5 layers of clothes, long underware, scarfs, double gloves, hats etc.. Watching these kids in their fancy dresses and suites drive away in their cars... How about that?

Autumn in Esbjerg

Officially, the last couple of weeks have been not so much fun, and there has been more than enough studying going on, so there is nothing new that I could write about. That's why Ill juts mention one thing that has fascinated me lately. Its not a party or a big night out, its not a fun trip, its no adventure.. Nope. Its the trees and the leaves. Thats as far as I can go these days :)
This city looks really nice in autumn colors.. Even though its getting colder and colder, and the clock has changed (so now we have even less daylight); the sun is also still here..
On a really nice day, I open my doors and see all the autumn colors, the leaves are flying all around in so many different colors and shapes.. Yellow, green, brown, orange and there is a bright red every once in a while to spice up this awesome mix. Our garden is full of fallen leaves, on the way to school as well. For some reason, all these colors, really make you feel nice.. Like its an autumn Christmas :)

Fun Trip: Hamburger & Stockholmger

We had a week off and decided to take a trip to Stockholm. It was either flying out of Copenhagen or Hamburg and since we are going to Cph in November we decided to go with the option number 2. Found cheap Ryan air flights, couchsurfing places to stay and a car share to drive there. Seemed like a hell of a deal.

Day before our trip I woke up with a pain in my foot/toe. My roommate Spy gave me some cream to put on hoping it will help. At first it did, but as the day was moving on, it started hurting more and more. By morning the pain was insane and I was seriously thinking not to go. Couldn't even step on the foot, it was all swollen. Even though, decided to go, and in the worst case scenario, I'll come back from Hamburg. One good thing about it is that the doctor is cheaper in Germany (I still didn't pay the insurance in Dk). We took a bus to a place close to Esbjerg and meet two ladies who took us to Hamburg. They had a really old, deaf, blind and not so pretty cat named Sandokan with them. :(

There was so much traffic on the highway, I guess we are not the only ones taking a vacation.

Got there safe and sound. My other roommie Milica gave me some pain killers and they helped ease the pain so I was able to walk through the city. The walk was more of a duck or a penguin walk, but whatever works. In the mean time we realized that I have been putting too much cream on my foot and that is the reason it got so swollen; must be an allergic reaction or something that made it boost like that. Spy forgot to mention that the cram that strong should only be put three times a day. Not thirteen.

The day in Hamburg was so nice, sunny weather and a lot of things to see and wonder around. We checked out all the major sightseeing places, palaces, bridges, harbor, old part of the city, modern part, fish market, stadium etc.. The most interesting part was of course the stuff that you find randomly along the way by taking a wrong turn.. Thats how we ended up in cosy neighborhoods, seen Squatting houses and took a balloon ride 150 meters high. The view was so amazing, I did not expect it to be that beautiful. And we took the ride at the right time. It was still day when we went up, by the time we were up in the air - the sunset; and when we were coming down, it was already dark. I'll blame Murphy for this one again: My camera battery died the moment I stepped into the balloon. But at least I focused and enjoyed the view. So relaxing.

Now let me tell you something about our couchsurfing place. This was a perfect candidate for the How clean is your house show. The second we stepped in, we stayed speechless. Totally in shock, our eyes would just meet for a second and everything was clear: We just need to survive two nights here. We slept with our clothes on in a sleeping bag and on a mattrase. Well, what looked like a nightmare at first sight turned out to be quite an interesting experience. Our host Harro is a really nice guy. He had an injured foot as well, but wanted to hang out and take us places. He took us to one of the Squatting houses and we chilled out there for a while. It was kinda weird, I didn't really know much about these things and I thought that poor homeless people live here. There was a bar in the basement with a couple of ppl in side and a weird DJ. Weird meaning his "music"sounded like throwing boxes down the street. At its best. And the ppl that were there looked like usual random ppl, not weird at all. After that we went to another cool place, guys were shooting pool, again we had a good time. I forgot to mention that on the first night, Harro left us his whole flat and went to sleep at his friend's place. We really really liked him even though he is the Dirty Harry. :) And this whole experience was actually exciting and something new, something I will definitely not forget.

Detail from our first CS place

Hamburg Center

Next stop was Lubeck airport next to Hamburg. Again we found a deal how to get something cheaper. Bought a package of five tickets that turned out to be cheaper than three separate. And plus - managed to sell one. From this airport we went to Skavsta airport which is an hour and a half away from Stockholm. So now we learned another lesson about Ryan air. If you combine all the transportation costs to and from the surrounding Ryan air airports, it comes out the same as a bit more expensive flight with a normal airlines that departs closer to the actual city. So we got there in the evening and had to contact our second CS host Andreas. Since our Danish phones are not working outside the borders, we had to communicate online through CS. For some reason, we did not notice any Internet cafes and the only possibility was my Touch so as I was walking through the city I had it in my hands all the time looking for wifi signal. A couple of times we even asked people to borrow us their phones to send a message. Cant believe that we could have lived without the cell phones and all this technology not so long ago.

Vasa Maritime Museum

Eco Taxi

Eventually we met our Swedish host Andreas and went straight to sleep. Andreas was tired as well cuz he just came back from a students party cruise and he was working early in the morning. He is also a nice guy. It was funny when we came into his flat (which is new and very very nice), and he said sorry about the mess. I just said Trust me, this is not a mess, and tried not to laugh out loud.

We had very little time in Stockholm and so many things to see. First spot was the Vasa Maritime Museum. I was a little sceptic about it, because most of the maritime museums I've been to are more or less the same. Vasa is a Swedish ship that sank on it's maiden voyage, not even 2km after setting sail. It has been at the bottom of the ocean for more than 300 years and today 95% of the presented ship is original. It took a lot of effort to dry and conserve the original parts - 17 years of spraying and 9 years of drying; and the interesting fact is that the pollution and toxins in the sea actually helped the ship not to rotten and kept the microorganisms away.  Museum is spread along six floors with the ship in the middle. Every single little detail is explained, either written down or shown as a figure example. From the very beginnings and building a ship, the sail away, the life on board.. They have Captain's cabin in real size and a model of the ship that shows what was going on on each part of the ship. They even had the area for criminals and sick people. Many different object were saved, even food, but only one piece of gold - a small ring. Really fascinating was seeing the original skeletons of some of the people that were sailing. Even more, they have managed to reconstruct their faces and made very very eligible models and did not miss a single hair or wrinkle. Amazing. You could also read stories about their lives and why they were on the ship. Even their medical history was mentioned. They had the whole reconstruction of the raising process, explanations for every ornament, which colors have been used, material... You really do not leave this place with many questions. Right next to this museum was an open air museum Skansen, which was a total disappointment. It is advertised as a place that presents typical and authentic Sweden, but it was actually the swedish country side that it presented. Couple of village houses, windmill and a bunch of animals. I've said so many times that I'm not going to give money to see trapped animals either in zoos or whatever kind of reserves. Again, they seemed sad. I mean, their homes are not that bad, but still they don't have their freedom. Only a window was separating us from three big bears. There was a bit of empty space in between the glass and the wall when they all started to rush into this tiny hole. They could not brake through of course, but it was exciting to hear their breath so close. There were some other interesting animals like wolfs, mooses, buffalos, lynxes etc.. At the end we were looking at cows and chicken and goats and then we realized it's time to go and not waste a second more in here. Btw. All the time it was raining and the sky was gray. Agghh.. After that we took a break and went to have some lunch at TGI Friday's, as per Spy's wish because he used to work there. Along the way, we checked out some super fancy stores which we can not afford. Not now. Full of energy we continued our mission to Nobel museum which was ok, but also a bit disappointing - it only has one floor and not too many exhibitions. Luckily we got in for free so we were not so bumped about it. The whole day and we still didn't get in touch with Andreas. Well, he probably wouldn't go sightseeing the Royal palace and the City hall with us but we wanted to meet him for drinks later on. My Touch battery died and we did not comprende how to use the public phone. We ended up in Hard Rock Cafe getting a t-shirt for my little sister, and the nice lady that worked there send a msg to Andreas. The girl was from Nicaragua, but lived in Miami and moved to Stockholm because of her boyfriend who she met in Paris. How about that?! Finally we met Andreas and Nicolas at the cheaper bar across HRC. There was a football match Madrid : Milan on and the bar was packed. Madrid won of course. We had a good time with our hosts and hit the road home. Last night in Stockholm and a long way home tomorrow. Well, at that time, we did not have a clue what we are about to experience the next day. The day started early, had to say goodbye to the guys and catch the last bits of the city that we have not explored. Most of the places we wanted to see were closed in the morning so we went to get some delicious breakfast and buy the souvenirs. At 11:30am we took a bus to the Skavsta airport which is 100km away. Took a flight back to Lubeck in Germany, had lunch, walked around a bit and got on to our first train. After 20 minutes switched to another train. And the same procedure five more times in the next six hours!! Some rides took 20 min some 2 hours. We didn't have a lot of time to change the trains either. Once we boarded the wrong one and got out at the last minute. The cherry on top of the cake was the last station. Somewhere in the middle of nowhere in Dk, we get off the train and have more than an hour before our next train arrives. It's already past 10pm, we are exhausted and cold. There isnobody else at the station except us and when we try to get inside -  It is closed!! Nothing else in this place works, everything is closed and everybody is sleeping. feels like the time has stopped and we are in the horror movie. The locked hotel right in front helped to boost up the creepy atmosphere but what was freaking me out the most were bright red roses on the rusty wall. Everything else was dark, fogy, silent and dead except those horror red roses, lightened up by the lamp above them! We found an open empty dirty and smelly room whose purpose I still don't know. Stayed there for a while because it was wormer, but it was time for the train to arrive so we had to get out. There were two more people at the station now. And the train was late. First it was five minutes, then seven, then ten... And every couple of minutes it got worse and worse. Instead of cutting down the time, it was taking longer and longer to a point that it got to twenty-something minutes! After being late for half an hour already!! I slept in the plane and the train so I wasn't that much tired, and I wasn't that much cold either, but my roommates were absolutely freezing and going crazy. We never thought that we would miss our Esbjerg home so much and be so eager to get back. The train finally arrived, about 15 minutes more and we would have a taxi drive us home. That would be nice. Instead, the train dropped us off at the main train station in Esbjerg, where we left our bikes five days ago when we started this adventure. Meaning that, the trip is not over.. 20 more minutes of a bike ride home. Now it's over. Mission accomplished with great success! Good night :)

Inspiration while waiting for the damn train to arrive

Our last train ride and frozen feet

Danish language course

I have a feeling I could learn Chinese easier than Danish.

EMTM Team

Not sure if I mentioned earlier but this EMTM team is pretty international.. Germany, Austria, Ireland, Spain, Slovakia, Serbia, Slovenia, Greece, Ethiopia, China, Thailand, Bangladesh etc.. And every single one of us has at least a bit of world traveling experience. Actually, a lot of us have been to a few places "around the globe" and far away from our homes. And that sounds pretty cool to me. Guess what else? We are all into tourism and traveling! Looks like we will be moving around Europe a lot more than the three countries where we will be studying. Some already went to Sweden and Germany.

Most of us are between 20 and 30 years old and there's only five men in the group. But from what I've seen so far, the girls know how to have fun!
Most of the group lives in the dorm in the center of the city, some in the other dorm next to the university, five of us live in flats like mine, some live in student houses... We are scattered all around the city. All the time there's something going on in one of all these places so we hang out quite a lot. And keep saying that's gonna stop and we will all start studying. Starting Monday.. ;)

Odense Student Ball

Last Friday we had an organized trip to Odense - H.C. Andersen's home town. There was an annual Party/Ball for all the SDU (Syddansk Universitet) students. We left Esbjerg early in the afternoon and did not participate in the reception (welcome speech from the Royal family + dinner), but we had the best intention to explore the city. That's basically the main reason why we went in the first place. But, as we were fortunate with nice worm sunny weather in the last couple of days, this day came as a shock! First we wanted to search for the cheap "20Krn All you can eat" asian buffet, which one of our colleagues recommended; but we couldn't find it. the reason for that might be that we didn't even know the name of it and the tourist office was closed. Btw. here tourist office closes at 1:00pm. Do I need to repeat this sentence? Tourist office in Odense (3rd largest city in DK) closes its doors for the tourists at 1:00pm. 1:00pm. Well, we asked a couple of people on the street and everyone gave us a different answer but we didn't back down. We were hungry but determined to find this place! Along the way we ran into a sign that said: Pljeskavice i cevapcici (traditional Bosnian dish). We understood that as a sign hehe. There was eight of us all together, four of which are Serbia (2), Slovenia and Croatia. After a 10 minute discussion what to order, everybody ordered nice chicken kebebs and they were really the best. Why? Because the guy who runs this place is Bosnian Eros Bosanderos (Kifla). Once we realized that we are all ex-yu here, this sudden flow of joy and laughter overwhelmed the whole place. He even has a small statue of our Yugoslavian president Tito next to the cash register. And a Bosnian flag and a huge paysage on the wall. Kifla was a nice funny guy telling us stories where he had been living across Yugoslavia and a bit of experience from all around. Ive heard before how Bosnians are really nice genuine people who will always bring out the positive atmosphere and help you if you are in need. Definitely a place to visit in the near future. Strange how I haven't seen so many places that are right next door to my home (Well maybe because I'm not home any more :)

Anyway.. this "Ball" thing was pretty interesting. TheUniversity is just mega huge, I think I could easily get lost over here. If you are late for your class, I guess you can just forget about it and skip it. Last time it took us forever to get from the entrance to the hall where the presentation was, and I thought its just a coincidence, but no.. It is a really big big building. They have placed some signs, so it looked identically like an airport. Thats how big it is! We danced a bit at the beginning and just walked around and chilled at the end. It was pretty cool to see so many different people at one place. Yes, Im talking about clothes and fashion. Here you could have seen everything. And I mean everything. Folks here are just being themselves. Not what I was used to see back home or in the States. There were so many different styles and characters: Latest fashion, gothic, casual, fancy schmancy, hillbilly, alternative, eccentric.. And no one cares about what the other person is wearing, that's the point. And the professors were dancing together with the students, showing off their rock moves. at the end we met this danish guy, who was so high on life, overwhelmed by everything but that was funny to see. We started talking and surprisingly he knew where Croatia is. And all the other european countries. Thats a strange experience. The other day, one of the Italian guys did not know where Croatia is! And you think you've heard it all in the States - "Oh yes.. Croatia is a part of Russia, Oh yes, I know Yugoslavia" Oh yes, this and that.... Even though... What I've been hearing a lot lately is: "Wait a minute.. How come Croatia is not a part of the European Union?!?!" I guess that's better than the first option?

University of Southern Denmark

Finally we all met during the first two introduction weeks, runned by Jackie and Florin who already finished EMTM. There is 34 of us, from about 17 different countries. It's mostly Europe, but there are some guys from Asia and Africa. Very multicultural group and they all seem very very cool. The introduction stuff had quite an intense schedule, starting early in the morning and finishing late in the evening/night. (Well, the evening activities were mostly fun stuff and team building).

First couple of days we got a tour around the campus (with a delicious danish lunch), tour of the city (on pouring rain but we never backed down), field trip to Fanoe island (right across Esbjerg, 10 minutes away by a ferry) and of course we got to see how the things work out here. Have to say it is very much different than what I was used to during my Croatian studies but it will be just another challenge. Especially the part where they explained the writing is done the "Harvard way". Sure, why not... 3 years out of school and now I'm into Harvard way of writing.. Can I sign up for the beginners class, please?  First two classes that we have are Sustainable Tourism Development and The Economics in Tourism and Leisure. Both sound very interesting and everybody is so anxious to start. The STD professor is very enthusiastic about the subject and that is what makes it even more awesome. Economics seems to be just like I wanted it to be, more leisure and tourism and less economics. :) There is a lot of reading included already, and there are so many additional books and titles, and the Library is like a little treasure chest with tons of interesting titles.. You get the wish to just swallow all the information at once. At least now I have enough time to read. Which brings me to the close topic of how difficult it is for foreigners to find a job here. Now listen to this: Everybody says we will be happy if we get a job as a dish washer or a cleaner! Not exactly he dream job I imagined at the age of 26, but in these times of crisis, I'll do it. 

Now a little bit more about the university.. It has a couple of more campuses around Denmark, and the biggest one is in Odense (H.C. Andersen hometown). There we had a big welcome event for all the international students that came to Denmark this year. And one of the presenters was the Danish Princess herself! That university was huge, it took us forever to get from the entrance to the hall where the presentation was. At SDU Esbjerg, we met people that study Engineering, Humanities, Social Sciences, Public health etc.. And I still haven't met anyone from Croatia. There are two Serbian girls and two Slovenian girls in the EMTM, and I met a couple of more ex-yu guys from other programs, but no one from Croatia. Well, somebody will show up eventually. One cool thing about the University is that with the student ID, you can enter any time, day or night and use the facilities like computer room, learning rooms etc.. It mean you could come at 3AM on a saturday night! How cool is that?!

Got into a Masters Program

First, just a short introduction why am I even here.

I graduated with bachelors in 2007 and ever since I wanted to do a Masters program. I've been searching for the perfect one, and trust me, the search was long - from the numerous European Universities, through the US, until Asia and Australia... So at the beginning of this year I accidentally ran into the EMTM (European Master in Tourism Management) program. I was so amazed when I saw the schedule and the subjects and I knew straight away that my name has to be written in there. Started the preps immediately and got in. Unfortunately, it was already too late for the scholarship so I had to come back to the cruise ship to earn some more money. After five months, returned home with a pocket full of money, but it was still not enough :( One more time I'm paying the due because Croatia is not an EU member. If we were EU, the dead line for scholarship would be in June, and not January like for the NON EU countries. And I would get it for sure because I'm the perfect candidate. But it is what  it is so let's just go with it.

http://www.emtmmaster.net/

My first blog

Hello everyone.

So this is going to be my first blog ever. I decided to do it because as much as I love catching up with everyone back home and around the world, it takes a looot of time. Time that I don't really have right now. This way I'll keep in touch with every one - at once. Quick and easy.

Let's see how it goes...