Croatia

So after saying our goodbyes to our lovely visitors we headed off to Croatia.  Well, we actually didn't reach Croatia the first day, but that was our final destination.  The first day we took our time reaching our hotel, stopping along the way to see different churches in small villages and hearing their stories.  We stopped at one village that Calvin students had planted walnut trees years before and had tea and really good pastries.  Once we reached our hotel we ate a huge dinner and went to bed.  The next morning we took that short drive to the Croatian border. Our first stop was the Batina Monument to commemorate the Battle of Batina, in which 30 Nazi soldiers held off thousands of Red Army soldiers trying to cross the Danube because the Nazis were positioned on the hill, giving them a large advantage.  They were able to hold the Red Army off for two weeks. It's interesting because in Croatia and Serbia the Soviet Union is not seen as something that was immensely evil because they were not occupied by the Soviet Union.  They were able to chose what kind of communism they wanted.  We spent a lot of time there just looking around the area.  It was on a hill and you could see the Serbian and the Montenegrin boarder on the other side of the Danube.  Then we went to see another church but it was locked up so we had fun looking at the million frogs hopping around.

One of the churches we visited.

Batina Monument

The View

Next we went to a church service for Reformation day in a village one of our guides lives in and then spent 3 hours eating lunch.  It was awesome!! We had soup and then meat and potatoes and then desert.  There was an older man sitting a little ways down from me talking to the students around him.  He didn't speak English but he managed and he was one of the happiest people I've seen.  Once he got some one to translate for him and said that if everyone was as happy as him, the world would have no problems.

Sharing a meal.

Once we finally pulled ourselves away we went to a park with an old hunting castle a Hungarian princess liked to use to get away from her family.  It was really beautiful there and we had fun throwing leaves around. Then we visited another church but it was a bit different of an experience.  The church had some kind of construction being done and the whole yard had been cut down by about two feet.  In the yard there had been bodies from the wars buried there and some of the bones were dug up and laying in the dirt.  It was really strange because it didn't really creep a lot of us our right away but now that I look back on it, it was very strange to be looking at the bones of people that were dug up.  I don't really know quite what to think of it.  Apparently no one in the village cared about it, our guide said that they have so many bodies here that it doesn't really matter what happens to these ones.

Castle

We went on to see another church and the pastor was there to tell us more about it and then he invited us to try the wine and walnut liqueur that he makes.  I wasn't crazy about the wine but the liqueur was really good! And he turned out to have a lot of other kinds of liqueur he wanted to share with us, such as apricot schnapps, some kind of herb liqueur, cherry stuff (which was amazing and definitely my favorite), and even some absinthe. I think it safe to say we all had a fairly easy time falling asleep that night, except for the fact that the car Robert was driving with Tanya, Leighanne, and I started to steam right at the border and we got be towed back to the hotel by one of the vans.

Push starting the car on the way, I didn't blog about it, but here's evidence.

The next morning we crossed the border back into Croatia, no towing needed, and headed to the city Vukovar.  In 1991 there was a war in this area between the Serbs and all the minorities in Yugoslavia because the Serbs wanted an independent state.  Vukovar is right by the Danube and therefore a very important city for the Serbs to occupy. So Vukovar had Serbs attack them from across the river but also Serbs within the city started to attack the city.  Needless to say, a lot of damage was done.  One of the monuments from this war is the water tower.  It is right by the river and covered in holes and very damaged.  There was a playground at the foot of the water tower and it included a marry-go-round that I still do not understand how it ride successfully.  You face the middle on the seat but there is no back so the centrifugal force pushes you off your seat! We tried holding each others hands but that didn't work very well and resulted in me being thrown onto the ground, much to the amusement of everyone, myself included.

The Water tower.

The merry-go-round of death.

After that we went to a cemetery that had half of it dedicated to soldiers who fought in the war.  There was a monument and also a area of white crosses to commemorate the soldiers that were never found.  It was really busy that day because one of the ways people in that area celebrate Halloween is that they put fresh flowers on the graves of their loved ones and light candles.  Every grave had at least two bunches of flowers.

The monument in the middle of the cemetery.

We then went on to a bigger city in the area and just wandered around for about an hour.  It was also right by the Danube and had a little bit of a beachy area.  And another play ground! But this one had exercise machines that were fun for kids! It was pretty sweet and something every country should adopt. One thing that was interesting to see was all the abandoned buildings.  Every so often we would come across buildings that were in complete ruins with plants growing all around and inside them.  It was like a constant reminder of what had happened in the area not too long ago.

Damage done by the war.

The exercise playground.

An abandoned building.

Our last stop was a small village that our guide had been the pastor of right after the war.  It is a Reformed community that was evacuated during the war and the village was completely destroyed.  The people living there were in refugee camps for about 7 years and then were allowed to return to their village only to find it pretty much gone, except the church.  Despite this immense fall back, every one in the village returned to rebuild it.  Now it is doing fairly well but the youngest person living there is 45 because the young people that grow up there never stay.  We attended the beginning of their church service and it was strange to see the people who's story we had just heard.  The very joyful man from lunch the other day was one of these members and had been through all of it.  I am amazed at the strength these people have shown and I wonder what will happen to the village in the next 30 or so years.


And so we started our trip back home.  We stopped in a city to have dinner at a pizzeria, which was ok.  Then Tanya bought some roasted chestnuts from a street vendor and I got to find out what they tasted like.  They were actually pretty good! I couldn't eat to many of them, but they are significantly better than raw chestnuts.

And that was Croatia.  In about a week we're heading off to Sarajevo for the weekend.  As I was re-reading this I realized how awful of a writer I am, sorry about that, you will just have to tough it through.

A landmine we passed, there are many.

 - I must give the credit of these pictures of Robert VanZanen and Tanya Adams, I forgot my camera so I had to rely on them.