They definitely need to get some extra men working these booths!
Recently we made a trip to Serbia and crossed the border on a secondary road. We were elated when we saw there were only 2 or 3 cars ahead of us. In just a few minutes we were handing over our passports, unfortunately, things didn't go so smoothly. It turns out that our passports were flagged as showing we had some fine we needed to pay. Long story short we did get a fine for leaving Croatia without telling the Osijek police when we went to Bern but we paid the fine (about $85 each) 4 days before our trip to Serbia. He asked if we had proof we paid which of course we didn't have with us. Finally, they had us move our car off to the side while they tried to figure out what to do with us. I then recalled I actually took photos of our paid receipts and went into the office to provide the proof. They had already been on the phone with the police in Osijek and knew we had paid the fine but it still took about 20 minutes for them to try to figure out how to update the computer system to recognize this fact. On the way back to Croatia we again crossed the border on a secondary road and found that we were stuck on a single lane highway with about 1 kilometer of trucks ahead of us waiting to cross. After seeing two cars just pull out and drive on the wrong side of the road we pulled out behind the 3rd one. We drove a kilometer that way and fortunately didn't meet any oncoming traffic (maybe the people crossing from the other direction had some kind of fine they were clearing up!) Once we got to the crossing itself there was an "Auto Only" lane we got in and crossed right away. We have now learned it's best to build in an extra 60 to 90 minutes of travel time if we are crossing any borders.
What do these look like? Merritt woke up with this "rash" a few days after we got back. The next day it was the same, but then a day later it got much, much worse. At that point, he contacted the mission nurse and sent some photos who then forwarded those photos to the European medical expert. In the meantime, he managed to locate a "dermatologist" here in Osijek and went to the office to see if it was a "real" dermatologist or one of those places where they specialize in making your skin look younger. It turned out to be a real dermatologist who could also speak English (double bonus!). He got an appointment for 2 days later. In the meantime mission medical thought it might be an allergic reaction to the new laundry soap we were using so off we went to get new, hypoallergenic laundry soap. We found a container with the words "sensitive skin" and a photo of a baby so we figured that must qualify. We came back and washed all our bedding and clothes including extra rinse cycles. Not easy to do when your washing machine is small and you don't have a dryer but we made it happen. When Merritt did see the dermatologist she diagnosed it as "Ant Bites" which didn't make any sense to Merritt but when he walked in the door he mentioned the diagnosis and Heather said, "Oh yeah, I did see 4 or 5 very small ants on our bedspread this morning". We got some ant killer spray and a prescription for an insect bite skin creme. Both worked pretty well to solve our problem. No ant bites since then and skin is back to situation normal. We talked to the landlord about the ants and he replied, "Yes they sprayed the whole building last week but since you were out of town we didn't spray your unit". I guess it is possible for all the ants from the whole building to then zero in on our "Insecticide Free Zone". The landlord is arranging to have our place sprayed professionally tomorrow. Update: Spraying occurred and we found lots of dead ants and no survivors.
During the last 3 weeks of July Croatia was competing in the world cup which pits the top 32 national football (soccer) teams against each other. Croatia won 6 matches to make it to the final. Each game day was like a holiday here in Croatia and since they won each time each day after was also like a holiday. We texted updates to our family and they started to watch the games as well. They had several close matches some decided by a shootout. It was fun to see all the people celebrating in the streets. Croatia has a population similar to Oregon so it would be as if a team from Oregon was taking on and coming out ahead of all the best football nations in the world. They lost in the Finals to France but Croatia was still extremely proud of their team and they got a hero's welcome at the airport and a parade through the city of Zagreb that took most of a full day.
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This is a monument from the Homeland War is based on an event where a civilian
tried to stop a tank that was being driven down a street in Osijek with his Fiat.
Needless to say, the tank won that battle but this monument shows that in the end
the people of Croatia were able to overcome the Yugoslavian army.During the World Cup, we happened to drive by and found that someone had added the Red and White check pattern which appears on the national flag and for which Croatia is famous.
The bicycle shop down on the corner near our apartment also got into the spirit of things with this creatively decorated bike which we thought was pretty cool.
By the way, we have had quite a few Croatians ask us why we have a sporting event called the World Series when only teams from two countries participate (USA and Canada). It seems that they are pointing out that being runner-up in the World Cup, which is truly an international event, is far superior to whoever wins the "World" Series. We'd have to agree with them on that.
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