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June 2, 2008

It is our last day in Pula. I am not sure if I should be excited or sad because we're leaving this place. We definitely had our best day and our worst day here, and also our best volleyball match and our worst volleyball match. We got a chance to see some really exciting and beautiful parts of Croatia such is Brijuni and Coliseum, but we also spent a lot of time locked in our rooms due to our poor volleyball performance.

Speaking of Coliseum, this Monday was the day when we visited it. This Coliseum is one of the most well-preserved Coliseums in Europe, and sixth largest in the World. Its main purpose was the Gladiator fights. We took our time and walked around in order to get to know it better. We saw the exhibition which was located in the "basement." If you ask me, I thought it was kind of scary, especially when I found out that they would keep the beasts there before the fight, and that it was also the place where they would bring dead people and animals after the fight. Therefore we didn't spend a lot of time down there, we decided to enjoy our time and take some pictures outside.

However, the day wouldn't be complete without volleyball! We had another match against Pula, our already well-known opponent. This time was slightly different than before. Some of their players for some reasons couldn't make it to the game, so Pula team would borrow different two players from our team every game. Having a chance to play on both teams was quite interesting, and pretty useful. Somehow, "the Pula side" was always winning, no matter who would join them, so players had a chance to see what the side that was constantly losing was doing wrong, and at the same time what was the right thing to do on the winning side. This day was not one of the great ones volleyball wise, but like our Coach always says, we should always take the best from it and learn from it. That is definitely what we did. It seems that those players not showing up was actually not a bad thing at all. It helped us see our game from different perspective.

After the game and the dinner at the hotel, we had some free time that we used for our last visit to downtown Pula. We enjoyed walking around the main square and stopping by all those little shops where most of the girls found interesting gifts for their friends and family members, that symbolized this town or Croatia in general.

Six more days to go! When I look back, I have to admit that this trip was a very special experience for me. At the very beginning, while we were still in Zagreb, I had a chance to spend some time with my parents who I haven't seen since January 14. I had a chance to show to my teammates all the good things about my culture and I absolutely enjoyed it. Almost as much as I missed my parents, I missed the feeling of being home (well actually in this case, very close to home). I missed the lifestyle, food, music, people, even when they are not quite as nice as in the U.S.

Speaking of which, the other day my teammates decided to spend some time at the cafe and as they were asking for some coffee, the lady who was working didn't bother herself to say: "I am sorry, we do not have that kind of coffee." Her answer to them was just "NO!" Girls kept asking for the same thing, thinking that she was joking until they realized that waiters happen to be rude sometimes here in Croatia.

When Jen Linder told me the story being she was kind of surprised by it. But I couldn't stop myself from laughing. I told her that it happens here pretty often. Oh yes, I missed even that, and it totally felt like being home again.

Ksenija Vlaskovic