Does this ATM speak Italian?

Europe
July 23rd 2018

Published: July 23rd 2018

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ClairesTravel

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Osijek

We arrived early for breakfast again this morning as we had another early outing. When we woke, we looked out our window and we saw water instead of into another boat. The weather didn’t look great though. The ship was docked in Vukovar Croatia. Vulkovar is in the eastern part of the country and not where most people visit when they come to Croatia. We got on the bus and headed to Osijek(O syeck). Along the way we saw war damage. The guide was great and told us a lot about the area. During the war of the early 90s, Slovenia broke away from Yugoslavia and all went well. That wasn’t the case when Croatia tried to break away. Croatia was the part of the country that controlled most of the money and Serbia (where the capital of Yugoslavia was) did not want them to leave. Serbia is on the other side of the river from Vukovar so Vukovar had a lot of damage during the war. The guide said that about 70% of the town was destroyed. After the war, if the building was repaired, it had to be repaired to the Baroque style as that was the style throughout

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old Osijek square

the town before the war. Many buildings were not restored, and you could see the bullet holes and bomb damage in them. Buildings that were completely destroyed could be built back in any style and there are several modern buildings around. The hospital here is modern and during the war, the special troops of Serbia took the 200+ patients and shot them. The war eventually encompassed Bosnia & Herzegovina. The war lasted about 4 years and eventually all the areas that made up the old Yugoslavia became independent countries.

Osijek is the 4^th largest town in Croatia and we were taken to the old town. We walked thru the old town and saw a lot of the buildings and the old town square. We then headed to the St Anthony Catholic Church. There was a cross in the courtyard made from gun parts that were found after the war ended. It started pouring rain about this time but luckily, we could go inside. A local singer with an operatic voice came in and did a concert.

We got back on the bus and Teodora, our guide, gave us more facts of the area. We then traveled nearby to

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old Osijek square

a smaller town Belje? There were about 50 people on the bus and we were broken up into 4 groups. Each group went to a local house to talk with the owner and ask questions… We felt luckily to get the lady that spoke no English because we were also got to have an interpreter to translate. The 12 of us arrived and went inside and sat around a large table. The lady had a sweet cake and a local drink for us. We sat around and asked her questions and just talked. We learned that she and her husband lived in this house before the war. During the war the area was occupied, and her house was confiscated, and she had to go to Osijek. Husband was conscripted to drive a tank. After the war, they got the house back, but EVERYTHING (including the radiators and floors) was stripped out it and they had to pretty much redo the house from the inside out. I asked if they had watched the world cup last week since Croatia was in the final game. The Interpreter said “no”. We all went “what, you have to be kidding”. He then translated for

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the lady and oh, she let him have it. It was funny. She wanted to know where we were all from and what we did. Susan and I said we were sisters. Everyone says they think we are twins. That makes Susan really happy since she is the eldest. We stayed here for about an hour, then the bus picked us up and we headed back to the ship.

We then went to a light lunch and headed out to walk the town of Vukovar. It was Sunday, and everything was closed but it was nice walking thru and seeing the buildings… We walked up to the old palace and took some pictures and about this time 2 tour busses from the ship arrived. There was an optional tour to tour the museum in the palace and do a wine tasting. Susan and I had not signed up. The people on the bus were from our ship and asked us if we were in room 205 as that room never showed up. We said no, but I guess if we had said yes, we would have had a free tour. We walked around town and saw the cross by

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cross made of old gun parts

the river. Near there we overheard 2 people trying to get money out of the ATM. “Is it in Italian? Will it give us Croatian money or Euros?” Susan and I laughed. Americans can be so stupid sometimes. We then headed back to the boat and sat on deck and worked on yesterdays and today’s blog. While we were up on the walking track deck, this lady came by and complained to her husband that the Viking guy told her not to walk so hard as people (6) below were complaining. This deck is the walking deck, REALLY? As her husband walked off he said to her, ah, keep it up and let’s see if we can make it to 20. Ha, ha.

We left the upper deck to head down to the briefing and dinner and attended a lecture on what it was like to grow up in Eastern Europe during the communist period. We both learned a lot and thoroughly enjoyed that lecture. One thing I really didn’t expect was that many people from Yugoslavia really miss the Tito years as Yugoslavia was very progressive during that time frame. The other Eastern European countries were very bad,