LOOFAHS! -- Zagreb, Croatia

It's Friday afternoon, and I'm relaxing in a chair by the balcony of my new home in Zagreb, bundled in blankets and making myself a cup of tea every twenty minutes or so.

I got a care package from Boy, family and friends on Wednesday.

If you have ever been away from home for a significant period of time, you'll be able to relate to the unbridled ecstasy of receiving a care package from loved ones.

I knew that Boy was sending me a used smartphone to replace my malfunctioning Verizon iPhone 4, but other than that, the contents of the box were a total mystery.

 CARE PACKAGE GOODIES

My favorite chocolate (Green and Black's Ginger).

A pair of beautiful Smartwool socks.

Gingersnap cookies. 

A warm beanie from some friends.

A heart shaped piece of soap (what are you hinting at, anyway?)

A lengthy love letter from Boy (his love letters are never less than four pages. Eight is his average, I believe) and a much shorter letter from my mother.

A freaking hat. Which I haven't the faintest idea how I'll travel with, but which I absolutely adore.

TEA! MY FAVORITE TEA! BLISS IN A BAG!

I'm rationing this very poorly.

And loofas.

He didn't. Did he? Did Boy send me LOOFAS? WHO IS THIS GUY?

When I pulled out the loofas from between the plastic bags serving as padding (loofas are very delicate), I collapsed into hysterical laughter.

I don't know if backstory is even worth it. It's pretty much an inside joke within an inside joke within an inside joke.

It's the Inception of inside jokes. Christopher Nolan should make a movie out of it.

Boy and I bring out many qualities in each other. He brings out a more romantic side of me. I bring out a very latent, reluctant budgeting side of him. Within one another, we inspire curiosity, openness, adventurousness and a glorious gluttony of all things dairy.

We also inspire the silly. Heaps of silly. Bucketfuls of silly. Silly, silly, silly.

We probably spend 80% of our time together speaking in bizarre accents. In one of these accents, the word "love" has shifted to "lof".

Skype doesn't like our silliness or our "lof," though. No, Skype always insists on correcting "lof" to "loofah."

So whenever we chat on Skype, "I love you," becomes "I loofah you."

And we decided it was too tiresome to continually correct Skype's autocorrect, so we adopted "loofah" as our own.

"Goodnight," I'll type to Boy.

"Loofahs," he'll type back.

"How many?" I'll ask.

"More than one," he'll always reply.

So Boy sent me more than one loofah.

I will attach them to the outside of my backpack and they shall dangle next to my prayer flags. People will think I'm the cleanest hippie of all time ever. Until, as my friend Emily pragmatically pointed out, the loofahs  become completely covered with grime from being on the outside of my bag all the time. Then people will think something else entirely.

Since I arrived in Zagreb on November 2nd, the day after All Saints' Day, there were still mountains of candles burning in the cemetery.

"Would you like to go with me?" Matea asked. "I'm going to light some candles at my family's grave. I know it's a cemetery, but it's one of the most beautiful in Europe. And with the candles lit because of All Saints' Day, it can actually be very romantic."

She didn't have to twist my arm.

Candles for sale near the cemetery

 Croatia is mostly Catholic, so Jesus gets all the love. And candles.

Matea has two teenage kids, Jackson and Kaya. For the eight days I spend in this lovely little home, Jackson has transferred to Matea's room, and I get to sleep in his bed in the room with Kaya. 

And it's amazing.

I climbed into bed last night (a bed that's about three feet off the ground) and laughed so hard when I saw Spongebob Squarepants on the sheet.

Gosh, it makes me happy to be with a family again. In a place with a dog, a bursting fridge and photos of kids and babies on the walls. A place that smells amazing every time I open the front door and where I get to hear Kaya practicing the piano and Jackson talking about school. 

I miss homes. Even though I'm terrified of collecting things, it's so comforting to be surrounded by OTHER peoples' collections of things. 

My "work" with this family includes cleaning the kitchen, sweeping the floor and walking a cute puppy.

It's mostly just being part of the family.

So after taking Choksa on a long, cold walk and tidying up the kitchen after a scrumptious lunch (Matea is a chef. Like, she's in culinary school), I set off towards the city center by myself.

Tesla. I've noticed his statue in multiple Balkan countries, so I finally decided to Wikipedia the guy to see where his origins really were. Apparently, he was born in Smiljan (for which Kaya makes fun of my pronunciation... I pronounce this town "smellion". Like a stanky onion. 'Cos Croatian is hard). Anywho. Smellion was part of the Austrian Empire when Tesla was born, but today Smellion is part of Croatia. However, Tesla is of Serbian heritage. So it's all a bit muddled.

Kaya (who's sitting on the couch next to me) says, "This is the main square and the statue with the man on a horse is a really important man that changed the Croatian history and culture. His name was Ban Josip Jelacic Buzimski, but the last surname is not important to know. He was some kind of dictator (the word "ban" does not exist in the English vocabulary so I can't explain or translate it) and he had some changes made in the 17th century Croatia. He was also a very powerful leader and had a few fights with Hungary and, of course, defeated them."

 Kaya has other things to say about the square. She is loaded with info.

"It changed its name throughout the history. Example, the first name I've heard of is Harmica (which is pronounced "harmeetza. Not Harmika) which means some kind of money... I can't remember right now... in Hungarian, because it was a market at first. So there was no statue at the time. The statue appeared maybe in the beginning of the 19th century. First it was turned towards where the market is today, and at some point, they turned it around to face the other side, looking at the middle of the square today. There are some other names that I can remember... that the square has been named before. At one time, from the 60 til the 90s, the name was "The Republic Square." And just recently, in 1991, it changed its name back to the original, Jelacic Square (which is pronounced Yelachich. Not Jelakik)."

Kaya will teach me all the things.

The old cathedral, the largest one in all of Zagreb. 

Kaya says, "The full name of the cathedral is "The Cathedral of the Birth of the Assumption of Mary."

"That's a mouthful," I wheeze.

"Something like that," Kaya continues. "At first it wasn't in this shape, it was... how can I explain it to you? It was... you need to see it from the front to see the old remains of it."

"Can we go on a tour tomorrow?" I ask.

"Sure."

(to be continued... we will all know all the things about the cathedral)

Kaya tells me this is the longest street in Zagreb. It has around three hundred street numbers. It's kind of epic.

After my stroll about town, I headed back to the flat to drink some coffee and warm up. Also, to sing Adele at the top of my lungs with Kaya.

We're rock stars.

That evening, we watched Anthony Bourdain's "No Reservations" episode about Croatia and its cuisine. And I discovered that I've been to one of the restaurants that Anthony ate at during his visit to Motovun.

Anthony Bourdain and Aimee Bourget have both eaten truffles at Konoba Mondo in Motovun.

My life is complete.

Today, I took Choksa on a much shorter walk (I tired her out yesterday, poor puppy. I'm so used to walking all day that I forget it's not something everybody likes). Then I made my way to the Museum of Broken Relationships.

Which is a museum everybody ought to see, at some point. So poignant and beautiful and expressive.

Favorite.

And now I'm sitting with Kaya, who is helping me understand Zagreb's history and... errrr.... my horrific pronunciation of all Croatian words. She's also demonstrating some impressive imitations of Mickey Mouse, Goofy and Baymax.

We're having a very theatrical week, all in all.