Zdravo!

I've officially been in Bosnia for thirteen days, and every single one of those days has been an adventure. Luckily for the four of us who decided to move to a strange country for a year, the Bosnians are some of the most hospitable people I've met.

Enter Alisa. During our first two days, she set up our bank accounts, introduced us to our fellow musicians with the SPO, taught us how to say hello (zdravo) in Bosnian, and took us to m:tel to buy cell phones. Oh, and she was also the one who picked us up from the airport. She may not be a musician, but she did a fine job of helping us get settled into living here.

Then there are all of the people I met my first night: Admir, Arvida, Ingrid, Morena, and Ivana. Admir was the first person I started to get to know here, since all the girls had to be at a violin sectional rehearsal that night. Before running to rehearsal, they had made some bow-tie pasta with tuna and left it for us Americans to eat. I was quite grateful for since I had no Bosnian currency but quite the appetite. I dug into dinner while Tim, the trombonist who flew with me from Munich to Sarajevo, took a nap. Then I stayed and talked to Admir so I wouldn't fall asleep while waiting for Megan and Matt's flight to get here. Admir has played principal trumpet with the SPO for three years and is originally from Bosnia. He apparently learned English by watching American movies and tv shows, which is quite impressive, considering how good his English is. His girlfriend Arvida and the other girls are Albanian and study at the Academy of Arts in addition to performing with the Sarajevo Philharmonic. Everyone speaks English rather well, but there is always something for us to teach them. For some reason, I used the word noodles to describe the pasta they had cooked for us the first night. Now, almost every time I see them, they say, “Noodles!” with a rather long oo sound.

Perhaps not too surprisingly, I spend the most amount of my time hanging out with the other three Americans who came to Bosnia with me. Megan and I went to school together at Northwestern. She is here to play principal oboe, and sometimes I can't believe she came because she just got married about a month ago. We have worked great as roommates though. :) As I mentioned above, Tim plays trombone and just graduated from University of North Carolina. He tends to keep to himself quit ea bit, but he is quite the character when he's in the mood to be social. And finally, Matt plays french horn and has delayed his senior year at Oberlin to be here. He always cracks jokes and looks at the positive side of life. We were pretty inseparable for the first few days, but I think we are all starting to get used to being here and have become a little more comfortable getting around on our own.

I know it's already been almost two weeks, but I still wake up in the morning and have a hard time believing that I'm living here now. All of us have dealt with the culture shock in different ways: sleeping, writing, and socializing. I think I picked the socializing route, but as I get more settled in, I am becoming more of my old self. Adjusting to life in Bosnia is no piece of cake, so a lot of my entries will cover things that I found useful to know about during my time here. You'll be updated on more of my adventures in the days to come!