Croatian Shopping

Friday we were going to head to a different pool, but on-one likes to go that far so we settled on going shopping for the day.  Steffi and Vjeko met us at Teta Zdenka's, dropped off Lucjia and off we went to Slavonski Brod for a day of shopping.  The first centre we hit is a new mall with a lot of German stores in it.

No shopping trip or day for that matter would be the same if you didn't sit down at a kafic for a cup of coffee (yes I am still loving the espresso with whipped cream- this has to be good for you!) Then we hit the stores - there is a different fashion sense to what we are used to for sure- so many bright colours on everything from shoes to underwear.  They even have a few stores that we do- like HAA i MEH as they call it or as we say H&M; Zara and Nike.  But overall the fashion is pretty different here. After a few hours we had finished and went to the next mall- this town is so close to the border that Frank's phone was welcoming us to Bosnia!!  This mall didn't have as many stores, but we went into a Beauty store that sold perfumes and there were so many different scents to the ones we have- Frank and I smelled like a flower garden when we exited! To end the afternoon we had to have a coffee of course!  Then it was back to Jaksic and Frank's aunts.  She had made a delicious dinner for all of us - another traditional Croatian dish of chicken, as well as a bean soup.  Then we had a quiet evening as Frank spoke to his aunt and I spoke to her through him- it is tough wanting to say something to someone and they have no idea what you are talking about- imagine me silent!!  Even funnier is his uncle who speaks almost no Croatian, but German- He talks to Franks's Aunt, who translates into Croatian for Frank- who then translates into English for me!!

Dani and went for an evening stroll and took in the most gorgeous red sunset- so hard to capture in film.  Also difficult to capture is the smell in the air- it smells like camp fires all the time- awesome wood smell.  There is no green waste disposal here - so all the branch cuttings and garden waste is burnt in the back yard, the stale bread give to the chickens, the kitchen scraps given to the dogs and that doesn't leave too much garbage. 

After all that shopping we were in bed by 11am- only to be woken by the church bells ringing at 5am!! Really? 

Downtown Jaksic!