Last Weekend

I guess it is my turn to blog about our events last weekend. So let’s start with Saturday, October 9, 2010. It was a long weekend for our students and we had staff meetings planned for Monday and Tuesday as well as celebrating Canadian Thanksgiving. We were asked to bring something on Monday for the Canadian Thanksgiving, so I signed us up to bring Apple Crisp. Have I made Apple Crisp before? No, but I watched my parents make it, so I thought I could do it and we are able to get all the ingredients here in Sarajevo.

Zack loved this house

The night before, I drove in Old Town for the first time, after dropping Zack off to meet a friend, and then I drove to a restaurant to meet some coworkers to watch the soccer game. We both had a great time and I even made it home safely. I guess watching Zack drive for seven weeks and only driving in the mornings to school prepared me. Now I think I could even drive up the steep hill to another co-worker’s house (it’s drop- your- bagel- and- watch- it- roll- to- Germany steep). We will have to see.

Anyways back to Saturday. We went over to Maxine, our co-worker’s, house and picked her up to go hiking. When we got to her house she was in a skirt and we asked her if she would be cold and she said “no, I want to wear my new boots,” so I think at that time we decided a walk around the Sarajevo Zoo which would be easier. Before going to the zoo we had to stop off at the outdoor market and get some apples for my Apple Crisp and Max needed some things for the dinner she was making us that night. So we walked around the market and saw a little lady selling vegetables and bundles of ingredients to start soup, like carrots, parsley, celery, celery root, so all we needed to add were the potatoes, chicken, and whatever else we wanted. So we bought a bundle from her for about 3 KM which is about $1.75. Then we walked around the market more and bought potatoes and onions from another stand, and our apples of course. Max also bought the vegetables that she needed.

The ponies nose

Leaving the market, Maxine talked to her parents who had told her of a restaurant across from the zoo. So we decided we could go there before going into the zoo since it was around lunch time. We thought the restaurant was nice and looking at the menu it was cheap-- so even better. While telling the waiter our orders Max’s parents walked by so she popped out of the chair and ran to get her parents. They were surprised hearing someone say “Papa.” They came into the restaurant and had a drink with us while we ate. Then they told us that the restaurant that we were in was not the one that they had eaten lunch in, so Suzan showed Max and I the restaurant. It looked very nice and she said that we will have to come back one day after school. So I guess that is a plan for the future. It was a great start to our afternoon. Max told her parents about a man sitting in front of the zoo selling rabbits and that she was going to buy one for 10 Euros. They tried to persuade her not to buy one…in the end she didn’t buy one.

We walked across the street to the zoo. We paid 9KM for the three of us, which is about $1.75 per person. We couldn’t even buy a soda at a restaurant back home for that price. So walking into the zoo we thought the flowers were pretty and saw a mushroom- like structure. Walking over to it we found rabbits inside. Some of the rabbits were huge. So we looked at them for a little bit and then walked on to the other animals. We saw a lot of goats, chickens, some peacocks, 2 zebras, monkeys, deer, an elk, a hairy coo (that’s what they say in Scotland) I called it a big hairy cow and more goats. Max decided to feed the deer some grass from our side of the fence and soon we were both feeding them and we had a large group of deer at the gate. It was a lot of fun. The zoo has bumper cars, a jumping castle and an old putt-putt course that was covered in weeds and no longer in use. But we thought it is a great place to spend the afternoon with kids because they had a lot to offer them and no food stands inside the zoo, or people selling things. Of course you had a balloon man outside the zoo and the man selling rabbits, but it was different from our zoo back home.

So after the zoo we went home for a few hours before going back to Maxine’s house for dinner. Her parents joined us and one of our Bosnian co-workers from school. We had a great dinner of asparagus, tomatoes, and zucchini. She had layered all of those ingredients and cheese making vegetable lasagna for dinner. It was very good. She also made a pumpkin dish with pumpkins and a sweet chili sauce on top and baking it in the oven. It was really good. After dinner we played Banana Grams-- a great game like scrabble but without a board.

Ingredients from the market

Sunday we spent the day cooking our chicken, potato soup and Apple Crisp. It was nice to laze around the house and have great smells floating around us. We did have to do some laundry, but it turned out to be a great weekend. Zack and I now think that we will try to make Sunday our soup making day and go to the little lady and buy more vegetables from her next week.