faway

I need to not think about negative things today, so I will continue with remembering my childhood. It made me feel good writing it down the other day, and it relaxed me too, so here it comes...
While thinking of my infamous first day of school, I remembered some other things from that time. Like the trip to Leibnitz, Austria. We traveled a lot then to Austria and Italy. Croatia was still part of former Yugoslavia then, and we went shopping almost every month to Austria. We didn't have much to choose from in local stores. My parents were not in the party or declared in any special way. They minded their own business. My father was a well-known photographer, he was making pretty good money. My mom stayed home with us until my brother and I started school. She started working in the city library soon after I started first grade, and after several years she started running the studio with my father. I also worked in the studio after I finished Photography High School until I moved to the US. Anyway, sometime during that summer we went there to buy my school supplies. In Croatia you don't get everything from school. You have to buy it all. From books, notebooks, pencils, to then required school slippers and something like a uniform. I don't know a word for it, but for boys it was usually like a button up jacket they would put on the top of their clothes, and girls would do the same with something that looked like apron on front and back. We called it "kuta". I had to wear it to school until I started 4th or 5th grade....and slippers through 8th grade. Back home you have only grade school that lasts eight years, and high school that lasts four.
Leibnitz is such a lovely little place. It looks like something you would see on a postcard from the little towns in the Alps (even though it is not located there, it is actually located very closely to the border of Slovenia, maybe a 30 minute drive from there, and not more than two hours from Zagreb, Croatia). All the houses are colorful and have flowers on windows. There is a lot of farming around.
My two favorite stores where there. The first was located on the main street and it was called the Joker, my personal heaven. To this day I love it. You could find everything there for writing and drawing. They had so many papers and erasers in all these different kind of shapes and smells....while in Croatia there was one default kind of eraser in a state owned stores. To this day I adore papers and colored pencils. I actually think Joker is a brand name store. Lots of my colored boxes had a joker on them and that name.
The second store was in a secluded street, I don't remember its name but it was a toy store. I got my first toy that I ever remember having from there. And now when I think of it, i was probably three or four then. It was a pink teddy bear looking bunny, with a rainbow belly, and it had a secret pocket on its back. I still have it. I brought it here with me, along with other favorite toys. Another one of them was bought there, and it was a gray Wauzi dog. Both are now in my son's room.
On that particular trip, we got me among other things a school bag. It was the prettiest thing I have ever seen. Now, you need to understand that in Croatia at that time, the only kind of school bag you could get was a square nasty looking thing. Mine was more of a backpack, it was bright red and it had a design with little fruits and vegetables on! :inlove:

My fear of not liking school was justified. I hated it! I was just not ready. I wish my mom waited another year. The year I started was the first year when parents got the choice to send their kids to school if they already turned six. Before they had to be seven. I turned six a month and a half before I started. I was barely out of fives people! I was a very playful and adventures kid. I learned through doing things, not through reading.
From then on Summers were the best thing in the world for me. I LOVE the sea. It is my element. I have yet to meet someone who enjoys it as much as I do, and could stay in it for literally five hours at a time, before I would maybe want to go out and do something else for a bit. My friend Maja is the closest I could get to finding one, and time I spent with her in our summer house on an Island of Brac in Croatia, are one of my favorite times in recent years. Actually, any time I spent with her is. We are so much different in so many ways, but still, she is one of my favorite non official family person. I say non official,\ because I think in many ways I look at her as a sister. I never had one, but if I could choose, she would be the one. She can make me so mad and annoy me sometimes (even though she is thousands of miles away), and I will still love her. I like to think that it is the same with her, the annoying part. I just decided that I will keep writing something else, and write a Maja post some other time.
I lived far from school, compared to other classmates, it took me 15 minutes to walk, while most of others had less than five minutes. It made me feel like I didn't belong because other kids lived so close to each other or in the same buildings that they were able to play with each other on a daily bases, even outside the school. I had one friend that lived in my building, but on a total opposite side, and we each had our own friends to play with in and out of school, but sometimes we would walk together to it. Her name was Ana. She was cross eyed, but nice. I always thought she was better than me. Once I told her that we had a golden Xmas tree. Like made from gold, not golden color. I said it because she said to me that they put fake snow on theirs, and to me that was totally awesome and I wanted to be better than her. She didn't believe me, she was smart. I'm a nasty little liar. :D
Wow, so many memories are coming to me now. Who knew all I had to do is to start writing them down. This trip down the memory lane might have as many sequels as Police Academy movies!