Since I expect Ulfuz to provide you with multimedia and upload all the pictures from Thuesday, I`ll focus on text version.
A text version of what, actually? You see, this week one of my penpals was visiting Zagreb, the kind of friend you write letters to, in which you write all kind of stuff, virtually you know each other pretty well but you haven`t yet met.
Given the fact that she came to Zagreb to visit her friend who was preparing both for her prom night and for her admission exams for college, my friend, who`s name`s Ruth, asked me if I could take her to the zoo, because she`s an amateur zoologyst and she heard that Zagreb zoo has two new baby bears. . . And she wanted not to be in the way of her very busy friend she was staying at.
I was, and still am, thrilled by this opportunity to meet someone from another country! And Ruth, being from Ireland, was the perfect candidate! Although it was kind of impossible to understand every word she was saying because she has a VERY strong Irish accent, plus she talks ultra-fast! But all in all, it was pretty good. Al least I haven`t embarassed myself as I thought I might.
Of course, I musn`t forget to mention that my precious passed his driving test that very morning, so he was, shall we say, in a good mood and he decided to stay with us and visit the zoo. Either that, or his better half, otherwise know as Mirta The Wise, made him stay. I`m inclined to the latter, as a matter of fact, because I know him. If it hadn`t been for you, Myrtus, I doubt he would have stayed. But, who cares about him, at least we enjoyed, right? Or was it left. . . I can`t remember. . .
So. First thing we did when we met with Ruth were coctails in Profil Megastore. I KNOW, it is not like me to go around and drink coctails, but it was a special occasion, you don`t meet with friends from different countries every feckin` day! Give me some slack, ok. . . .Me, so decent and shy, antialcoholic drinking single Jamaica Sun-something, I know, the world is about to come to and end, right? Yeah.
Anyhow, coctails were the catalyst for the first argument between Ruth and yours truly. Somehow the conversation wandered to alcohol and stuff. If I recall correctly, Ulfuz asked Ruth just how many types of beers they have in Ireland (reported speech is not my strongest side in English grammar so have mercy). Then I sad that Ruth couldn`t possibly know that coz she wasn`t an alcoholic. And then Ruth snapped that she WASN`T an alcoholic. „Of course you are not, I`ve just said so!“, I replied, remembering only later that „of course“ phrase in English has an offensive connotation. Nevertheless, Ruth remained an alcoholic for the rest of the day.
We decided to visit the Botanical garden first, while waiting for Myrtus to come. Unfortunately, the garden was closing at the time so we provided Ruth with a warp tour through the „unhappy grass“, as she called it, explaining how grass in Ireland is extremely happy, due to the constant rain and cold temperatures. Of course our grass is depressed when it grows on feckin 100 degrees! Would you be happy? Somehow I doubt.
Since nice obese lady from the garden`s management (read: gardener with a paycheck just about enough to cover basic needs of transportation, unless she has a bunkbed somewhere on the Department of Botany) threw us out, we continued to the square to meet with Myrtus. And then we proceeded to the Zoo.
Ah, yes. I`ve forgotten about the second argument I had with Ruth. In one of her letters she wrote that female hyenas have (pseudo)penises, when there are no males in the neighbourhood, then one female grows a penis and things are settled. Even then, I challenged her knowledge of penises in hyenas, making her angry enough so she doesn`t forget to mention that first time we meet. And we spend pleasent two hours discussing penises. . . She even got off the subject and involved bird penises. Actually, she told me how birds have no penises whatsoever! Each individual has a hole. That didn`t make any sense to me, how can you possibly mate if both of you have a hole? Nevermind, we told her she was obsessed with penises, which only resulted in a new avalanche of rage! Hihihihihi. . . . She even wanted to grab a duck while we were in Maksimir, just to prove me I was wrong and she was, naturally, right.
Fortunately, the zoo thrilled her, althouh it is much smaller than Dublin`s. But lot of animals were not so interested in us, not as much as we were interested in them! They must be bored to death inthere. . . Poor them. Well, I belive Ulfuz described just how big the cages are. . . And that poor lion wasn`t to happy for that tiger next door, eyeing his woman. And the lioness was, shall we put it this way, frigid to both of them. At the end, lion just roared in despair, because he hadn`t got any! Hihihihi. And the tiger remained nervous as usual. Wolfs were feeding with something dead and disgusting when we arrived, something that smelled worse than my roommates shoes (and trust me, you don`t want to come nowhere near his shoes, especially not in the summer!!). We decided to let the wolfs feast in peace, since they began to measure the distance and wind direction, calculating how to reach us instead of that dead meat just lying in front of them. . . Oukey, nice little wolfies. . . Edge off, run away. . .
Ulfuz and me were amusing what seems to be the oldes parrot in the zoo. The big white one, I can`t remember the species any more. Anyhow, we played with it (since bird have no penises, so we couldn`t tell whether it was he or she) for some time. Then it decided to allow us to pet it. And we did, although it had an enormous beak, the one that could easily chop your head of. . . But poor old parrot was just thirsty for some love, that`s all. . .
Ruth was very enthusiastic to see the spiders, since she adores them, for a reason that keeps escaping me. I just can`t understand why would anyone love something so big, hairy and venomous! Freaky. And those spiders were HUGE. . . No thanks. . . When I told her how many I killed last year she almost killed ME. Look, I just don`t want to wake up dead one morning (although I don`t see how`s possible to wake up dead in a first place. . . ) thanks to a teensy little spider!
What else did we see? Uh, wait! I forgot to mention that Ruth though us one Irish coarse! You know how nationalistic and proud Irish are about their language and country? And you know just how much they hate British, because the invaded them so many years ago? Good. Ruth told us, if we ever come to Ireland and see an Union Jack on a flag, we are to do the following:
1) Clutch our fist
2) Look at the flag
3) Wave with our clutched fist towards the Union Jack
4) Say: „7 hundred years of oppression! Feckin bastards!!!!!
5) Make a disgusted face expression, and spit, but that`s not mandatory. . .
She says that, if we do all that, we will be in their mercy. But she did warn me not to do it in plain British accent, for example the one I posses. I am not to blame, I had an English teacher who insisted in British English and their accent! I then definitely must avoid Ireland coz I might end up lying dead in a gutter somewhere. . . Acutally, what I didn`t say to Ruth is that I find British accent pretty sofisticated and pleasent. Good for me I didn`t tell her that, she would have murdered me herself!
She than spent half an hour trying to exorcise the accent out of me, but she was of no luck. I just can`t say „ken`t“, it always comes out like „kaaan`t“. Or „aaaas“, instead of „es“ for ass. And I tend to swallow my „r`s“ or „t`s“. For example mirror. She says „miror“, only with a strange accent. I say something like „mira“, just like I live in Oxford! Fuck it, I can`t get rid of it!
Ok, enough about the accent. . . I don`t remember what else we did, except for watching otters play. You have a video on Ulfuz`s blog. . . I think they were trying to mate but in the end, the female wasn`t intereseted anymore. What a surprise.. .
You see that I don`t mention my precious and his precious too much. . . That`s because they were making out somewhere in the background most of the time :))))) Just kiddin`. Actually, Miško even talked to Ruth, I was utterly surprised that he was able to produce a single, meaningful sentence in English, since he`s having problems with Croatian in a first place. Like I said, he suprised me. And Myrtus, naturally, made a pact with Ruth to (ah, I`m looking for a suitable word for „prcati“) ??? Miško all the time. And Ruth, being perverse as usual, accepted the game without any object! And Ulfuz fought her way through English pretty well. All those hours of us speaking English finally paid off, ha Ulfuz? :))))))) You needn`t have to worry, we will practise our English this summer, I promise you that!
People, I`m getting tired, the sole reason I`m writing this in English is because I plan to „order“ Ruth to visit my blog and leave a comment. . . We`ll see. . .
I only regret not seeing her again. Unfortunately, we parted pretty stupid. She was pushed in a tram, we waved at each other, agreeing that we must see each other before she leaves back home. Sadly, that didn`t happen. She sat on a bus this morning at 12:30, and she was busy entire Friday. We decided to call it an „Unfinished Chapter“, thus forcing me to visit Dublin and pay her a visit in return. . . Good, now I only have to mention that to my parents. . . Hehehehehehehehehe, I can`t wait to see their reaction. . .
I must not forget to mention a small book about Irish language and culture I got from Ruth! Thank her a lot, now I can try to master Irish pronountiation, which is, in a lack of better word, un-understandable to mortals like me. . . And she got from me a T-shit of Croatian Biospeleological Society, with Croatian cave animals on the front, together with Latin names (she is an amateus zoologyst, with tendency to politics, after all! :)))))) ). We both liked our presents. And I`m looking forward to seeing her again!
P.S. I do not apologise for all the grammar and likelike mistakes, I gently give a f***.. . . . . . . . . . . .
UPDATE:
...koji je na hrvatskom jer je jedanes i po u noći i ne razmišlja mi se na eng. Kao što me Myrtus ljubazno napomenula, zaboravio sam jednu jaku provalu našeg dragog. . . Naime, promatrali smo veprove kako se love po svom staništu i jedan od njih je naglo stao, počeo gunđati te njuškom nespretno pokušavajući dohvatiti svoju rit koja ga je očito strašno svrbila. Gledajući vepra u panici, Miško je hladno konstatirao: "Da , znam kako mu je. To kad te svrbi guzica, a ti je ne možeš dohvatiti da je poljubiš!". . . Moram li napomenuti da smo Ulfuz, Myrtus i ja ostali blago !PAF!, pitao sam ga, doduše, jel on to svaki put ljubi svoju guzicu kad ga svrbi ili samo u specijalnim prilikama. . . Nije me udostojao odgovorom. Mislim da Ruth to nismo preveli, kao ni ovo sada. . . Ali smo se zato pošteno nasmijali!!!
Da odgovorim kornjači: Imam 1 GB ali spiskam sve u pola mjeseca:))) I da, opet me zjbva kartica, evo danas cijeli dan nije radila i sad samo proradi, kada sam već počupao ovo malo kose od bijesa!!! Stoka. . .
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