We Made It!!!

Well...after what seemed like an eternity, we finally made it to Zagreb, Croatia yesterday!

There are 6 Montanans on the trip: Dr. Martin Frick (professor, MSU), Brooke Johns (Conrad), Myself (Conrad), Nikki Bailey (Ft. Benton), Jon Sheehy (Big Sandy), and Ben Pehl (Terry).  Our flight left Belgrade, MT at 10 a.m. Monday morning, flew to Denver, then  Chicago (spending an extra hour on the tarmac waiting to take off), overnight flight to Frankfurt, Germany (over an 8 hour flight...flying a higher over Iceland to miss the ash), rushed through customs to our final plane, and then a took quick flight over the Alps into Croatia's capitol city of Zagreb!  We got in around 2 p.m. on Tuesday...so basically we lost 8 hours coming over here, so 6 a.m. MT time.

We are staying on the agriculture campus at the University here in Zagreb, which is going to be our base for the next ten days.  I will post pictures the next chance I get, but we are staying in the Forestry Faculty apartments...which are almost brand spankin new!  For the time being, I have to use internet in the offices since we don't have wireless in our apartments.

As soon as we threw our luggage into the apartments, we headed over to the Agriculture Faculty building and met with Zoran.  We had a delicious tray of dried/fermented meats, cheese, bread, olives, and pickles and discussed our stay here.  In order to get our bodies adjusted to the time change and lack of sleep on the planes, Marty and Zoran told us that we had to stay up until at least 8 or 9 p.m.  (lunch time at home) and then get our eight hours of sleep (believe me...we were out like lights!!).

Croatia's currency is the Kuna, which is about $0.20 American, and they speak Croatian here...hoping to be able to pick it up quick!

Backing up a little bit, Zoran Grgic is our "host" faculty...he is an agriculture professor at the University here, and will be taking care of our accommodations while we are here, and there are 5 students from his classes that will be accompanying us on our trip.

Zoran Grgic is the professor speaking in the front of the room

This morning, we started off with breakfast in the cafeteria and drank plenty of instant coffee...which was surprisingly really good!  We learned about the Croatian Ag Service as well as Croatian Agrotourism (will add more later : ).  We then met with Zoran and his students, as well as the Dean and Vice Dean of the College.  During the meeting, the Dean and Marty signed an agreement of cooperation between our universities.

Tomorrow, we will be put into two groups and visit two locations: one is a dairy operation, and the other is a beef and dairy operation.  With the other students, we will be examining the operations and surveying the producers...we will then put together a report on how the operations can be improved and whatnot.