I'm back.... or "snapshots from Croatian vacation"

I'm back. And I'm already cold (is it just me or is this Canadian summer kind of fading?). I was actually standing close to the BBQ today just to feel the warmth of the fire. But, Croatia..... well, that was the real summer. The one you easily get used to.

Botel in the heart of Rijeka City

I managed to go there for a little more than couple of weeks, and it was totally worth the 7 hours of uncomfortable ride in the first plane and then an hour in the second one to get there.

When I stepped onto the Zagreb's airport ground, all I felt was a nice, warm breeze.

That is,  before my parents managed to make an incredible noise, first arguing about the parking lot (which had nothing to do with me) and then showing their affection, hugging me and asking me if I'm hungry (cause apparently I seem to be thinner every time my mom sees me).

Downtown Rijeka

We hit the road to Rijeka, a beautiful city on the coast, where we were about to spend the first week of my vacation.

My father was holding a photography exhibition there and it happened so that my good friend Ana was living there at the moment so I got the spend lots of time with her too, as well as with some of other good friends.

I used to live in Rijeka, so being there after so much time brought lots of memories back, making the stay so much more interesting and intense.

Rijeka is a big city on northern Croatian coast - it's a harbor city, seaport with shipyards and heavy industry.



A part of it is Trsat - the old fortress where it all started back in the early times. Today, there is also the Sanctuary of our Lady of Trsat, representing the guardian of the travelers, especially seamen.

To get to the fortress, you can take the road - but more interesting path is the stairway from downtown all the way up, with it's 561 stairs (that's how much we counted).

Trsat stairs	Stairs downtown

According to the legend, it's impossible to count the stairs due to the devil who got mad and mixed them up once and for all, making them "constantly changing". Even today, people of Rijeka swear that the number of the stairs is is different every time you try to count them.

Korzo

Rijeka is an old city - full of stairs, narrow streets, old buildings and monuments. It's also a modern, European city, where people are open minded and good-hearted, full of classic and street art, culture and bursting with flair.

One of old buildings (with wide selection of windows)

We did all the average tourists do - which we rarely did before - visiting the old Trsat fort and counting the devil's stairs, eating in amazing restaurants, taking walks at night in the vivid main street called Korzo, enjoying cold beers on the boat club, going onto the crowded beach and eating pancakes there.

View from Trsat

We also did all the things we normally do when we're on the coast - eating bread with pate and tomatoes (traditional Croatian meal when on vacation), eating tons of watermelons, drinking beer in the apartment till the early morning, sharing stories, laughing and having fun remembering old times.

The time passed by real soon and we had to leave Rijeka and go back home - to my parents town. That was a different kind of week - lazy, relaxing kind of fun where everything is about my mom's delicious food, spending time with family and noticing how things changed in the house.

One of Zagreb's typical cafe's downtown

I've also spent two days in Zagreb.
I got really surprised by what they did downtown - making the city looking awesome.

It's full of tourists, and for the first time I actually had the feeling they have something to see. People dancing in the streets, playing music, walking in traditional national costumes, beautifully decorated cafe's and restaurants - a feast for eyes, ears and soul.

Zagreb downtown in the mirror

I did everything I wanted to do and therefore my vacation was 100% successful.

I've spent quality time with my family and had a great time with close friends.
I ate octopus.

I ate pasta with truffles.
I ate pate and tomatoes and watermelon.
I swam in the sea and sunbathe on the beach (the real beach).
I felt the scent of salt in the air, as well as rosemary, lavender and all the other scents of coastal, Mediterranean vegetation.
I drank home made liquor.

We had a great, hot weather and everything was perfect. If by any chance you plan to visit Croatia though, make sure you take more than couple of weeks to spend there...

For Croatians and Canadians: two lands in a nutshell

Don't go to Canada, they said.
It's cold there, they said.

Well, they were right.
I'm freezing my ass here instead of spending some quality time on a beach, wearing only flip flops and a bathing suit.

Home Sweet Home

I come from Croatia - a small Mediterranean country where we have mild winters, long and beautiful springs and falls and hot summers. For over four years I lived on the coastline - in a small place where you go everywhere by foot and the sea is right underneath your apartment - so you can smell the salt while standing on a balcony, as well as glorious scents of rosemary, lavender and pines.

Here, I can mostly smell McDonald's and fuel (mainly because I eat a lot of MCD and I worked at the motorcycle shop.

HOWEVER (and this is a big "however"), Toronto is awesome.

First of all, it's big. Toronto itself has about the same amount of people as my home country.
And those people are great - they're good-hearted, honest and hardworking. They're kind.
Sometimes, too kind.
Here's an example: I'm at my workplace, middle of spring, I got a crowded showroom and zillion of customers waiting to be served (by me), and the phone doesn't stop ringing (for me). And every time it's like:

Guy: "Good morning, how are you today?"
ME: "I'm good today, thank you, how are you?"  (to be polite, of course)
Guy: "I'm very good, thank you for asking."

------PAUSE----- (my blood pressure is rising)

ME: "How can I help you, sir?"  Just cut to the chase! And my nerves are so thin sometimes....

But then again, how can you blame him? It's nice after all. It's how people SHOULD talk. It's my fault I'm not used to it, because I come from a country where yelling at customers is a sales strategy.

Park in winter & Lake Ontario

The second, and let me be clear on this one: the winter in Toronto is not as tough as people think.  It's just long, and that can be frustrating sometimes. It's a lot colder than back home, but it's also a lot more beautiful. Because of the low temperatures, snow doesn't melt right away and stays white and crisp, therefore there's no mess on the streets. The lake gets frozen and there's plenty of places worth photographing during the cold months. The only thing that bothered me was the dry air during that period - I can't sleep or breathe without my humidifier, few wet towels hanging from the wall and huge amount of water on my heating thing, so my bedroom looks like a circus tent.

The city offers variety of things, and there is hardly anything that you can't find. Toronto is home to so many different nations and cultures, brought up together with no prejudices.

View to the west from the CN Tower

It's different - the things we're used to are different here. That's what it makes it so interesting.

People here eat meatballs on spaghetti. They generally don't like sauerkraut, they drink orange juice only in the morning, and they eat potatoes for breakfast. They eat Peanut Butter & Jelly Ice cream and chicken bacon. They have cooking oil in spray and powder eggs. There's no spice or ingredient you can't buy - the world wide variety of foods is undeniable.

Back home, we have stray cats and dogs on the street (in more than a year that I've been here, I haven't seen a stray once on the streets of Toronto). Here, you can see ducks and geese crossing the highway with the help of the police patrol, and squirrels fighting for a doughnut leftovers in parks. If you have a back yard, consider yourself lucky if you don't have to call wildlife patrol once a year to move the raccoons out of it (you're not allowed to touch them, capture them or god forbid harm or kill them). The sea gulls are the same as ours back home. I must say, it's weird tough, to hear them when there's no sea around. They should be called lake gulls.

Ducks and gees, scared racoons in our garbage containter and a squirrel

As a biker, I was struck with the driving policies - in my home country, it's perfectly normal to ride between the cars, especially while they're stopping for the traffic lights. It's not legal, but it's common. Here, it's very forbidden and nobody does it. But then again, here you're allowed to wear "beanie" helmets, whereas back home we wear full face ones.

Burn'em

It's kind of hard to seize that privilege, knowing that beanie really has no use. Seriously, come on. How can a beanie protect you when you fall off the bike at high speed? The fact that insurance rates (both for the bike and for you) are enormously high, probably has something to do with that.  But we do love a good burn.

Things are cheap, labour is expensive. Girls, you can buy an awesome pair or pumps for $60 and then pay the same amount to someone to put the rubber soles on them, so that you can actually wear them here, in the land of eternal ice. The same amount goes for sewing repairs, hair cutting, spa treatments (not the happy end ones, those are more pricey) and alike.

Ribfest 2014

Liquor can be bought at one place, and one place only: the holy LCBO (except for beer - you can buy it in a Beer Store). It kills me though, to stop in three different stores to get stuff - one for groceries, one for alcohol and one for smokes. Back home, one grocery store - and you got everything you need for a relaxing evening. Smokers: Canada is not the place for you. The only area where you can smoke is your home (if it's yours, and not rented), your car and while walking on the street (walking, not standing).

However, Canadians have all kinds of festivals, one of which is The Ribfest - a whole parade of meat to celebrate the glorious ribs, where you can eat, drink and even smoke (at certain marked points, outside the fence).

I can often hear people complaining about "Canadian administration". If you have never been to Croatia, you have no idea what you're talking about. Back home, our secretaries have secretaries and you'll be asked by clerk to provide the very same document that you're there to get, from another institution, so that this one can issue a new one, from his institution. And it won't be enough, you're ALWAYS one paper short. Our birth certificates are valid for 6 months only, even tho we're only born once. We pay taxes on taxes on taxes, like the usual 25% of original taxes is not already high enough. Buying and selling? Have fun. Public notary will suck life out of you as well as half of your monthly salary to verify a document. Here, you can get an affidavit from a local veterinarian or the neighborhood patrol cop.

Today is going to be great

Canada is simpler, easier and gives you more opportunity to make something, whether that's work, hobby, leisure or life.

Canadians don't bother themselves with stupid and unimportant things. They don't waste time and money to fool somebody or to divert from something. They mostly mind their own business and they work for themselves and their families. Sure, it's not perfect, but it never is. There's no country in the world that doesn't do something wrong. If you're a Canadian and you think I'm wrong about that, you should visit Croatia. It's an amazing country, probably the most beautiful in the world, but economically speaking, it's a country of absurd. Don't get me wrong, not everything is bad - there's plenty of opportunity there. But you have to be tough, lucky and with nerves of steel to succeed.

We should learn from Canada. There are things Canada can learn from my country as well. They can both set good and bad examples for different things. We should strive to get to the level of awareness that Canadians have and be less concerned about neighbor's greener grass, but work on our own lawn.

But who am I to say - I'm just having fun in another man's land. Taking photographs, observing and writing posts. I'll do that for as long as I can, before I decide to escape that badass Canadian winter and move to Hawaii.

My everyday view