The bare feet cry freedom!

For some reason, being barefoot in Croatia can cause all kinds of illnesses, such as rheumatism, the flu, the common cold and bladder infections (or so I’m told. Frequently). When I traipse around the apartment in my bare feet, my relatives and some neighbors look at me like I’m a mad man who has wandered out into oncoming traffic. My bare feet are loaded guns and I’m playing Russian roulette.

When I was first in Croatia the sound of my foot steps were echoed by an omnipresent voice saying: Ti si bos (you are barefoot). Ti is bos, in the living room. Ti is bos, in the kitchen. TI SI BOS! BOŽE MOJ! on the balcony.

This concern over my bare feet was in sharp contrast to how I was raised in America. As a kid one of the best days of the year was when the temperature first hit 22 degrees centigrade (72 F). That meant we could kick off our shoes and run around, not just inside, but OUTSIDE, barefoot! There was nothing better than sitting on the porch and stripping off your stinky, sweaty socks and shoving them into your pair of Buster Browns. Your toes wiggled in gratitude. They were free! You were free! It was summer!

In fact, running around barefoot in America is the definition of summer. See:

summer 1 |ˈsəmər|
noun
the warmest season of the year, in the northern hemisphere from June to August and in the southern hemisphere from December to February. In America it is a time when you can run around barefoot both indoors and outdoors.

Even today I can still recall the specific bumpy cracks and crags I felt underfoot when running down the length of my driveway.

What I don’t understand is why it is that in Croatia you take your shoes off at the door of your house, and then put on other shoes inside. While in the USA, we wear our shoes inside and outside of the house and go barefoot inside and outside of the house. If there were a shoe-wearing spectrum we would be solidly placed at both ends: ALL or NOTHING.

What qualifies as a “slipper” in Croatia is very, very broad. Sometimes it is a slipper (soft and fuzzy), other times it is a sandal. I even have a pair of Crocs that someone bought for me as “slippers.”

What is even more confusing is how the one place Americans think we shouldn’t go barefoot is the one place Croatians insist we go barefoot: at the sea side. On the coast, when I want to wear my Crocs into the water there is some amused laughter and embarrassment in the eyes of my Croatian companions. Pointy rocks? Yes. Sea urchins? Sometimes. Wearing shoes to protect my feet from those things? NEVER!

I can’t really understand where all these differences come from. All I know is that being barefoot inside and outside in the summer is one of the most memorable experiences I growing up in America. It is necessary since the distinction between the indoors and outdoors is much greater in the US. In the summer months we have air conditioning running most of the time, we shut the doors and windows to keep the cool air in and the hot air out. But, being able to be barefoot in and out in someways reconnects us with the reality of nature. Under the bare sole of your feet you can feel the searing, sun soaked pavement and the coolness of the grass you’ve just jumped into.

The Dark Side

In America I was never really one for luxury cars. Not that I could ever afford one, but I never even dreamed of owning one. Never wanted to. Luxury car in the US means a big, bulky SUV that annoys me more than it impresses me. Cadillac Escalades, Ford Excursions, Mercedes M-class, Cayenne, Humvees, I used to see all of them as a form of overcompensation for deficiencies in their drivers’ character and personality. I was satisfied driving in my fuel efficient, small, toyota.

Then I moved to Croatia and for the first time felt the power of the dark side.

There is a power emanating from Croatia’s Holy Trinity of automobiles: The black Mercedes, black BMW and black Audi. While in America these cars may reflect prestige, they do not surround themselves with the same aura of enigmatic dominance as they do in Croatia. Here it is a strange force coming from these cars, both terrifying and alluring at the same time. A power that says beware and in the same breath, behold.

In front of my Zagreb apartment the black BMW parked crookedly across three parking spaces, abutting a spot for invalids, gives me the same feeling of apprehension as a proud black panther waiting to pounce. I know the car is in the wrong. The car knows it is in the wrong. It knows I know, and it silently dares me, in a low and ominous growl, to do something about it. I don’t. I won’t. No one will. Such is the power of the dark side.

If that same car was a Yugo (OK, it couldn’t take up three spaces) or a Hyundai you might be tempted to say something. If you saw the driver you might suggest that they not park like that, that they be respectful of invalids and other drivers. If you don’t say anything, well at least with these lesser cars you feel like you could. They do not command the silent obedience as the mysterious Holy three.

Walking past the Mercedes sedan parked on the sidewalk I feel like Luke Skywalker at the end of The Empire Strikes Back. The car beckons to me like Darth Vader. In a deep, sonorous voice it temps me to join the Dark Side.

Just look at how this car breaks the rules with careless abandon, obstructing half the sidewalk with impunity. Its value is nearly 30 times what the average person in Croatia makes a year. To me it says the person driving this car is important. It is someone who may very well be above and beyond the law. In any case, the driver certainly lives out of the bounds of my mortal world.

In the US, rightly or wrongly, we still live under the impression that anyone who works hard enough can afford a luxury car. In America wealth is not yet a mystery. In Croatia, however, no such illusion exists. Rather, wealth is shrouded in impossibility. I cannot understand how someone in Croatia affords a BMW (Mercedes or Audi) and to me this is the source of theses cars’ mystique and power. Of course not everyone who drives a German luxury car is a scoundrel or a rogue. Yet, in Croatia these vehicles are more than mere symbols of success. They are symbols of someone who has defeated an impossible system, used the system, and dominated the system to their advantage while the rest of us just putter along in the distance. In a society where our lives appear to be increasingly subject to vindictive and arbitrary forces, unresponsive bureaucracy and indifferent politicians, the black BMW is a symbol of dark triumph.

What makes the gods divine is the unrevealed source of their power. We cannot fully understand why the gods are more powerful than us. Nor can we comprehend the full extent of that power. Though the origins of the Holy German automobiles’ symbolic strength may be part of the very forces we hate (unfair advantage, better connections, crony capitalism), just like the gods we curse, the Promethean part of us would give anything to be one of the divine. If we only knew how. If only we knew the power of the dark side.

Why my Punica is like a drug dealer

In another life I could cook real meals with fresh ingredients. I entertained friends in a clean house. I woke up daily, made coffee, put on ironed dress-shirts and permanently pressed pants before driving myself to work. I came home, made dinner and tidied up the house. In this other life I was a well on my way to becoming a fully-fledged, competent, functional adult.

Then I moved to Croatia and began living with my mother-in-law.

(A note to our American readers, Punica-- pronounced Poo-nitsa is the Croatian word for mother-in-law. As a concept the name mother-in-law just doesn’t do it justice, so I have elected to use Punica throughout most of this post)

We lived in Split and my new life was like a veritable paradise. Shangri-La. Not only was I living near the azure beauty of the Adriatic Sea, but a strange, sage-like woman appeared to be occupied with anticipating all of my eating needs. I would wake in the morning, stumble into the kitchen only to have a cup of coffee waiting for me on the table aside a chocolate pastry. I would go to the beach and come back to a home-cooked meal, flanked by at least two side dishes and a salad. I would be encouraged to drink wine with lunch and nap afterward while all of the dishes were washed and put away. Clothes too. All washed, hung on the line to dry, ironed and folded. Everyday. EVER-Y-DAY!

For comparison the last time I went home (after living in a different country and then a different state) I was told by a certain male family member that we probably had some bologna we could make sandwiches with for dinner, and if I wanted something else I could go to the store and get it myself!

Needless to say, the contrast between my family’s austere policy of self-reliance and Punica’s indulgence was huge.

Little did I know but these first feelings of euphoria were just the novice’s rush. As time drifted on I began to notice that Punica did not actually seem all that concerned with my comfort or with my gratitude. I would say thank you each time she gave me coffee, cooked me some food, handed me a stack of folded clothes AND she would swipe her hand at me as if she was literally knocking my uttered “Hvala” out of the air. I realized Punica wasn’t serving me in order to obtaining my gratitude. Driving her was not hospitable kindness, but rather a kind of stubborn duty guided by the assumption that without her cooking and cleaning I would die of starvation in a state of filth.

A few weeks after arriving, I began to resist. I suggested to her that maybe I could cook lunch, and she replied: Ma daj! Can you cook soup? I said: I think so? And that was that. My uncertainty was enough to convince her that her assumptions were right. Without her to cook lunch we would starve. I imagined a golden banner draped above the kitchen, reading: HE WHO CANNOT COOK SOUP, CANNOT COOK LUNCH.

I tried to do my own laundry but again was deterred and told I wouldn’t know how. As it turned out the washing machine was in German, so she was basically right. But I think her words were less about me not understanding what Schoneaschgang meant and more about my lacking the artistry necessary for the alchemy of laundering.

So far the score was Punica 2 : Me 0

More importantly nothing I said or did could change Punica’s mind: without her I would be as helpless as I was the day I was born.

Then came the day we moved to Zagreb and like a true addict I insisted that I didn’t have a problem, I ranted about how once we were on our own things would go back to normal, I would cook and clean just like I had once done in a far and distant past. With clenched determination I vowed: I WILL BE ME AGAIN!

The first day was fine. We had moved and were tired so we just ordered a pizza. The pizza fixed us for the night and the next day. But the second night we caved and had some Cevapi. And by the third night I knew it was hopeless. While under the sway of Punica my muscles of responsibility and self-sufficiency had atrophied. I was strung out. The dust and dirty clothes began to gather in the house, used bottles, and newspapers piled up, paper towels replaced plates, and each afternoon the kitchen table just stood there food-less, barren, a desolate reminder of our desperate situation.

The horror of my situation hit me. Looking around the messy apartment, fighting my pangs of hunger I thought: NOOOOOOOOO! She was right! Without her I will starve and die in a state of filth The house was a disaster and I was HUNGRY. My independence, my self-reliance, my old self were now just an illusion. Just images I clung to in a fit of self-delusion. There was no denying it now. I was addicted to Punica’s heavy hand of hospitality!

And just like junkies craving another fix, we pleaded for her to come up to Zagreb, begged her to stay with us. And we rejoiced when she came, overcome with the sweet relief of seeing lunch sitting on the table. When my mother-in-law stayed with us it there was a warm comfort in the air. It was like we were high.

Like a drug dealer pushes his dope to get you hooked, Punica pushes her hospitality to make you as dependent as she imagines you already are. It is a self-fulfilling prophecy. You may fight back, you may tell yourself that you don’t have a problem, that you can quit anytime, and that she’s just being nice, but by that point it’s already too late. She’s got you in her power. If you ever had any kind of self-reliance, well buddy, it’s long gone. But, the first step to overcoming your problem is admitting you have one. So say it with me: My name is Cody and I’m addicted to Punica.

And that is just how she wants it.

Lunchtime: eat or die!

Food is one way to understand a country’s culture. Bite into sushi and it’s like taking a big bite of seaweed flavored diversity. MMMM, I love briny diversity. Ask yourself: what would India be without curry? Mexico without tortillas? Russia without cabbage? Croatia without Vegeta and olive oil? Or America without high fructose corn syrup and sodium stearoyl lactylate? Yes, food is a window into the myriad societies that exist on this spinning little spaceship we call earth. Admittedly this is all pretty obvious. What is less obvious and can be more difficult to deal with than differences of food, is when people decide to eat that food.

I present a post about Lunchtime.

Lunchtime? Yes. Lunch is not even close to being on the list of ‘Possible Problems You Might Have Living in Croatia.’ I could never have thought lunch would be something I had to deal with. And yet, here I am writing a post about it.

Croatians take their lunchtime much more seriously than we Americans.

In America I brought my lunch to school everyday for 12 years. My meal consisted of a salami sandwich (one piece on what Croats would call toast, no cheese, only mustard), a bag of chips, a dessert of some kind and a fruit drink. A similar story was told across the cafeteria, in each school and all across America. This was normal. What’s more, for most of us, our mothers made these lunches for us. YES, dear Croatian readers, THAT’s right, our mothers sent us off to school with little more than a piece of salami between two small pieces of bread!!

For many Croatians reading this I imagine you are shocked and appalled at America’s lunch conditions. I’m also imagining that if the grandmothers of Croatia knew that what American kids were eating for lunch they would organize a relief effort like Save The Children. Airdropped pallets of home cooked meals for the starving elementary school children would flutter down from the sky. Lines old women would hand out proper sandwiches made from half a loaf of bread, prsut, cheese, a pickle and at a least one boiled egg on top. Those poor starving children in Africa America.

In Croatia, lunch is the most important meal of the day. PERIOD. If you don’t eat a good lunch there is a strong likelihood you will starve and die. If you try to argue this, if you dare to suggest that you would just like a small sandwich then you will get an eyeful of scorn and maybe even a smack on the hand with a big wooden spoon.

This is why during a Dalmatian summer the streets are empty of everyone except tourists between 1-4 p.m. Walk through a neighborhood street in Split in July and through the open windows you’ll hear, like an orchestra tuning, the cluttered preparations for lunch. The biggest longing for socialism I’ve heard from Croatians is that during the country’s Communist days the workday was adjusted so that everyone could be home in time to eat a late lunch. Croatians love lunch.

For someone used to eating chips and a small sandwich for lunch eating a massive meal in the afternoon was a big adjustment. For one everything is reversed. Croatians eat sandwiches for breakfast. Yes, sandwiches for BREAKFAST! Little did I know, but dinner was very important to my American mentality. Dinner marked the end of the afternoon and the beginning of the evening, it was like twilight’s happy little threshold. Without it I was lost, literally sort of meandering in the dark uncertain of what to do with myself. Freed from the shackles of dinner time was a surprisingly unsettling experience. I imagine for Croatians who go to America having to suddenly organize your social life around dinnertime is an equally constraining experience. You probably want to have coffee and everyone else wants to eat.

This also explains why Americans and Croatians have completely different ideas about the length of the afternoon, evening and night. In America the evening is 5-7 p.m. Anything after 7 p.m. happens at night. While in Croatia the afternoon lasts until 9 or even 10 p.m. and the evening can last... well... until morning really. (Apparently its ALL evening until the fun stops).

Like with most things here I’ve converted... err... adjusted. I now see how lunch is the way to go. It gives you more time to visit friends in the evening, have coffee, drink rakija, give gifts, and ride around on trams for free.

One of the nicest things about living in Croatia is entering an apartment around lunchtime. As you ascend the stairs you encounter the varied scents of freshly cooked meals gathering on the landing of each floor. It is a smell of ritual, of care and concern. You know that behind each door people are sitting down together or that a grandma is cooking lunch for her grandkids. It is pleasant as the smells mix in the stairwell into one mighty smorgasbord. I’ve never experienced anything similar in the US. To me the smell of lunchtime is the smell of Croatia.

_________________________
Like Zablogreb on Facebook.

Hi readers,

The nice people at Likecroatia.hr asked me to write a short piece for them. I did and its here on their website

http://www.likecroatia.hr/news-tips/food-in-croatia-when-no-never-ever-means-no/,

A big thanks to them for helping spread the word about Zablogreb. AND a BIGGER THANKS TO YOU FOR READING!!

I'll be back in a few days with a new post about Lunchtime.

Drinking (one post of many on this subject)

The only thing that comes close to Croatian’s love for coffee is alcohol. Croatians really know how to drink. According to the Central Bureau of Statistics the average Croatian household drinks 27 liters of alcohol a year. This probably explains why they (and other inhabitants of Southeastern Europe) make booze out of everything. I mean EVERYTHING: cherries, plums, grapes, walnuts, honey, quince (I don’t even know what that is) ROSES, and GRASS! Yes! Grass! But all this shouldn’t leave the impression that Croatians are a bunch of drunkards. Drinking in Croatia, while it may be a part of daily life is treated with a certain reverence and elegance that is lacking in the US.

In America the days of Madmen, where beautiful, well dressed people stoically drink martinis are gone. Elegant drinking has been replaced with the beer bong and beer pong. Nothing spells elegance like four feet of plastic tubing and a funnel that lets your drink 4 beers in 3 seconds! Or how about beer pong? All over the US undergrads drink according to whether or not they can toss a plastic ball into a plastic cup. Here’s a picture

In Croatia a lot of alcohol is treated with the same care and reverence as if it had incredible medicinal properties, because well... a lot of people believe IT IS MEDICINE! Especially rakija. In most houses (maybe next to the secret cupboard of gifts) exists a cabinet filled with various, often unlabeled bottles. Floating within the opaque liquid inside are gestating leaves and herbs, clipped from various plants that give the spirit its medicinal qualities. According to local lore its healthy to drink a shot of rakija every morning in the winter as it warms you up AND somehow it is equally important to drink a shot of rakija in the summer as it COOLS you down. I’ve also been told that if you have a fever you can rub rakija all over yourself as a means of lowering your temperature.

My first time in Croatia I was beset with a horrible cold, until I was given some travarica (grass rakija) and a bag of lemons! All that (plus some cold medicine) made me feel much better. Many people make their own rakija. So it’s not uncommon to get a gift of cheery or rose flavored booze (but of course we don’t drink it, we give it someone else).


Probably the biggest difference between drinking in the US and in Croatia is that you can drink in cafes. While in America you usually have to go to the bar. I’ve always found most American bars depressing, especially bars in my home state, Oklahoma. Dark and dingy you can feel the years of spilt beer soaked into the ratty carpet, surrounded by thick coats of cigarette smoke painted across the wood-paneled walls. You can also feel the drunken desperation of the people who have come before you. The bar is much different than the cafe. Bars are scenes of drunken, physical dalliances, where inhibitions are suppressed only with copious amounts of alcohol. Or it is a place to kill time. Where you drink after work only as a means to more easily stand on the bridge between today and tomorrow. My memory of bars are like blurry photographs captured in the naked light of a neon sign. They are staggered, stinking, and sloshy.

Cafes, on the other hand, are clean and well-lighted. Sitting on the terrace of a Zagreb cafe in the spring or summer can be an experience filled with zen like contentment. With the sites and sounds of the city surrounding you, the night air still and endless, you feel elated with life. Everything is charming: your company, the bored waiters, the passersby. Rather than being shut away from the world in neon hues, you are out in the world, a part of the harmonious ambience. Surrounding you is a diverse cliental that demands you behave. Your drinking has to be elegant. Since an older couple is talking over tea next to you, a group of women are having coffee beside you, there is no place for the sloppy drunk (that place is across the street in the park). No place for loud chanting and body shots. No whoo-girls. No ping-pong balls. This is not a place to get drunk. It is a place to converse over drinks, or if you are by yourself it is a place to sit and just BE, a place to reflect on passing trams and the drip-like passage of time.

_______________________________________
Like Zablogreb on Facebook

Give a gift, get a gift.

I know the dark secret that lurks in every Croatian household. Oh yes, I know all about it. In most houses there will be a closet or a cupboard, sometimes just a drawer, and in the deep dark recesses of that secret space is ... a pile of...
RECYCLED PRESENTS! Yes! Re-gifting is a Croatian way of life.

In America we have people that store food, water and even guns in case of an emergency situation (like the apocalypse, an Obama victory, or the return of Jesus). In Croatia people stockpile presents in case of a REAL emergency: THEY NEED TO SUDDENLY GIVE SOMEONE A GIFT!!!

Gift giving is a big deal in Croatia. Come back from a trip: bring gifts. Go to dinner at someone’s house: bring gifts! See someone you haven’t seen in a while: bring a gift. Just look at someone: give her a gift! See the doctor, minister, principle, mechanic, bus driver: gift, gift, gift, gift, gift. You never know when you are going to need to give a gift to someone. So, it’s always important to have an extra box of chocolates, an extra packet of coffee, another necklace, some wine, or rakija stowed safely away.

What’s a little funny (OK, actually A LOT of funny) is that for all the emphasis on gift giving, most gifts are never ever even used! Nope. Nope. Once a gift is given it finds itself condemned to the mysterious gift vortex (which is like limbo for gifts). It will never be opened, eaten, or drank. Instead it will swirl around in the void, passing from one giver to another, then to another and so on. Most gifts end up in the secret gift closet and are then given again as gifts.

Each time I would travel to Croatia we would spend HOURS buying gifts for EVERYONE! We had to pick out just the perfect present for Person A, B, C, and D (all the way up to P). Little did I know, but few of these people would keep their gifts. This made some very confused moments among our friends when I saw that the gift we gave to person A, in this case a picture, somehow ended up on the wall of person C’s house. Or the necklace we bought for person B, ended up on the neck of person D’s daughter-in-law! Wha? Huh? Gift giving in Croatia is like some altruistic circle of life. (I think the same packet of coffee has made the circuit through our circle of friends at least two times).

In America we usually give gifts on birthdays and Christmas. If you return from a trip you can bring gifts back for your relatives’ kids. Buying gifts for your sister, nieces, nephews, cousins, uncles, aunts, in-laws, godparents, neighbors, friends, and the occasional, casual acquaintance is, believe it or not, uncommon. When I was living between these two worlds, my wife would insist I take presents back to EVERYONE each time I returned to the states. It was awful. Want a make a situation awkward in America, give an unexpected gift. We don’t know how to accept it. We think, what the? should we eat it now? drink it? WHAT DO WE DO? And Smiiiiiiiiile.

Want to make it extremely awkward, give a gift from abroad to a person you only talk to when their trash-can lids blow over into your yard. If I showed up at my neighbor’s house in America with a gift from Croatia, I imagine this older gentleman would just scratch himself, look suspiciously at the parcel in my hand, squint at the unintelligible foreign words written across the top of it and yell:

“Huh? You went where? What the hell is a Croatia?”


No. In America gift giving is not our custom. Sure, if you go to dinner at someone’s house you can bring a bottle of wine or something. Of course usually you just bring part of the meal, a side dish of pasta salad or some deviled eggs (more on THAT in another post). So you can imagine all of this was and is still new to me, but I’ve accepted its karmic principles: give a gift, get a gift. And sometimes: give a gift and get the same gift back. Eventually.

____________________________
Find and "Like" on Zablogreb on Facebook