“Why Croatia?” (Part I)

That’s the number one question I get asked about my decision to move here for half of each year, from California where my kids, kids-in-law, and three granddaughters live, and where I grew up.

The number two question is, “How can you stand leaving your kids and grandkids?” The number three question is, “Why three months at a time each place?”

The answers to those two questions are easy and go completely hand-in-hand. Croatia only lets visitors stay 90 days out of each 180. And 90 days is about the limit of my being able not to see the offspring. We do talk and “see” each other (for free!) on apps like Viber and Skype when I’m here. But that’s not the same as hugs and babysitting and hanging out in each other’s company.

The answer to the number one question is more complicated.

First of all . . . .

There is the sea.

This sea.

The Adriatic.

Which is just about the most beautiful, constantly-changing, glorious, alive piece of water on this Earth I’ve ever seen. And swam in. Which you can do all summer. It is warm and clear and saline and buoys you up like a mother’s arms. When I’m back in California, I can still hear what the waves are wanting to tell me. When I’m back in California, I miss the sea like I miss my granddaughters’ smiles when I’m here.

Also, the Adriatic is what I sailed across on a slow, easy, overnight ferry from Ancona, Italy to Zadar, Croatia the first time I ever came here. (Which was only barely a year-and-a-half ago.) Before that, I had absolutely no idea of what Croatia was like. Or, I’m embarrassed to confess, even where it was until a few months before then, when I booked the trip. A big, solo trip to Italy and Istanbul, paid for with my last chunk of money from the state of California in my ending law practice, and as a newly-divorced-for-the-second-time, 50-something woman.

You get it.

It was time for an adventure.

I ended up in Zadar because, through the generosity of a colleague of my son’s, I was offered a free place to stay for a week. In this country of Croatia. And when, after his kind offer, I found Croatia on the map, I saw it was on the way to Istanbul. Straight across the Adriatic from the east coast of Italy, in fact. And a ferry ride cost less than $100. Which appealed to my sense of adventure. And budget.

In short, it seemed pretty well simply meant to be.

So I came.

And it was.

I am not kidding.

From the minute I got off the ferry at the dock in Zadar at 7:00 a.m. . . . with exactly NO idea of where I was going to find a place to rent the car I’d decided to rent, and drive to the house I had the address to but no idea where . . . I had a feeling: “THIS is a PLACE!”

My feet felt right as they walked on the ground.

It was very weird.

Because usually when you are by yourself coming to a completely new place and, for instance, don’t speak a lick of the language, you have a little trepidation. At least until you get your bearings, find your lodgings, etc., and feel mostly better.

I had no bearings. And yet, no trepidation.

I figured I should just roll/drag my luggage along the harbor road toward what I figured was the center of the old town. Where I figured, based on two weeks in Italy, there would be a Tourist Information Office. (God bless Europe. These offices are all over the place. Staffed usually with incredibly kind and patient people who answer all kinds of questions.)

I was not scared at all. This seemed completely normal and natural. I had this bizarre feeling every single thing would turn out just fine.

I found the Tourist Information Office. It didn’t open for an hour. So I sat down right here in this cafe on the same square (Narodni Trg) with the office, and bought coffee and a chocolate croissant.

(I still sit come to this cafe.)

The waiter was completely gruff. It didn’t bug me. It somehow seemed completely appropriate. I drank my coffee, ate my croissant, and half-way, in the back of my mind, wondered what the hell this place WAS. This country half-way around the world from home, where I knew absolutely no one, had never been . . . and was going to maneuver around by myself for the next week?

For some reason, none of this bothered me. Not in the least.

At 9:00 I went to the tourism office. I got a map with “x” marking the spots of several rental car offices. I picked the nearest one. I rolled/dragged my luggage there. I answered all the questions, (including, “You are ALONE?!?!” as if this was, for whatever reason, unheard of) that Goran asked me in the Croatian accent that I immediately loved like it was some great kind of dessert for my ears and soul, and I got the little car. And then tried to figure out, between Goran’s halting English instructions, the paper map, and the spoken Garmin instructions, how I was going to get to the “Diklo” neighborhood of this city of Zadar. With street signs in a language that was completely and utterly foreign to me. So many consonants. And Slavic, not Romance.

And all the paint on the streets was white.

Which, if you are from America, makes you think you are driving down a one-way street. Maybe the wrong way . . . .

But no problem. I made it to Diklo. It was not far. Maybe four miles from the rental car office. I made it to the right little street, too.

But try as I might, I could NOT find the house with the address that matched the one my son’s colleague had given me. He’d also told me the man who took care of it and lived next door was named Niko. The addresses on the street went up . . . then skipped several numbers (one of which was for “my” house), then went back down? And then the street ended . . . .

So I just parked the car.

And waited until I saw a person walking around in this sleepy little neighborhood right on the sea.

Then I asked if they spoke English.

Then I asked if they knew where a man named Niko lived.

YES!

This very, very nice woman (who turns out now to be my neighbor) walked me down a lane of houses right toward the Adriatic (off the road . . . which explained the address issue) and up the stairs of a sweet two-story house. Onto a terrace overlooking the sea.

She knocked on the door, and it was opened by a completely wonderfully kind-looking couple. My now-neighbor explained in Croatian to them that I was looking for them.

To which they . . . this 60's or 70's looking couple, in the small little country of Croatia, total population 4,000,000 (or roughly one-third of the San Francisco Bay Area), which most of us in America don’t know where is, or anything about, and probably assume is somehow unsophisticated and “backward,” . . . responded with huge smiles, welcoming arms, and enormous kindness: “WE KNOW! We’ve been following your progress on Twitter and Facebook! We’re glad you made it!”

They even quoted me my last tweet, sent while drinking coffee and eating the chocolate croissant in town . . . .

NEXT TIME : “Why Croatia? (Part I)