A Journey (and i mean journey) to Croatia!

Nursing a thimble-sized cappuccino, I am huddled over my journal under one of the very few instances of shade in existence at 11AM on the Croatian island of Brac. Lush but fruitless grape vines have ambled up the rustic, stone wall next to me. Just beyond them glistens the Adriatic sea several boats have saddled up to the shore, simultaneously unloading wares from the mainland and haggling passersby to accept a boat tour or excursion. And, in the midst of it all, I find myself smoking a cigarette, or rather the equivalent thereof, thanks to the two stocky old men sitting just upwind of my table, deep in conversation about what appears to be a business contract they have spread on the table between them. They have smoked at least three or four since I sat down here a half hour ago for a sumptuous broccoli omelet. Ordinarily, I would have requested another table long ago, or taken the opportunity to put The Look to good practice. But in this part of the world, which (surprisingly even more than Germany) seems to be unaware of the Surgeon General, one would be walking around all day to find a refuge from cigarette smoke, possibly up one of the gray-stoned, brush strewn mountain sides—and by then you'd have the garish, Adriatic sun to deal with. It took me this long to find some decent shade around here. So I will stay—at least until the sun chases me from this tiny haven of shade, too.

WHY CROATIA?

I have “always wanted to go to” Croatia. I don't say this very loudly, because there are many places I have always wanted to visit. Due to current geopolitical situations, countries closer to the top of my list (right now it would be nearly impossible to even get a travel visa to Turkey, Egypt, Syria or Lebanon, for example; and, for some reason, Greece recently suspended international rail services which makes it difficult to get in and out by train; Israel will never be without risk, but I'd at least like to take that risk with The Fiance... And then there's Russia, but two weeks is unfortunately too short a duration to complete the transiberian railroad...) So, next on the list were the Balkans, and more specifically Croatia.

It's hard to say when and why exactly Croatia even came to be on the Places I Want to See Before I Die list. Perhaps it was all those hot summer days as a teenager oscillating, with my youngest brother in tow, between swimming laps at the old YMCA and lazing around the air-conditioned Oshkosh Public Library just one street over from the Y. It was then that I would feed my penchant for languages by perusing the generous foreign language holdings at the library that consisted of countless cd-sets and phrase books in every language I could imagine, all the way from Albanian to... Zimbabwish. (That is not actually a language, but I couldn't think of anything else that ended in “Z”--but if there were such a language, the Oshkosh Public Library would probably have a phrase book of it.) For whatever reasons, the books on Croatia are still the most memorable to me. In particular, there was a brand new cd-set packed with a delicious glossy box-cover of a gleaming blue sea and mountainous coastline dotted with tiny villages. If I actually committed any Croatian to memory, I don't remember any of it now. I do, though, remember listenin to the cd's—not to remember the language, but to comfort myself that other people existed, other languages and cultures. Sort of like the flagging of faith listen to beautiful music or the melodic silence of peaceful places in order to remind themselves of the presence of God in a noisy, distracting world. I listened to the cd's, too, to connect the dots of the world, to compare Croatian to the cultures I already knew. To do this, I had to determine how it was both like and unlike other cultures I already knew about. The language, for example, was slavic—like Russian—but unlike Russian they do not use the Cyrillic alphabet (sort of like the Polish, I figured). Unlike Russia or Poland, though, the Croatians have a highly maritime culture, thanks to the obscenely long coastline they got after Yugoslavia broke up (look on a map, it's absolutely ridiculous. Poor Bosnia Herzegovina, Slovenia, and Albania). Like Italy, their heritage is predominatley Catholic with very little influences of Protestantism (or Orthodoxy, as I now know, despite the fact that all its Balkan neighbors are predominately Orthodox). And like so many other places in the Balkans, the Croatians have been threatened over the centuries by marauding Turks, Italians, and other colonial powers. Yet unlike the rest of their other Balkan neighbors, Croatia seen less internal civil division.

That is what the glossy cd-set taught me. My knowledge of this part of the world has expanded somewhat over the years, through my BA in interntional studies as well as preparing for this trip. But as I sit here, sipping my tiny little cappuccino and gazing out from underneath a giant restaurant umbrella and whithering pine tree over the rippling little waves of the sea, for a moment I wonder if I am really here, or if I am simply back in my fifteen-year-old self, gazing at an obscure box cover in the cozy old public library. And then the moment ends, when I realize I must be n Croatia—the Oshkosh library, after all, used their air conditioning liberally. Even if it was ten or fifteen degrees fahrenheit cooler than it is in Croatia.

A CHANGE OF PLANS. As is usually the case, living out a childhood dream does not often come to pass without any number of struggles and trials along the way. What should have been a 13-hr train journey here turned into a three day debacle that began with a surprise downpour at 5 AM, only a 10 minutes after leaving my apartment to get to the Wolfenbuettel train station. Apparently, the cheap duffle bag I'd bought for the journey is made of biodegradable material, as I deduced when the whole thing appeared to dissolve and fall apart three minutes after it started raining. In total, the otherwise pleasant train trip to the Adriatic coast ended up consisting of missing one train, getting on the wrong train and realizing it three hours later when we arrived in Ulm instead of Munich.

MUNICH.

Due to my disembowled luggage, missing a train, and getting on the wrong train, when I finally made it to Munich, the German rail company totally rerouteded my traveling itinerary to get me on my way to Croatia. What should have been a 13-hr, pleasant train trip all the way from Wolfenbuettel through eastern Europe and over the Croatian border turned into a 3 day journey laced togetehr by two overnight trips (#1 from Munich → Zagreb and #2 from Zagreb → Split, Croatia). In between these train trips, I got to work off my over-exhaustion by exploring Munich, Zagreb (Croatia) and Split (Croatia).

Munich, I discovered, is the dirtiest, most touristy and overpopulated city in Germany. Having come from tiny old Wolfenbuettel, I felt like there were people and noises EVERYWHERE, and green space NOWHERE. I spent most of the day walking down side streets and wandering in and out of the many churches and Cathedrals there. I also found a new duffel bag (this time with wheels!) for 20 Euro in Munich, whose streets were lined with import stores, mostly owned by Muslims of various nationalities. I especially like the Turks, they can be a lot of fun. In the end, my Euro ended up going to a particularly peristant and burly Turkish man, who boasted about the biggest handlebar mustache I'd ever seen before.

I nee

“I am on my way to Croatia, and my first duffle bag has already fallen apart,” I told him sourly. “Will this one fall apart, too?”

“No, no!” He waved his hands passionately. “No, not dees bag. Dees bag very goo—ood! Llast forever!”

“Then why is it only twenty Euro?” I asked him.

“Because I no cheat my customers. I geeve you lifetime warranty. You no like bag, you come back and I geeve you new.”

“But I can't come back, that's why I said—I'm going to Croatia,” I pretended to be angry. He seemed to think about that for a while, then smiled.

“Ah,” he smiled, his white-handle bar mustache brimming with pride. “Then, you keep. Have nice trip.”

St. Paul's Catholic Church with Subway, Munich

MUNICH → ZAGREB, CROATIA. After a long, hot day of haggling with Turks and finding side streets to rest from the crazy tourists of Munich, I was looking forward to what I'd hoped would be a restful night en route—I almost always sleep well on trains, with that luring rhythm of rail on rail. Alas, God must have had other plans, that evidently had something to do with strengthening my moral character, because I was granted the extreme pleasure sharing a six-person cabin with seven other people, including a screaming, old Croatian woman who kept trying to speak broken Italian with everyone at the top of her lungs. When this strategy of making friends failed, she moved to another: waking us all up at 3AM in order to disseminate a shopping bag full of dubiously half-melted German chocolates.

My first day setting food on Croatian soil was not only the first day of a fast in our Orthodox calendar, it was also the one month anniversary of Croatia joining the EU on 01 July 2013. As I pulled my bag off the train, I was greeted by the friendly light of the sun and the dirtiest train platform I'd ever seen—a juxtaposition the intrigued me. Juxtapositions just followed me, for as I entered the station, I found walls plastered in graffiti, and in the center of the main hall an immense bazaar of used Croatian books.

The first goal was to exchange my Euro for Croat Kunae. I found a desk the station with a picture of Euro, Dollar and Kuna signs and had something in Croatian that looked like a currency exchange. But when I got to the front of the line, the woman explained they no longer—she pointed through the large windows outside the train station, to a green park across the street.

“There. Shopping center,” she explained. “They change your money there now, in shopping center. Not here.”

After locking my luggage in a locker, I brought my Euros and a change of clothes with me. I walked around the park for over a half hour, looking at several vendors selling berries and about three kiosks selling newspapers. Unless the Croatian kuna were code word for wild blackberries, none of them looked like they were equipped to change Euros. I needed a coffee and a piece of breakfast bread, I couldn't think straight. Back in the trainstation bakery, I explained my predicament to the clerk as she made me a cappuccino with plenty of froth. She smiled, and handed me my coffee.

“Yes, across street. In shopping center,” She said.

“You mean, in the kiosks? All I see are newspapers and berries. And a park,” I explained, grasping the coffee with true gratitude in my heart. The lady chuckled. She thought of how to explain something in English.

“No, you no understand,” she gestured with her hands towards the floor. Had she dropped my bread? “The shopping center... On the floor! No, under the floor.”

I looked at the floor.

“Oh, underground!” I said. She nodded, as though all shopping centers were underground. “Go, walk around park. You find the way there. It is under park. You see. VERY big.”

Well, I walked around the park for nearly an hour, not quite sure what I was looking for. A sign of some sort would have been a logical guess, but none of the signs seemed to say anything about a shopping center. I wondered if it would be something like an intergalactic portal, because I didn't really know what those looked like, and I probably would miss it even if it slapped me on the face. I asked two people I heard speaking English, but they were looking for the same thing. I asked a beggar on a bench, but he didn't know English. Finally, I stumbled upon a set of stairs—no sign, no markation of any kind, nothing in its appearance that would suggest that beneath these stairs lay one of the biggest and most modern shopping experiences I ever expected to find underneath a picturesque, baroque park.

When I finally located the exchange booth, I experienced an even greater miracle than finding the shopping mall: my Euro were exchanged at a rate even more favorable than the one online, for no fee. I loved Croatia already.

The second over night train found me in a cabin with a much more pleasant crowd; directly across from me in the cabin sat a woman who was probably about my age but who had a wise look about her eyes that made her seem older, and though she never spoke to anyone, everytime I startled in my sleep, I could see her face in the moonlit cabin, smiling at me with a comforting and motherly look that made me fall back asleep. Next to me was an old, tanned skin Italian? man who had brought his young grandson on a trip. At the beginning of the journey, he blew up a tiny inflatable pillow and made a bed for the grandson out of both their seats. Tucking the boy in for the night, he chirped a little song in a melodic Italian dialect, said some prayers, and crossed his grandson with his own hands just as the boy's eyes were drifting shut into sleep. He then stood the entire journey, pacing in front of the open window in the hallway, and every five or ten minutes sat on the edge of the boy's “bed,” and just stared at him lovingly while he slept.

Had it not been for a highly expressive and disgruntled poodle in the cabin next to ours, and the even equally expressive and disgruntled Croatians of various other cabins (who felt the need to bellow obscenities at aforementioned poodle periodically throughout the night), and the even MORE disgruntled train security guard (who, by the ominous force of his own loud voice, frequently attempted to stifle the breakout of civil war between aforementioned Croatians and aforementioned poodle), this second overnight train ride would have probably engulfed me with the simplicity of human love and care that can be observed in simple strangers. In a lot of ways, I witnessed the best and the worst ends of the human-compassion spectrum. I decided I hated overnight trains, but that I wouldn't stop taking them, because where else can you witness all of this weird loveliness.

And, finally, yesterday, I got to the city of Split—on the coast of the Adriatic sea. All that was left was an evening ferry ride to the island of Braç, where I'd be staying. For now, though, I had the whole day to explore the ruins of Diocletian's palace, built in the 4^th century, and boil alive in the positively indescribable Croatian heat. Speaking of heat, it is really picking up here. The burly Croatian men have long taken their business dealings and cigarettes elsewhere, my cappuccino has long been sipped to emptiness, and I haven't even gone swimming in the sea yet. So, goodbye for now! 

 

When Siamese Twins Must be Separated, and other grief the historian must bear.

In June, my good friend Sarah and I resolved to each write an academic article during the month of July. We're loosely following a proven plan of attack, and every few days or so we meet online to see what kind of progress we are making. It is not too difficult to write an article—even when aforementioned term is preceded by terms like “peer reviewed” and “academic journal.” These bad boys weigh in at approximately 10,000 words (30-35 pages, double spaced). It might seem like a lot, but for people who are basically trained to write their way into a doctoral title (a dissertation is upwards of 250 pages, emphasis on the "upwards of"), an article shouldn't be that difficult. 

Like most thing in life, however, they are.

I am three-quarters of the way finished with my rough draft—right around 8,000 words with most of the notes already added. I'm probably done with the hardest part of the writing, so by now it should be a sprint to the proverbial finish line. Instead, I've been stuck for days in the penultimate section of the paper, where I take everything I've talked about so far and try to support it with some bits of theory and methodology. This feels suspiciously less like the homestretch of a race, and more like standing idly on top of a vast, barren plateau—with vultures circling above me. Figuratively speaking. I hope.

I am coming up on a little less than two weeks left in this tiny place. This past Saturday marked the official commencement of my sorting-trashing-and-packing routine which has precluded all of the eleven+ relocations I've experienced in the last thirteen years. This ritual usually begins with a lot of baffled attempts at surveying my possessions, and reliving that moment you realize you will never be able to take it all with you. Despite the fact I've kept myself on a very tight leash regarding purchasing here, I seemed to have acquired more than what I came here with. As the research fellow who has been here longer than any other current scholarship holder, I have been the dumping grounds for the generosity of others who have faced the same quandary of what to do with all the stuff they've amassed here. Hence, I've acquired any number of things, from computer speakers to a computer printer/ scanner; from 3 kg dumbbells to a yoga mat; a rolling office chair; a large-frame reading chair; from random throw pillows to large, framed portraits that say things like “home” and “dream” on them; countless pencils and other office paraphernalia; books; magazines; picture frame; the cook; the baker; the candlestick maker.

In an effort to make the chaos of it all seem about as stressful as a trip to the grocery store, I started by making a list. Of lists. In all, eight lists. A list of things to trash. A list of things to keep and give, and whom to give them to. What to pack in my checked baggage. What to pack for the vacation I'm taking to Croatia before flying home. What to pack in my carry on. What to pack in the carry on I will take to my best friend's wedding in Wisconsin the morning after I arrive in Toronto (don't worry Rachel, I love you). A “before leaving WfB” to-do list... Plus a few other lists I've probably forgotten about.

The one thing that these lists basically taught me is: I only have two suitcases. And there is no way everything will fit in them. And no amount of list-making will change that. So, stop stressing and start trashing (or “gift” giving, as Trish will soon learn).

This morning, while enjoying the first, serene hours of the day in the library reading room, the reason why I am stuck in my article finally revealed itself. I'm stuck because I'm trying to write two articles into one.

For my next trick, I shall try to explain what those two are. The first paper, the one I actually set out to write, is about how 01 January made people think about the end of the world a lot more—I mean, a lot more than usual for that time period (if you've read my blog so far, you know that's saying a lot, since they were pretty much thinking about it most of the time anyway). There was something about concluding an old year, and taking those first few steps into the pristine, freshly fallen snows of a new year that made people wonder about what heaven would be like, and about the divine judgment they'd have to withstand in order to get there. I really like this topic because a.) I get to talk about the end of the world for the umpteenth time in my very young and naïve career as an academic; and b.) I thought of a really schnazzy title for the thing, so schnazzy I won't even mention it here, just in case thousands of the world leading early modern historians are secret closet reader of my blog and steal the title from me before I have a chance to do anything with it (one can dream, right?)

Anyway, that's the paper I wanted to write. The second paper is a lot more basic, and unfortunately, is probably the one that needs to get written about first. Essentially, it's about new year's day in early modern Germany (1500-1700). See, pretty boring, right? For obvious bore-related reasons, I did not anticipate talking about this very much in the article about new years/ apocalypse article. Surely, I thought, it would suffice to just tack a few paragraphs onto the introduction, in order to provide “historical context” that would explain “where we get our new year's from.”

Well, thanks to the fact that history is never as simple as you think it is, “This is where we got our new year's from” turned into “By the way, for a really long time, there was some serious confusion as to when the year even started—some thought Christmas, some thought 01 January, and other people thought 25 March. And some people thought it was all three or neither.”

And then, that turned into “here's why everything you ever thought about new year's was a lie.”

Well, not everything.

Besides my goal with Sarah to write an article this month, I set a goal with the Fiancee to wake up at 6:30AM every morning this month—7AM on weekends. I don't really know what was going through my mind when we set that goal, I think something about trying to reset my body clock or be more productive or something. 

At heart, I am a morning person—I function best when I wake up at the crack of dawn and work before anyone else get up. But every so often, I go through phases where I just laze around in bed not doing much of anything until I'm darn well good and ready. Strangely, such phases coincide with seasons in which I have no real responsibility to anyone or anything but myself and my own work, which becomes really depressing after a while. It turns out that a lack of obligations can be really stressful. I find setting arbitrary goals helps me recreate that sense of obligation, which can be really fulfilling.

In this case, however, I realized that even succeeding in one's goals can have its downside. Namely sleep deprivation. Waking up at 6:30AM means I can't just go to bed whenever I please. Going to bed early means I can't loose track of time scouring facebook for signs that other people exist. Nor does it mean I can keep drinking coffee until dinner time, no matter how much I adore the bitter guzzle of tar juice. The more I try to have my cake and eat it too, the more exhausted I become.

You just can't fit it all into one day. Or suitcase. Or article. Life is short, and so is everything else. Better to live selectively and intentionally rather than all-inclusively and indescriminately, right?

I don't care. I don't want to split them up. I don't want to write two articles about new year's in post-Reformation Germany—even if it would look good on my resumee. I want to write one article, and tie it up masterfully into a beautifully bound, logically cohesive, spell-bindingly captivating read (by academic standards). And then I want to write a poem about it. And then I want to paint a picture about the poem, and sell it, and make everyone think how brilliant I am. How I just capture, in one glorious brush stroke, the full spectrum of what it means to be a human being suspended in this both tragic and magnificent fabric of temporality. And then I want to use the money I make off of that painting to solve world hunger.

Sigh. Sometimes people tell me I set unrealistic goals for myself.

There comes a time in every woman's life who gives birth to Siamese twins, a time when she must decide whether to intervene and separate them, or let them play with the cards they've been dealt. Even if their mutual liver(s) are fused between the two bodies. She (and hopefully the father too) must make the choice knowing that, either way, one or both of the twins could die. I'm sure that whatever decision she arrives at, she does so out of love—she wants to give her darlings the best possible chance at life.

Today, I am that mother. Kind of. And, as Steven King explained once in regards to the writing process, if I want my article to survive, I must “kill my darlings.”

But, should someday my two little Siamese twins topics come back to seek retribution for my fateful choice to separate them, I would like to say how much I love them. How much I want them to survive in the field of history as fully formed arguments, rather than to be eternally constrained by the parameters of one article. And so, I am cutting their wings—in the hopes that one day, they will fly. (That is the most incoherent and poetic metaphor ever! Which is why I'm not deleting it!)

I just better finish all of this by the end of the month if I want to make that goal.

Lessons Learned as of Late

There are times in life we learn important lessons to help us grow. This may be why I was always sort of tall for my age.

Lessons learned for the week, in chronological order:

1.) Being on top of your to do list and life tasks is usually the first indication you have overlooked something, usually something that could potentially send your life catapaulting into chaos when remembered (after it is too late).

2.) Do not let the following people fool you:

• End times gurus who proclaim the Euro to be the One World Currency. The Euro is about as compatible with credit institutions outside Europe as water is with... oil. No, tar. No, tar made from oil.
• German bank personel who assure you they are doing everything they can to help you transfer money between foreign accounts, yet fail to inform you they actually have an associate who SPECIFICALLY HANDLES SITUATIONS WITH FOREIGN BANK TRANSACTIONS.
• Aforementioned German bank personel who assure you it is not possible to transfer money overseas.

3.) Making partial payments on car loan until you can get money transferred into AMerican dollars to pay bills is not just like paying the minimum balance on a credit card bill.

4.)  Just because you haven't actually heard anything from your car loan officer, and just because there are no huge red flags on your online account, does NOT mean loan sharks haven't been stalking your stateside mailing address trying to repossess your car.

5.) Loan sharks do not care that you have been in Germany for a year, trying in vain to transfer Euros into dollars so you can pay your bills from an American account. They do, however, care that your car is not at your mailing address but "smuggled" (i.e. driven in plain daylight with full knowledge of customs official) across the border to Canada just as you stopped  making full car payments, where it now resides with The Fiancee.

6.)Never doubt the Fiancee's ability to be my hero and save the day with his mad Western Union skillz and unconditional love.

7.) Wallets are not to be unattended. No, not even in a library locker in naive little Wolfenbuettel.

8.) Always be thankful for your rival arch nemeses. Sometimes when they go out of their way to prove they are better than you, they actually can be handy for something. Like recovering stolen wallets in the bottom of a woman's bathroom garbage can.

9.) Do not attempt to take stress out on tin cans of tomatoes with a dulled can opener whose lever is missing.

10.) Do not mistake gushing blood for tomato juice. Also, try not to die of blood loss if possible.


Yep. I knew I was feeling tall lately. Growth spurt!