Finally, I found some Croats in this place. I was dropped to the land of Lincoln by an exchange program of some sort three and a half years ago. It took me a year or so to find out where I was. Then, another year to find out who I was, and then the third year I started looking for the same sort of mine, the Croats. Finally, this year I found a couple of them.
Who are these Croat people that I am talking about? Well, unfortunately, there are only 4.4 million of us in the country of Croats, and another 4 million undercover Croats living under fake foreign passports all around the globe from tropical Brazil and Argentina to the land of frozen lakes. We are members of the kangaroo nation; we are South Africans and of course "civilized" Europeans. In recent years, we have been known as members of The Balkan Band that has been fighting and arguing about "miles and more" program. Recently, our government promised us some blue(s) and stars (hint: flag of the EU) so we ought to behave like a "civilized" sort of people, or like the westerneeze as we call them. Yeah, one can be proud to be a Croat. Our long history of being ruled by an Italian feather headed gentlemen, Austrian-Hungarian and Ottoman Empire dudes, made our country a great multicultural mosaic.
If one ever lands in Croatia for any reason, one can notice the beauty of our Adriatic Sea, the great Velebit mountains, northern green valleys and hills covered with fruitful wines, cities of rivers, and many more extraordinary pearls of nature one can only dream to be a part of. You should be jealous because I was a very lucky kid. I was partially raised by my grandparents that live on the coast. My days were spent jumping the steep cliffs of our coast, diving in the crystal clear sea, working on my Underwater Sherlock Homes career. Once while scuba diving the waters, I found a precious piece of a WW II Italian ship. The thing looked so amazing. It was covered with years of algae and I remember being so excited bringing it home to my grandfather, thinking about becoming famous for such a discovery. Well, I was young and it would be irrelevant now to say what the heck was I thinking when I brought that old rusted bucket to my grandfather who yelled at me for constantly bringing trash to his home.
O, well, so much about my Underwater Sherlock Homes career. As, I was saying, the land of Croats truly is a remarkable place. What amazes me the most though, is that a lot of people still don't know where we are located. Well, right after turning right on the 74 interstate drive some 60 miles, then turn right and keep going until you hit a hill. NO. Croatia is a horseshoe shaped republic tangled between the Hungarian flatness and the Adriatic Sea. If you eat pizza and know where Italy is, we are right across the sea from Mr. Mafioso. On the left, we are strongly unsupported by our dear neighbors Slovenians, who are really good accordion players if nothing else. And on the right we have the sadness of Bosnia-?-UN country. So, that is it for our location, if you ever decided to drive there.
Croats are really good in sports. That is something you need to know no matter if you ever go there or not. We are so good in running around the field trying to kick a round object for 90 minutes. We even got recognition for the third strongest country in the world, in running around the field trying to kick a round object for 90 minutes. Yep, that is something we are just good at.
So, to sum up this lovely little story about Croatia and its people, I need to say that my country is still a newborn baby that is being raised by a highly educated group of nannies. That is, until a bunch of U of I kids go back and run the show for a while.
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| Left to right: Goran Skosples, Ivan Feitl, Rajka Smiljanic, Katherine Sredl, and Tatiana Knzmic at the Croatian coffee hour |