Rijeka and Cres, Croatia

After Lokve, still reeling from all the money spent on the house we slept in but thankful for all the help that the school director gave to us, we headed out to Rijeka. Rijeka is a port town, and it is the port that the Mihelcic family sailed out of on their way to the US. It was a fairly quick 30-minute trip down the mountains to a surprisingly beautiful town right down on the water. The buildings were all old and there was a pedestrian street with stores on it. There was even a castle up on the hill so it was very picturesque.

We were staying with some Couchsurfers who were living right in the middle of the city, right off the pedestrian street. We took it as a good sign that the apartment was right below the Romanian Consulate. Our host greeted us in her underwear and we had a long conversation with her and her boyfriend but she stayed in her underwear. I wrote it off to it being hot out. She turned out to be excellent and also eventually put some clothes on. She was just a little eccentric which is something that we can deal with. There were about 9 other Couchsurfers staying there as well so we were lucky to get a bed to ourselves. There were three Mexican girls, a Slovakian couple, a guy from Israel, a Spanish girl and two guys from Zagreb (Croatia).

It was like a hostel. A free hostel. We took some trips around town, met with some more CSers, and we also went to a beach. It was a rocky beach but it was good nonetheless. We read our books while the other guys swam in the sea. All of the Couchsurfers were pretty young. I was the oldest one in the group, clocking in at 29 years. They liked to stay up late and hang out. At first we thought this would be annoying but we were able to sleep in and they were all pretty respectful so it wasn’t a big deal.

We asked everyone for advice for our next trip. Everyone suggested going to see one of the islands nearby or going out to the Dalmatian coast in the south. Lots of people said we should go and see Bosnia. When we asked more about the southern coast it was apparent that it would be remarkably expensive. It would be even more expensive than the rest of Croatia which is kind of stiff. We planned to scratch seeing the south in favor of going to one of the islands for a couple days and then down to Bosnia for a day. We were in a time crunch at this point in time because we had to be back in Romania to take care of business.

When we asked how much accommodation costs on the island of Cres, it was not surprisingly expensive, especially since they charge by person and not by room. The Couchsurfers suggested that we do some “wild camping”, i.e. “homeless camping”. They suggested a great spot that was about a mile away from the center of town on Cres. The weather was perfect at the time being so we figured we would just take our sleeping bag and sleep either in the woods or on the beach with no tent. This is technically illegal, but nobody is checking so we figured we would take the risk. We took only what we needed for 2 nights and left everything else with our CS hosts.

We had to take a ferry out to Cres. They only had transport once a day so once we were out there, we were out there. The water was very calm and there wasn’t a cloud in the sky. It was a nice trip. When we got to Cres, we followed the Couchsurfers’ directions and took a left at the marina and headed down the beach. We came across some old camping pads by a dumpster and since we were doing the whole homeless thing we figured we would go all-out and pick up the pads and take them with us since we didn’t know what we would be sleeping on. Don’t worry, we smelled them first and they didn’t smell like homeless or like urine.

By now it was starting to get dark and we were in a hurry to find a spot. All the places on the beach looked a little suspicious so we headed up to the woods across from the beach. On the way over I thought I saw an old man with no pants and just a t-shirt on. I blocked it out of my mind, figuring that he was just confused, or I was, and then I went and found our spot. I smelled around to make sure that it wasn’t a make-shift bathroom because if I had to go I would probably go there. It seemed ok so we laid down our homeless pads for our “wild camping”.

Like I said, the weather was great and we were glad we had our homeless pads because we only had one sleeping bag. When we woke up the next morning, we went down to the beach. I should have heeded the warning sign of the old man with no pants on the night before because when we got to the beach, every old person or any other person who should have had clothes on, didn’t. That’s right. We were at the nude beach. It was totally nasty and now I am aware of what geriatric doctors go through on a daily basis and I have a significantly greater amount of respect for them.

Luckily the entire island wasn’t naked. We had to walk down the beach to get back to sanity. We basically put our horse-blinders on and walked past the nude families of naked mom and dad complete with pre-pubescent boy and girl, past the naked fat lady bending over to collect sea shells. It was not pleasant. I just wanted to come back during the night time when my eyes had recovered and it was too chilly for nakedness.

Since the accommodation was free, we were able to spend our money at restaurants and buy souvenirs for future Couchsurfing hosts. We also hung out at clothes-only beach which was really nice. The whole place was packed with Germans who I am told own pretty much the whole beach and the Croatians don’t have enough money to buy them out. Obviously it is the place to go if you are German-speaking because half the signs were in German. We didn’t hear any English the whole time we were there.

We went back to Rijeka after 2 nights at Cres. We wanted to go to Bosnia but there was no reliable transportation out there on the day we needed to leave. We also found out that our Rijeka Couchsurfers’ landlord came over and kicked them out of their apartment. Something about a missing TV. I was a little worried about getting my bag back. Since we only took what we needed to the island, the rest of our stuff was floating around Rijeka somewhere. I got in contact with the Couchsurfers and they said that my bag was at someone’s parents’ house and it was safe. We returned to Rijeka and hung out some more with the friendly relocated Coushsurfers, I got my bag back and we got on the bus and headed back east to Belgrade.

Lokve

Amanda’s Journal Entry from Lokve

Friday, July 16, 2010

We arrived in Robert’s ancestral village on Tuesday night via a Couchsurfing contact, Nevena. We were all under the impression that finding cheap accommodation would be no problem since this is a small village of about 1,200 people and surely someone would have an extra room they’d want to rent out for a few nights. Not so. After asking around at advertised apartments as well as strangers on the street and porches, we found that no one was willing to let strangers sleep in their house and those who were willing to house us wanted no less than 40 euro PER PERSON. Ouch. The small village feel was quickly fading and Lokve was looking more like a tourist town every minute. Eventually, we found a nice lady who usually rents per week, but was willing to let us stay till today for 30 euro a night. Iris, the apartment owner, turned out to be very and helpful later on in our “roots research.”

The apartment was a ways out of town so it was a 30-45 minute walk to the center of Lokve. On the way in the first day we found a dog-friend who accompanied us half-way to town. I felt guilty leading him away from his home, but I didn’t do it on purpose. It was nice to have the extra company though. J As we walked to town people walking on the street and sitting on their porches would say hello to us (“dobor dan” in Croatian), so we got good use out of our limited vocabulary. It was starting to feel more like a village now that we weren’t talking money.

Once in town we looked at the school and made our way up a considerable stairway up a hill that we thought would end up in the cemetery, but instead was just a monument to Jesus’ walk up Calvary Hill. Nice view from the top though – you could see all of Lokve. There was a road leading down from the monument so we followed it until we happened on what we were looking for in the first place – the cemetery!

Most of the headstones were pretty new, but there were a few older ones from the late 1800s, early 1900s. Robert and I forgot to write down any first names of family members so we just took pictures of all the Mihelcics…there were a lot. We called my mom later to get a better list and returned to the cemetery to see what we could find. There was an old woman visiting the cemetery also, so we showed her the family tree and attempted to ask if she knew where to find those headstones. She told us that the priest would have a book with everyone in it and led us down to the church to find him. The priest wasn’t there, but she talked to some people for us and arranged for us to meet with the school director the following day.

That night we went down to the Lokve lake to look for frogs (Lokve is famous for frogs and the name of the town itself translates to “puddles”…appropriate!) and for Robert to go for a swim. While we were sitting there I got a call from a man saying he was Iris’ husband. Somehow they heard about our meeting the next day with the school director and he told me that Iris would meet us and help with translation – her English wasn’t great, but it was better than our Croatian. Ah, the village grapevine…

So the next day we met with Iris and the school director and told them the names we were looking for. The school director had helped other foreigners with searching for relatives, so she went off to the other room to get her records. She comes back with this book with a cover two feet tall and one foot wide, and very old-looking. When she opens it, I read the date on the top and it says 1864… These are the handwritten school records of each student from 1864 and it’s all in near-perfect condition. We spent some time looking through these books and found siblings of Robert’s great-great grandparents, but strangely, no great-great grandparents. Perhaps they were more useful on the farm and so didn’t get sent to school.

The school director was incredibly helpful and offered to take us to the bus station in the next town over, and so now we are waiting in front of the school for her and her husband to meet us!