How rich can be this language?

Last weekend I was asking myself: “how rich can be the croatian language?”, and, inside my head, I could hear a silence big as my ignorance about the declinations!

I was wondering if they can write rich poetry as in portuguese or in french (my two familiar languages and the ones I can compare too)?

Apparently the answer is yes, according to my friend Perica, the future croatian writer.

And, actually, I could peek throught the window of the complexety of the croatian language this weekend… I could say that the universe heard my question and wanted to show me the answer.

It took me to Varaždin, in Perica’s car. My future croatian writer friend is from this charming town and he invited me for a family lunch on sunday.

I felt very confortable seated with his family, it warmed my heart: being far from this cosy feeling of belonging in a family table can be hard sometimes… specially on sundays!

So, lucky me!

I met the mama, the baka (grandmother) – she even offered me some crochet angels that she made! – the uncles, aunts, little cousins… and everyone speaked only croatian… but a different one!

Kaj (what, in the north way of saying what)?...You are probably thinking to yourselfs.

They have a super big (like a bible) dicionary of their own dialect.

Rigth away I could suspect that the answer to my question was a obvious yes, but I waited a bit more to be sto posto.

And sto posto I was, when Perica started to explain me some words who where being  put on the table during the lunch.

For every word he tried to translate he had to tell me a story.

Every word is a big story itself.

Kaj?

Da!

So, I can imagine how rich can be a poem, I mean, the good croatian literature in general!

Unfortunatly, having my question answered didn’t make me more savante in croatian but it certainly catalysed my desire to learn the language.

I wish I could find one single word to tell you about my experience visiting Varaždin, but my idiolect is not yeat provided of such power.

So, I will leave you with a photo of a pretty corner of the cosy Varaždin:

In this corner, made by the Museum of Angels, there is nice lights, nice music and some resident pigeons sleeping on the angels heads!

Advent in Zagreb: Traveling In & Out

As many people were waiting, THE ADVENT IS HERE after thousands of "Winter is coming, Winter is coming"...it finally came, not so hard as we thought but let's give time to time. Anyway, "Super Duge Tania" with her Bosnian Boots, and "Super Duge Else" with her hat "Polish Hat" are ready for whatever it comes. And as you see, it's coming beautiful (Super Dobro)!

Feeling part of the Croatian culture, the Super Duge Team decided to travel In and Out of Croatia.

That's how "Super Duge Tania" went to the beautiful croatian village Varaždin where our Super friend Perica comes from to meet his roots and experience how people live out of Capitol City but that's a story thats she will tell next Chapter.

Anyway, the adventure of "Super Duge Else" started when her Super Friend, Médico arrived on Thursday, and after couple "Kuhanos Vinos" (Bijelos) they decided to contact a Blablacar for going to Liubliana for a "Volunteering Weekend" full of italians and spanish companies, como no podría ser de otra manera. They picked a blablacar from "Arena Zagreb", really cool guy from the coast, somewhere near Dubrovnic, everything was going perfect until the Team was going to cross the border, because actually they were going to another country even if Super Duge Else was not even thinking about this borders, guess this not so little girl has so open mind that see thought that there were no boundries anymore, not in this century of freedom and social expression, that was she was thinking.... So everybody looked at her directly when she said with a smile on her face "I don't have my ID but it's okaaaaaay, we are in the European Union! When I go with my parents to Portugal everything is open and okaaaaaay". But not everything was okaaaay as she was thinking, actually the Policeguy was not okaay at aaaaall. But after trying many ways for getting in the best way of the situation: hiding in the back, giving another carnet that could look like an ID... but at the end, They had to go back to Zagreb...but they make a good good friend from a small village near Dubrovnik that took them back to Liubliana not before offering him a couple bananas as payment for everything he did.

Exchanging information about theirs lifes, Else and the new-misterious-but-super-dobro-friend, while her Medico-friend was sleeping like a "spider", built a funtastic relation that will last until.....THEY ARRIVED TO LIUBLIANA.

So, with the warm of our friends and the good taste in our tongues for the ones we already had, everybody together, we had fun following the rhythm.

"Filomè, Filomè, voglio stare insieme a te
sul sofà, sul sofà
Con lo zigolo-zigolo-zá"

Tranquilas

And, indeed, it snowed! It snowed on the 21 of november!

After our first experience in Batizado and Troca de Corda of Capoeira Amazonas, after we finally met Mestre Pontapé, new capoeiristas from Hungary, Slovakia, Slovenia, Rijeka, and after we met the little boys and little girls that express their young and pure emotions through capoeira, the sky offered us lots of white conffeti: - “Else and Tânia” – we could hear him (the sky) speaking to us – “you did a good job, here, in Zaprešić, and for that you will have conffeti and a white carpet waiting for you!”.

I was super happy with the snow (neve, in portuguese)! For me is a rare and precious gift sent from the sky.

The day after – on sunday – we went to the Batizado and Troca de Corda in Pešćenica, and again, we met a group of new boys and girls looking forward to have the agile movements of Macaquinha (Tena) and the fluid movements of Cavalo (Nikola).

The first time I saw the kids playing in the Roda I was feeling so proud! Our association, our Capoeira Amazonas association, built all of this, it spread, in reality, all this communion, respect and love that I could see there, in front of me. I was a fullfilled EVSer in this two days.

 Yesterday it was the moment to start the English Playground in Pešćenica and we have to avoid, we had a bit of a hardest task this time (at least, comparing with the group of Zaprešić that Else told you about, on the last post)!

Some of the kids are in preadolescence, and, has we all know, this is not the most confortable place to be! Neither for them and neither for those who want to, as us, speak about Portugal and Spain… in english.
Anyway, we will, sto posto, conquer their hearts on the next sessions. “With time, with time, Else and Tânia!” – replied the sky, to our longer-than-the-usual look to him.

Look, they did pretty draws about Portugal and Spain: toureiras, beachs, olive oil, and a bull!

The cold imposed its presence, and we are, finaly, using our gloves. We accepted its presence peacefully…

Tranquila (peacefull) would be the adjective to describe our week! 

Entering in the Comfort Zone Like Spiders

In the weekend of our 7th Week, the "radio guys/girls" saiy that is gonna snow. Actually Tania is waiting for it, as a good Azorian I guess she doesn't see the snow so often, so maybe that's why she waits for it (as we say in Spain) like water of May ("Como agua de Mayo"). Talking about Tania... we don't sleep in the same room anymore.

We said "Doviđenja" to the other flat. At the end it was so fast that we didn't even had time to make some video projects inside other video projects that we wanted to make...

 

 I know we can seem happy but we were not that that much! I'M KIDDING! We were really happy, we needed but now whatching it from our new "Vintage Mansion", it's OK to say that it was good experience to be sooooo together in that moment. So, with our strenght level ON, now we feel charged to continue with our dutties.

On one hand, the Portuguese and Spanish lessons are going FUNTASTIC, as you can see here:

 

Even if we said"Doviđenja" to some parts of our lives in Zagreb, we are saying "Dobro Jutro" and "Dobrodošli" to other little projects inside biger projects that are going to be part of our learning experience here, like the "PLAYGROUND FOR KIDS", a group of workshop in two different schools of "Croatia" about english and "spanish/portuguese" culture. We were a little scared about it.... Okeeeeeeeeeeeeeey, maybe only I was scared about it but everything went just PERFECT and we could get out of there safe and alive "Sanas y Salvas", as we would say in my country.

Maybe we didn't find jet what we want to do in our lives forever but....while looking for it, we are having fun and being happy. And that's what matters in life!