"Os croatas estão rotos" - she said.

All of us has in their heads a group of default behaviors that we excpect the others to have, based in our education, the society in which we grow, the experiences we had traveling around… 
And then, in the end of all possible calculations, there is the croatian behavior: a totally new, deep, and crazy experience for us, two latin souls.
This two first paragraphs seem a bit offensive, right? But, not all! This text is a naïve dissecation of our 30 days in Croatia - this land that put us, often, with – as we say in portuguese – a “nó na garganta” (a knot in our throat)… And it’s a reason to say that Croacia is, in fact, the ultimate country of ties! 
I come from an archipel of nine islands – the Azores, a very cosy, green, and magical place, where people are very empathetic and warm. On my islands we belive immediately on the good will of people… sometimes we get disappointed, of course, but we feel good, and somehow proud, to have tried.
In Galiza, Else told me people work in the same way: - “Hola! For sure you are a very nice person, let's be friends for life!”. 
Here, in Zagreb, we are now in a very different context: you are guilty until you prove otherwise. And, since the very first days I was asking myself : -“why?”!
In my mere opinion, the answer is that we have different backgrounds, past and history. 
Croatians had to be alert, defendig their territory, in almost all parts of their history. How can you trust anyone like that? 

And even if, nowadays, things are different, the remnants of this mentality passed, unconsciously, through generations. 
That is the reason – maybe! – the general behavior of croatians we met along this 30 days goes totally out from our own standart-behavior-scale.
So, my conclusion is that Else and I we are blessed to have in our DNA so much peace! 

Since we arrived we learn everyday, gradually or abruptly...but we learn! And I am so gratefull to be learning so much new words, behaviors, smells, colors...
To finish this dissecation I leave this text with another question, disguised (because it’s Halloween!) as a wish: if people in Zagreb dress as in Paris, walk and act busy as in London, have big cars as in Monaco, why they don’t open themselfs more, and love immediatly, and trust immediatly like in my green and cosy islands in the middle of the Atlantic? 
I hope, with all my heart, that this times of change will bring pure and simple love to everyone.
Ljubav (love) is, therefore, the new word we add to our croatian vocabulary! 

CHAPTER II: “Next Station: Orahovica”

For "Super Duge Team" was not enough only with Zagreb adventures facing the new culture and habits of Croatian people, the “Super Duge Team” has to travel to deep Croatia:


                                    ORAHOVICA

It was 6.30 a.m. when we had to pick the first tram in the morning and after using our croatian language skills, it took us at least 3 or 4 “Oprosti, Train za Orahovica?” and also more than 10 “Hvala’s” – the word we pronounce the best, so the one we use the most!

A 3’5h train took us to this beautiful, cannibalism and cold land where everything it’s made out of really good pork meat, even the vegetables sometimes!

We arrived there feeling scared about what kind of volunteering monsters we were going find there while we prepared our bests smiles for them not to eat us the first day, but then…the moment we went down for our first meeting we realize who this Little monsters were: crazy people (in a perfect way of being crazy) who were going to teach us a lot of things like: how to see life in a different way in the best macedonian style, signing with the rithym of the ukulele – ukelele for galician people – with the italian team and having a lot of fun with the….. let’s call it “The Half-croatian Team” who had the super power of not only understanding but knowing how to, perfectly say more than just “Hvala”… The “Puppet Team” were, like Tania would say… “Crazy like spiders”.

Thanks to Domagoj and his “best” energizers, we learn each other name’s so we were feeling comfortable being a small family when suddently…. We discover that the rest of the “Family” was lost in the middle of nowhere, somewhere between Istria and Orahovica…so we were force to do our own activity for getting to know each other…: In the swimming pool!!

We also learnt how to work together as a Team, and this is which personally (Else) I think is the best example of perfect team work: (click the picture and enjoy!)

So between “medica” and “tomislav” we become a big and united “Happy Family”, as you can see here:

Photo by: VLADIMIR GRGURIĆ for the journal Glas Slavonije