Besides the amazing new experiences and culinary delights, meeting new people (who quite often become lifelong friends) is what I enjoy most about travel. My preference being to hang with the locals wherever I go, airbnb is an amazing way to expedite the process of connecting with the natives.
From the moment I met Danijel, I knew he was a special soul. He had offered a free ride from the airport to his airbnb property but couldn’t stop apologizing for being a few minutes late. There I stood so grateful for his kindness in the first place, it was like a stranger giving you a bar of gold and apologizing that it was a bit tarnished. He said he lived close to the airport and it made more sense for him to just pick me up instead of driving to the apartment and waiting, but I would quickly discover the truth – his joy comes from being in service to others.
At 59 Danijel had retired as a café owner and manages his properties full time. If there is anything he can do for someone, he will. I remember telling him he’s “too kind” and he responded, “Just kind.”
From the moment we met, his emotionless facial expressions which project a cold demeanor were counterbalanced by a warm kindness in his eyes. After countless centuries of being invaded, conquered and ruled by other countries, engulfed in war and all manners of strife, one can imagine a cultural leaning towards a stoic expressions of these people. But engaging with the locals, one quickly realizes there is a constant with every Croat you come in contact with – they are a kind people, everyone more than happy to help and provide guidance, almost all understanding English too.
And my fears the locals would snear at Americans due to our current political leadership were quickly put at ease. Countless have fled this economically depressed country in search of good jobs and opportunities for advancement in other lands, and the land of choice – America. We were also the ones backing this country when the former Yugoslavia was broken into three. In the eyes of the Croatians, The United States is a great land.
Noticing from my travels to Europe in the past that vegetables were as likely to show up on your plate as snowflakes on a summer day in Texas, Croatian fare was no exception to the rule. Danijel told me he rarely eats vegetables unless they arrive on his plate, in which case he picks around them. And jokingly setting out in search of broccoli one day, after locating it on a stir fry fast food restaurant sign I was told, “Yes we have it. But not today.” Judging by the diet and the fact so many live to ripe old ages here, you can’t help but wonder if life longevity is actually tied closer to ones genes than diet, unless the secret sauce is inhaling second-hand cigarette smoke and eating endless baked goods with flaky filo crust which is a staple and in plenty.
Zadar is located right on the Adriatic Sea, its crown jewel being Old Town, an ancient fortified city which has a long and colored history. For an American who considers the architectural design and building structures antiquities if they were built before 1776, comprehending something that happened before the arrival of Christ is difficult to fathom. I found myself walking around this storybook town with complete awe and wonder, the same excitement in my every step taken as I had as a child on my first trip to Disney World. This kingdom is truly magical.
And after a couple of days exploring the city, Danijel reached out, offering to take me to Zaton, the village he grew up in a few towns north. His 90-year-old mother still lived in his birth home all by herself, and he checked in on her daily.
On the way we stopped at the oldest church in Croatia (dating back to the 12th century), an olive orchard he owns where I tried several different new varieties of fruit I’d never seen before that grew wild there (cane apples and some kind of tart blue berries), sampled a local cured smoked pig neck delicacy he made, toured beautiful private beach alcoves where the locals spend their summers, an abandoned military base now used by the youngsters to drag race and do donuts on the tarmac, a vineyard for a sampling of Croatian wines, and another antiquated small city where his grammar school was located.
After greeting his mother planting a kiss on each cheek and walking around his village made up of very old abandoned and dilapidated dwellings intertwined with modern renovated ones and sprinkled with wild cats, it was lunchtime. We drove back towards Zadar, purchasing some freshly caught cipal from a fish market which was run out of a neighbor’s garage. We then stopped at his sister’s summer villa in Petrčane where I went on a solo bike ride along the sea while Danijel made a fire. And when I returned he had seasoned the fish and freshly cut eggplant, and began grilling it to perfection.
This would be our first day spent together of many. Our time together comprised of long talks about: family and the challenges of parenting and raising children, politics, love and loss, exploring lands near and far, and the many changes we have both witnessed in our world over the last 50 years. What struck me most is the similar worries as fathers we have for the challenges in the world our children face as they head into adulthood.
It was a connection at a soul level, two people appreciative our paths had crossed and we had this window of time together to connect and interrelate. Two men coming from completely different upbringings and cultures, but discovering once nationality and religion and political affiliation were removed from the equation, all that was left were two humans being kind and honestly caring for another, for no other reason than it was the right thing to do.