>Croatia, 6th-9th February
Sunny, smiling, seaside Croatia – this is also Balkans. Dubrovnik welcomed us in all its majesty and beauty and most of all with wonderful cosy beds where to sleep in, after a journey from Kosovo which lasted 24 hours sharp, instead of the 6 planned. We passed through closed borders, barbed wire, inexistent lands, incredibly annoying policemen, steep mountains covered with snow, uncountable turns, endless tunnels, bridges, waterfalls, hills as black as their name, then finally the sea, and tasty food, and hospitality. The worst part of the trip: not being able to get to Mostar (Bosnia), where interested people were waiting for us. This further effort simply does not fit in the schedule and in our weary bodies. We hope to meet them soon, at Y Vote Trieste and then, hopefully, at the spring NWM in Banja Luka.
In the astonishing beauty of Dubrovnik we left a lot of material to Katarina, an interested old friend of mine, and left for Zadar, where we had a presentation in the university canteen and managed to fix some antennae criteria. President and founder Marijana had to fight for long with Croatian authorities to get the association registered, but now young AEGEE-Zadar has a very healthy position, a nice office, a small but energetic and colourful group of people. 3 fresh members going to NWM Valletta, shall we bet they will come back totally motivated?
Rijeka is rainy but feels like home, with my mom and my dog waiting for us in my flat. AEGEE-Rijeka meets us: they are super busy preparing their traditional, crazy carnival event. With them, as well as with AEGEE-Zadar, we speak also about my project Crosslove2009, to take place in early September on the Slovenian coast.
The feeling is to have dived out from a long deep immersion. Yet, there is another strange feeling… that all this, all this long trip, endless territories somehow belong me. Not sure whether they belong me now or they always did.
After this long and difficult journey I found a piece of myself, which was unexpected. It was also unexpected that it would be as difficult as it was.
Often happiness is next to you and you just have to recognise it. AEGEE people, travellers’ souls as we are, do tend to forget it. But sometimes you need to set off to a big journey to find happiness, with the way back home being often much more difficult than the outward bound.