First Impressions

I left Australia in December with a vague plan to go to my father's home town of Tisno, Croatia. I'd had an extremely tumultuous and highly stressful year and just needed to get away, far away. Somewhere quiet, I needed some solitude, a change of scenery. I was also open to the possibility of staying for an extended period, if I could find some work teaching English (I had completed the intense (when I say intense, I mean intense - the course outline actually request that future students be in good health!) month-long International Cambridge CELTA course a few months earlier, which qualified me to teach English as a second language). So I thought I may as well go and chill out in our house in Tisno, and finding some work would be a bonus. I had a Croatian passport, so working there surely wasn't going to be a problem. If I found work, I'd stay on, if not, I planned to stay for just a few months to experience a winter in Croatia at least once in my lifetime - and to tell you the truth, I think once was more than enough for me.

I had a number of friends in Tisno whom I met during my summer holiday visits and I was so fortunate as to have rent-free accommodation in our two-storey, five bedroom stone house, complete with a picturesque view of the Adriatic (so the house may sound perfect, but it's not so perfect in winter as it's extremely difficult to heat, especially when you can't utilise the wood-fired oven since it smokes the entire house out).  My aunt and grandmother were also planning to be in Tisno in January, so it presented itself as a ideal place to 'run away' to.

A winter landscape - first impressions of my street in winter

About a month before I flew out, I contacted the director of the St. Lawrence Centre of Eduction in Sibenik, hoping to find a position there as an English teacher. To my surprise, I received a positive response that they may be looking for a new English teacher, as their current teacher, a young Canadian lady, may be leaving shortly. Although there was no guarantee of work, the mere possibility of working in such a fantastic local school in an amazing location (right in the centre of the old town of Sibenik), excited me and it also greatly influenced my decision to jump onto that plane bound for Croatia.

The plan trip was incredibly tiresome and never ending. I'd flown to Europe on my own a number of times, but this time it was exhausting, to say the least. Being stuck in a pressured cabin for 24 hours, coupled with waiting the Vienna airport for another eight (the terminal is tiny, incredibly boring and extremely frustrating to be in for that many hours when you're so close to Croatia, yet so far) tested my patience greatly. I was so relieved to finally land in Zagreb airport, after over thirty hours in transit, get a transfer to the Zagreb bus station, which I know so well and love after having visited it more than a few times, and board that beautiful bus to Sibenik (the bus was truly beautiful, both figuratively, as it was the final leg of my arduous journey, and in reality - the inter-city buses in Croatia are all beautiful new air-conditioned coaches).

Our fafarinka tree with no leaves

At Sibenik bus station I bumped into my lovely neighbour Mira, who was on her way home from work. So we had a nice bus trip home together catching up on everything that had happened since we last saw each other two years earlier. Being one of the nicest and most thoughtful people that I know, she called her husband Teo (my father's closest friend) to meet us at the bus stop with the car, so that I didn't have to drag my heavy suitcase up onto Hartić (the hill where we live). Mira and Teo were so incredibly amazing with helping me settle in - they even offered me one of the spare rooms in their house, fearing that my house would be to big and cold and lonely for me. When I kindly declined their offer, they brought over a heater, a bed (a nicer one than the forty-year old beds that were in my house), blankets, carpets, etc. Anything that would in someway make the house cosier. I can imaging that we would have been hilarious to watch, the three of us pacing up and down the street in the freezing cold dusk light, carrying things from one house to the other.

I was initially shocked upon seeing Tisno for the first time under its winter disguise. I didn't have any prior expectations, but all my memories of Tisno consisted of heat, sun, and the unforgettable hustle and bustle of summer and tourists - all of which were now missing. And my poor little house. The loza (grape vine) which covers the courtyard was bare and lifeless, a far cry from the full foliage and nearly ripened grapes I'd come to love in the summer; our fafarinka tree (not sure what type of tree this is in English, I only know the Dalmatian word for it) which provides us and our neighbours with thick shade and cool relief from the blistering summer sun, looked sad and dilapidated; and worst of all was our street, usually animated with people during the summer, could have been likened to a barren wasteland.

My house without its lovely green grapes and grapevine leaves

The first day ended well however, with a lovely meal of škampi na buzaru (a Dalmatian specialty of a prawn-like crustacean, cooked in a white wine and tomato sauce and usually served with spaghetti) cooked by chef Darko, and finally falling asleep in my little house on the Dalmatia coast, under a thick layer of blankets.