A Novel Path – Tales of an Adventure Goddess

My bus schedule tell me that pick up is at 12:00p. I wait until 10 minutes after, nothing. I figure that the decision to walk to town has been made for me, so I head off in the direction I think town is. After all, when you’ve rented an apartment outside of town and off the page of all tourist maps, you either take notes on the bus as a passenger on where you’re going or you wing it. In this case, it’s a little of both. Besides, as long as I know how to get back home, I’ll be fine. I have all the time in the world and need the exercise. A 6k through the countryside of Croatia will do me good.

After what feels like ages (in real time, 50 minutes) of walking along a busy, narrow highway, a sign up ahead says ‘Centar’ so I am close. I serendipitously come across a farmer’s market. If I bought a few things, I could conceivably carry them, even without my backpack. I perused the selection and narrowed down my options. Something green, wild asparagus, apples, fresh bread…and tomatoes. When I had accompanied the landlord to the market the day before, tomatoes were a whopping 29 kuna a kilogram, which works out to be roughly $3 a pound. Quite a bit for average tomatoes. I was even considering a run to the border in Trieste, Italy, just for tomatoes…
well, and some warm weather clothes since I have jeans, jeans, and no short anything to my name.

A stall selling tomatoes for 16 kuna per kilogram -sold! – along with some apples for the road. When I find what looks to be healthy wild asparagus, I point and give the finger for ‘one’ and since the price isn’t marked I hold out 10 kuna, which is what seemed to be the going rate for a bunch elsewhere. Apparently, it wasn’t enough so I hold out my entire coin collection and she picks through it nearly taking all of them, which must be over 20 kuna. I give her the ‘all of this’ face, to which she responds with a ‘yeah’ face, and I shake my head, retrieving my coins and dropping the asparagus. I saw a deal for 10 kuna and I am going to find it in print.

When I encounter the stall with the deal on wild asparagus, I point to it, handing over 10 kuna. The woman starts speaking Croatian as my head is down while I count the rest of my coins. She reaches over for my chin, lifting my head up, and asks ‘You’re not Croatian, are you?’ I shake my head. She smiles. I hand over 6 kuna, since there is a large crate of green matter that reads ‘6 kuna’. She nods her head, grabs the change, and prepares a one kilogram bag of this stuff, which I have no idea what it is other than to say, for a dollar a kilogram, it’s cheap. Green stuff is healthy I reassure myself. It looks like it’s collard greens, and if it isn’t, they are surely related. If it is too tough for salad, I can stir fry it in a little olive oil and garlic. It will be edible; I always find a way.

I am too tired to do much more than window shop, and after 14:00 on the weekends, the shops are closed anyways. When I reach a stop I am certain the #27 bus passes, I check the time schedule. 14:00. My watch says ten till. I wait. After 14:10 comes around, I start to wonder whether ‘radni dan’ has a meaning, other than what I assumed to be ‘daily’. I happen to have the Hrvatska dictionary with me. Radni dan. Week or work day. Sh#t. Not even knowing where to catch a cab, I decide it’s all in a day’s work, shake my head, and set off to walk back home.

I pass by the familiar for a few miles and then reach a traffic signal I don’t recall. In fact, none of my surroundings look familiar. When I reach the intersection, two towns that aren’t really that close to mine are listed on the sign, except they should be parallel to each other, but they are not. My instincts tell me I am too far west, but my brain tells me to follow the Medulin signs, only because I swore my trip to town was a straight shot down a curvy street and not filled with lefts and rights. I passed construction workers, an old man, and a few young men working on a car in a driveway. ‘Vinkuran?’ I ask. Unlike the fun with directions I had in Bangkok, Croatians have their act together as the answers were all the same. When you are lost in Pula, provided you can pronounce the name of your village, there won’t be a problem finding it by asking for directions. However, in the early afternoon, finding people outside in residential neighborhoods becomes a game of Where’s Waldo.

I encounter a bike tour in progress and couldn’t help myself from hooting and hollering. After all those races and rides I’d done on a bike, I know how invaluable cheering is once you’ve hit the wall. I reach the home stretch (the tally for today is somewhere around 15k) and finally see the apartment in the distance. I am eager to walk through the door and rest, kicking my shoes off and putting my poor, tired feet up on the furniture – because I can. Instead I settle for soaking my feet in cold water, in the bidet of course. What else am I going to use that thing for?

Then the thought comes along…dinner. The leftover tomato soup meets chopped garlic and wild asparagus. After sautéing the organic greens (organic because I lost count of miniature snails) in oil, salt, and garlic, I toss them into the soup as well. A mish mosh of sorts, but after a dollop of yoghurt, I have to pat my back on originality.

This entry was posted on Sunday, April 15th, 2007 at 12:18 pm and is filed under Croatia. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Both comments and pings are currently closed.