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Published: November 12th 2009
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Hello from a pub in Slavonski Brod where I feel a little sad (as in S.A.D, Seasonal Affected Disorder ... the weather in this town sucks!). But I’m a little exhilirated because I think I’m nearing a breakthrough of sorts of my article, plus this pub is playing great English music.
So, last night I enjoyed my lasagne, then decided to invoke my ‘Don’t do something just to tell others you did it” rule, and I went home rather than going for another drink. I watched half of the God-awful movie “Money Train”, and was surprised when I woke up a few hours later and realized I’d fallen asleep. I had a nice sleep, dreamt about marrying David and I’m starting to warm to the idea.
This morning, I left the room at 10am (left my bags just sitting in their yard ... hope they’re safe!) And walked into town. First stop was a “Chinese Shop”, where I had no choice but to buy a pair of jeans because I don’t have any with me (and I plan to wear them every single day for the rest of my trip!). Then I bought a pretty gross ham and
cheese pastry, then walked down to the waterfront. The river here is called the Sava, which I thought was quite beautiful; it’s brown, but the yellow and red trees are reflected in it. I felt like Huck Finn was about to float by on his raft at any minute. I had a quiet walk around there, stopped for my bijela kava at a cafe-bar called Alter Ego, then checked out the Franciscan Monastery (a little more lavender and more groomed than the one in Pula). After that, I went to the fortress, the main site here in Slav. Brod. To be honest, I nearly passed right by it. I guess it houses a school now because I heard a bunch of loud school kids yelling inside. It looks half-demolished and abandoned and not really worth the visit.
I started to make my way back to the hotel to get my stuff, but needed a smoke and a beer first (yes, it’s the afternoon and I don’t care!), so I came into this pub. I’m happy to be travelling, don’t get me wrong, but I’m starting to feel that maybe I shouldn’t be doing it at this time of year. It’s cold and wet and I’m sure I’d have a different opinion of this town if it was summer and the outdoor seats weren’t put away and I wasn’t freezing to death. But then again, I also kinda think maybe this is the perfect way to experience Slavonia: it shouldn’t be sunny and nice because it wasn’t a sunny and nice place.
The sky is different shades of grey and once in a while, a little patch lights up, backlit by the sun, and I get excited. But it darkens.
I could walk through this town and have no clue that there was war here. The buildings have peeling paint and some of their roofs are caved in and there are construction sites everywhere. I’m looking for signs of war but I don’t know if I’d recognize them if I saw them. There’s a small hole on the top of that house - a shell mark? The front of the Franciscan Monastery is a smooth, fresh lavender with bright white trim. The back is red brick and it’s being worked on - was that the part damaged in the war? I keep asking myself, ‘where is it?’ Like I’m expecting there to be a giant tank to point the way.
The thing is, I don’t know what to look for.
It would be easy to pretend there was no here, this is just a town that needs a little work. It’s like being in Pula, because there was no war there and you can pretend there was no war in Croatia at all. Maybe that’s why I liked it so much. Here, I’m not in a comfort zone. I’m not comfortable.
When Lonely Planet names Croatia as its number one destination, this is not the part it means. In fact, the Lonely Planet Croatia guide doesn’t even have a section about Slavonia.
I feel sad here and I haven’t even seen anything sad. Maybe it’s the weather.
But it makes me think, being here. And I think in a way, this was my war too. I was ten to fourteen years old when it happened. My diaries from those years don’t mention a word about Yugoslavia. I mentioned that Bill Clinton was President and that something was going on in Iraq. I wrote: “There is war everywhere”. So maybe I knew about Yugoslavia, just not the specifics.
I remember the first Iraq war clearly because it annoyed me that television footage of air strikes pre-empted episodes of Seinfeld.
Save all that for the coast, I’m in a different area now and today I have miles (1km uphill, to be precise) to go before I sleep (or have wine).
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