The Land That Geography Class Forgot / Pleasantville / Pivo Til You Heave-o

After a very comfortable stay in Bratislava, Kyle and I left Tina’s nest on Tuesday morning to become fledgling Europeans. Traveling South by farming roads, which conveniently avoided both the Austrian policia and speeds unsafe for our homely Gypsybox, we made our way through Hungary and Slovenia. After bisecting about two dozen highway towns and cresting an unexpectedly weathery pass (as you’ll see below), we were rewarded with a brilliant view of the sun setting over the glassy Mediterranean. My words and photographs are next to useless when it comes to distinguishing such a moment. If the Pacific is Poseidon’s workshop, this is his bedroom.

We descended into Istria by first funneling through the beachside city of Rjevnik, which looks and feels like Santa Barbara’s Riviera magnified about tenfold. Being that night was approaching and our hosts had been neglected an arrival time, we pushed along, hugging the curves of the mountain tightly and piercing its cavernous belly. Ask the Evin of last month to estimate the highlights of Croatian landscape, and his guesses would be laughably wrong. Also, ask that same Evin to identify Montenegro on a map and he’d have pointed at the wrong continent. Ask the Kyle of today, and he’ll correct you: “You mean Micronesia?”

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In the precipitous heart of the Istrian peninsula lie the cobblestone streets of Pazin. Toni, Jana, and their two young sons now occupy the flat that Toni was raised in by his grandparents. He recounts the history of each living room wall – where he practiced his free throws, his spikes, his high jumps, and his teenage punkster sloganeering. Over a few bowls of manestra (‘everything soup’), we exchange stories of our origins. Walking through town later, Toni greets every passerby – each a friendly member of the town’s balanced social web – and tours us through the cramped gymnasium of his youth and the field where he trained a now-professional goalkeeper.

Flickering candles and blinking red beacons faintly light the steps through the graveyard. Each headstone is crowned with wreathes, photographs, and freshly soaked bouquets. It’s been raining all day, but still it seems as though the townspeople have come to pay respects to nearly everyone. The yard’s four terraces reach successively lower and more darkly into the canyon, leaving nothing but the idea of a black, bottomless gulch beyond. As distant sounds of teenage carousal echo through the stonework, we walk the aisles and softly discuss history. Toni tells us of Croatia’s suffering during the Yugoslavian conflicts – about the shock of war, the reaction of the populace, and their slow recovery after years of political and social erosion. I say my silent thanks for having been born in a fortunate place and time.

Toni’s youngest son, Jacob, is a dervish of a child. Bullying his older brother, making fountains out of meals, and exercising every small, violent whim of possessiveness, he has mastered at an early age the art of self-celebration. Perhaps because of the brevity of our stay or the preciousness that foreign babyspeak cultivates, we found Jacob to be as captivating as any of the surrounding landmarks. Here are a couple of choice moments from our time with him:

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The days in Istria are filled with sightseeing, much of which is too brief or episodic to warrant much commentary here. Of the places we visit, Greznon, Porec, and Pula are the most memorable – and for very different reasons: Greznon for its dizzying heights, Porec for its bristling waters, and Pula for its raging nightlife. If there’s a common theme to our adventures here, it’s the consistent reminder that we are both nationally and personally very young, and very alive.





A word on the waters of Porec: mere months ago, our swim would have some guise of normalcy, given that tourists from around the world “plague” the seaside here to the point of gridlock from May to September. But because of the sudden change of season and our decision to swim clear across the harbor (twice) instead of dawdle in the shallows, we were met with wonderment both in and out of the water. Trolling fishermen and stroller-clad mothers shouted exclamations our way – some confoundedly amused, some solemn and humorless. During the shivering, blue-handed walk back through downtown, a Scandinavian family stopped us for a posed picture and requested, as an encore, that we jump off the docks again for the camera. Wiping a fresh sheet of dew from our clenched brows, we politely declined and proceeded to the dry towels waiting in our trunk.

Audio Chat: Adventures In Istria (19:52)

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Oftentimes it’s easier to overextend an adventure than to allow its natural conclusion. This was our experience after crossing the Porec harbor; the bar was set and pleading to be raised. Instead of returning to Pazin for a decent meal and well-earned rest, we drove South to Pula. A visit earlier in the week had oriented us to the city’s layout, so our efforts were consolidated toward two familiar goals: pivo (‘beer’) and partying. After a cursory survey of the student demographic, we found a place that would supply both in excess: discotheque Uljanik.

We arrived two and a half hours before the club was to open. With big, dumb, American smiles and a little Aloha factor, we convinced them to let us stay and drink while they set up. The subject of Hawaii is of particular interest wherever we go; its name is so deeply steeped in hyperbole and syrupy, utopian legend that Kyle may as well be traveling from the Moon. As he worked his island magic at the bar, I nestled into the corner for a nap.

I’ll be glad someday to recall that this happened only once in my life: I awoke to the sensation of my tailbone being sanded down by the bassline of a Jennifer Lopez song. I took the stool next to Kyle, where he and a vacationing Finnish soldier were discussing Bosnian and Serbian conflicts. Their drink coasters had become geographic diagrams, arranged in a progressively illegible row. Together, we compared stories and drank our dance lessons as the crowds gathered.

At eleven, there were thirty drowsy dudes loitering about the patio with pivos and cigarettes. At one, the roughly 150-person dancefloor – as well as all surrounding bathrooms and barrooms – were functioning at double capacity in an absolute frenzy. Uljanik had transformed into a euphoric whirlpool of strobelights, broken glass, and foreign body odors. There in the middle of it all, I danced my little, pale heart out like it was junior high all over again.

International fact: there is no more unifying, rabble-rousing sound outside perhaps the new years countdown than the first fifteen seconds of Dr. Dre’s “The Next Episode” on a dancefloor.



About the same time that my energy ran out, Kyle’s courage showed up like a drunken supernova. I found him on a balcony with an armful of beers, shouting at a circle of local girls in pigeon.

“Kyle, remember that crazy lady we saw here on the street yesterday who was yelling to herself for three blocks about Serbs?” I warned him. “You’re being that lady.”

He peered at me knowingly, briefly parting the deep space that separated us. “Let me be that lady.” I returned to the car, wrapped myself in our towels, and fell asleep to the patter of heavy rain.

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Photos: 10/23-10/26: Hungary, Croatia
Overheard dialogue: “Buying you a drink is not a prerequisite to conversation” [Me, Uljanik]
Listening to: Blonde Redhead, 23