Moving from Croatia to Ireland: A journey of 1555 miles...

...begins with a single step (to paraphrase the quote of Lao Tzu).

1555 miles or 2500ish km is the distance between Croatia and Ireland.

Lidija Ivanek SiLa continues a look at life in Ireland for the Croatian diaspora after her opening piece on Feburuary 1, 2016.

People, almost always remember first times. We vividly remember our first time when we were leaving our country and it was for good. The weird feeling when we traveled back to Croatia for the first time as tourists.

Those travels stuck in our minds like a deep furrow behind the plow. Our first time was in the middle of February. Every good connoisseur of Europe will tell you that the middle of winter is not the smartest time for travelling across Europe with your car, but some things were not possible to change. My hubby got a job offer in Ireland that we couldn't refuse.

There we were preparing our journey of 1555 miles with first time of everything. First question was what to take with you and what to leave behind. First desperations in our attempts to find a house/apartment to rent near Cork city with our dog. First plans how to drive, where to rest, when to book tickets for the ferry, to go through the Eurotunnel or to go only by ferry. First comprehension what it means to move to an island so far in the ocean. I mean, Croatia has islands, lots of islands, but most of us continental Croats have a pleasant vision of living on an island, as sunny days of a restful holiday. Listening to the stories of other job-emigrants from different countries that arrived to Cork around our time, I was amused how we all have different things which we think we can't live without, e.g pets, bed mattresses, cars, motorbikes, certain clothes,
furniture, etc. and how much effort we are prepared to invest to bring that stuff with us. As if losing any of those things will mean losing some of our homeland.

Finally, preparations were successful and we were ready to start our journey. Generally speaking Croatians are well traveled, but mainly to neighbouring countries. Depending from what part of Croatia you are coming from, you will speak well enough German, Italian or Hungarian for basic getting around and be familiar with the nearest shopping destinations across the border. Most of us near the Austrian/German region already have close relatives working there as – gastarbeiter in the past and we are not different. Traveling through those countries was no big deal for us as Croatians, even during winter (we are fairly accustomed to winter driving), with one exception – What did happen with Germany in the last 20 years? Oh, my! The highways are constantly filled with LKWs, day and night without seizing. Rest stops are now crowded, unfriendly, filthy, places with mainly foreigners as working staff.

Traveling the German highways was an experience that I will do my best to avoid for the future. Arriving at Calais after passing Belgium during the night was the first real shock. Calais before all of today's tents and emigrants from Syria was confusing enough. It is a big container terminal, with lorries, LKWs, traveling in and out of there, constantly. To find the right turn for the Eurotunnel was not easy. We got lost for the first time. For the first time our navigation got seriously confused. As we will later discover entering the island, the navigation gets confused quite a lot in Ireland. With time we got accustomed to that too, even to the point that we think of it as one of the curious tourist attractions with the hint of adventure. When ever we said that we drove to Ireland, the first question that people from continental parts of EU usually ask is: How did you manage to drive on the “wrong” side?

So, the Tunnel was actually a pleasant experience, except one incident with the passport for our dog. As Croatia became part of the EU in 2013, you would think that there was enough time to have all the documents sorted to fit the EU forms until 2015?! You would be wrong. Passports for dogs until our traveling date were changed three times and still we were having problems at the border to UK (as the Tunnel is the border). At that point our dear dog became French, as we got a new French passport for him (as the Croatian dog's passport were missing the EU stars and it didn't look like the rest of the EU countries). Well, as I overheard later, in the months that followed, Croatia changed the look of the pet passport two more times. Nothing new for us. Now, here we are, entering UK for the first time with left driving traffic and it was a sunny day and everything seemed OK for a whole 10 minutes, when it started to rain.

The nightmare of UK highways during rain and night. Car traffic and lorries were almost like in Germany, but now splashes of water underneath lorry tires are hitting our windscreen on the drivers side. Thank God for cat's eyes on the road! When we reached (finally!) the ferry to Ireland it was in the middle of night. Well, we, as Croatia - the sea country, are accustomed to ferries, we even have some experience with it while Bura is blowing (strong northern wind in Dalmatia), but the ferry to Ireland is a story on its own. First, it is huge! They filled the ferry with lorries, containers, cars, people, pets, etc. We settled cosily in the salon, while I was amused with the scene (totally not accustomed to) people walking in their sleeping outfits with slippers around the ferry!? That is something that you will never see on a Dalmatian ferry. There it goes, for the first time we heard Irish, while listening to the voice of our captain. It was something like this: “ … it's a bit breezy outside, but don't you worry, we have a good ship with stabilization, we'll be fine...”.

This sentence became our measure for all future weather conditions. Then we were totally innocent and unprepared for the Ocean (oh, I really think I need to put an uppercase letter). I was snuggled in my green sleeping bag while the ship was slowly exiting the long Pembroke channel, and my hubby was sitting in his chair. Suddenly the ferry started to dive into the deep, it was like we lost ground beneath our feet. My hubby was green in his face, almost as green as my sleeping bag and the only salvation was that we all lay down. When you lie down, you stop being nauseated. Later, when we've settled in our new home, our landlady explained that that night the waves were 4 metres high near the Old Head.

A bit breezy!

The same expression occurred one more first-time. It was our first time traveling back to Croatia as visitors. We were traveling with the plane this time, over Amsterdam. Schiphol in Amsterdam is like a big crossroad. We were waiting for our transfer to Croatia Airlines, while the plane from Croatia landed and people were exiting through the same gate. As, obviously, on that plane were non-EU citizens coming from Bosnia etc., they had two “uniform” stationed at the entrance, diligently checking documents, slowing things down. I was reminded of all the past crossings of borders, where we from Balkan countries, couldn't pass the border without all sorts of complications, calling on side, checking, digging through our clothes, bags etc. Ah, happy times… just joking. So, here we are, waiting in line, and the elderly guy next to me started a conversation. It was a man who left Croatia 40 years ago, to move to Canada. He was visiting Croatia for the last time. He said, my boys are all grown up now and they don't have any wish to travel that far to spend a couple of weeks on the Croatian sea. Furthermore, all my friends and close relatives died already. So, he decided that it is his last trip there. He said, you know, everything is changed and there is not anything left to feel that I belong there.

It hit me, soon that could be me, there on that airport in Amsterdam, heading back and forth, not knowing where I belong anymore. It was like past and future passing me by, while I was standing in the present. Weird.

On the way back to Kinsale, I was happy to enter the green, old plane from AerLingus, while stewardesses were chatting and with that familiar smile on their faces saying: Hi, how are ya, lovely day isn't it, good to see ya, etc. Even the narrow three seats in a row felt comfy. Next to me a man in a suit, with a tight face, sat down. I started a polite conversation just to find out that he needs to travel by plane a lot, because of his work, but he is not that comfortable with it. To ease the pressure, I told him a story about our first travel with the Irish ferry and that famous sentence – a bit breezy. He seems to relax a bit. The captain started to tell his message over the speakers and in the middle of it he said “...it's a bit breezy outside and will have a bit rough landing, but don't you worry...” the rest disappeared in our laughter.

Seems to me, that you can't enter Ireland without some kind of wind around.