H2O

Tuesday tradition

2010-09-08T07:47:00.002+01:00

On Tuesday I usualy volunteer on one project and afterwards we, the volunteers, usualy go to drink somewhere in the park. After few months it seems to become a tradition. It probably started as a kind of therapy after volunteering.

I brought Becherovka from Czech Republic. Sometimes we discuss about life and things which we like. This time we just played some drinking games. It was funny to notice how at some point one person usually gets too much confused so he/she makes more errors and needs to drink more. And then he/she recovers and some other person starts to loose more. Everybody process the alcohol differently which makes it more interesting, you can notice this ups and downs. And of course, everything became more funny. My analitical brain wanted to draw a graph showing our performances through time.

When we drank the bottle, we wandered around searching for a bar. And we enter the 16th Meridian. It was a bar which I always wanted to visit, ever since I saw it for the first time when I was in high school. Not because someone recommended it, I just felt like going there. Finaly it happened spontaneously, just the way it is suppoused to be. They had some home made rakija. The place looks nice. It was empty when we came. Just as we started talking, a new visitor entered the bar and we started a conversation with him. He is German, living nearby, just came from work at International German School where he teaches math and natural sciences. It was very pleasent conversation and very warm atmosphere. The owner was talking with us, so I asked him about this place. It was made in 1982. At that time, there wasn't a mark of the 16th meridian nowhere in Zagreb, but after they made this bar, city drew a line nearby at the more precise place of the meridian. It happens to be that Michael is protector of 16th Meridian (according to the owner of the bar) which made me feel more connected to all this arround me. We all departed with shaking our hands.

bungee jumping

2010-07-11T21:10:00.002+01:00

We got a good deal for bungee jumping so few of us went there to try it out.

I went first. Standing on the top was beautiful and scary. When I was young, I've heard few times how people got injured so my parents wanted to scary me with this stories. So I was thinking how should I jump and not injure myself. After some thinking I decided to just give it a try and jumped. The lake was getting nearer and nearer and then suddenly I was returning. Looking at it is not as faboulos as the feeling you got from free fall with your head down. When I jumped back, my whole body turned 180 degrees vertically so I had some spinning around.

Ana Habijanec was next. She wasn't thinking too much, she just did it. Here is a video:

One girl who was with us spent 15 minutes there on the top preparing to jump but she couldn't do it in the end. I think that must be fun as well, just standing there and thinking how scary it is. I'm sure she will do it soon!

20080713 CE Iceland - part II

2010-06-22T12:05:00.002+01:00

We went to the mountains for 2 days camping. Iceland has such a beautiful nature! There are not so many insects, if any. A lot of clear water. We were drinking water from every spring and river which we found. They say if the water is moving, it's safe to drink. We saw geysirs, watched as they burst into the sky and then burble on the ground and then all over again. This hot water mixed with sulphur has beautiful colours, feels like magic.

We were walking around. At some point we got lost. Or some would say we just took a wrong turn so we explored more stuff. Some people were tired and very nervous. Situation was quite unpleasent in few moments, people started fighting and finally seperated into 3 groups. At that moment I was at the end so people already divided leaving in different directions. It was interesting to see people who are friends, volunteering together, improving their social (soft) skills and it all colapses when things get a bit hard. One group was going up-hill and the other was going downhill taking longer route. I decided following the one going up because it seemed better to be on the top and have a better sight over the terrain so I made my group go there. At some point leader of the "upper" team went to the lower team in order to join all of us together at the same spot, while we waited for them. We continued walking.

As we approached final destination, one of the girls fell and hit her head and a knee on the rock making it both bleed. We continued after a short break. Then we saw hot spring of water. It was too good to be true. Everybody put their clothes down and jumped into the river. We relaxed, had fun and forgot about all the stress which happened on the trip. It was around midnight and we were watching the sunset and mountains around us! Sunrise goes around 3 o'clock, if I remember, which means there is no real darkness during the summer time.

Next day we were hitchiking to Reykjavik. It wasn't too hard.

House were we lived wasn't it top condition. Sometimes we couldn't get cold water and sometimes, the toilet was stuck for hours. In the morning can be one hell of the problem. After few days it all got worse. Few of us where in great need to use it so we went out to some trees and bushes and felt call of the wild. Appereanltly one neighbour figured what was happening. She called Einer, the owner, and told him that we were shitting in the garden. He came in few minutes, jumped from the car, put down his sun glasses, said "what the fuck?!", went to the garden, search the whole garden and then returned and asked what was happening. He was relieved that we didn't shit in his garden :) Lady said that she would call the police because children are playing where we did what we did so we went back and picked up our shit in the bag and put it in the trash.

At the city, we ate some food at the super-market and a hot-dog fell from Bero's hands on the floor. When we returned from the city, Kirac figured that he had lost his wallet. We met some Croats who are living here for some years now. They come to work on a project and then they decided to stay for a while.

During the working days, you can see how Icelanders are relaxed and calmn. But when the weekend comes, it all becomes quite different. They start at home by drinking (because alcohol is so expensive in the clubs) and then they go out. When we came to the city at night, we saw a fight at the 1st club which we wanted to enter. I think we saw 3 fights during one night of clubbing. In front of the clubs there are usually queues so it won't be too crowded inside.

We started our journey home. At the airport, we learned that our plane was late. This was so not good because we bought a cheap ticket from London to Zadar with Ryanair which means we could be stuck in Stansted. The plane was late for 2 hours and we managed to get on time. At the baggage reclaim, Dim found jacket for his bag torn apart.

We had a great time there, altough trip was full of some small accidents.

20080713 CE Iceland - part I

2010-06-20T19:36:00.008+01:00

After two years I'm looking back to the summer 2008 when I was in Stockholm, Iceland and Ukraine. Here are some notes which I made in that time. Trip to Iceland began in Stockholm which was described here.

20080713 CE Island

At the airport a policeman called me into a special room, took a look at my bags and found excessive amount of alcohol. Ok, it was mostly extremly cheap whiskey which I bought on Stockholm airport so I wasn't too sad about that. I bought it because I've heard how alcohol is precious and expensive here. So, I left some of the boose at the airport but still bringing domestic liquids. In the bus which was driving to Reykjavik we met rest of our team which was to participate on cultural exchange. Culture exchange (CE) is very cool event because you need to pay only for the trip and everything else is arranged by the organisers of the event. Now we were the guests, it was our time to enjoy, just like Icelanders enjoyed their stay in Croatia.

We were accommodated in one of many houses of one of the organisers (Einar). It was huge house with lot of free space and big windows. Perfect party place.

As you all know, Iceland is volcanic island and they use a lot of geo-thermal energy. Houses have 2 pipes of water: cold and hot one, which means they don't need to heat cold water like we do.

In the afternoon we went to public pools and enjoyed hot pool in the open. Now we come to interesting part. When you enter public pools, before going into the pools itself, you should walk naked to the showers and clean yourself. There is even a chart which shows few important spots on the body which require special cleaning :) At the showers there is always some weird looking guy whose job is to check if everybody goes naked to the showers before going to the pools. Which means he's looking at huge amount of dicks for the whole day. Personaly, I didn't feel very comfortable around naked men, but after few days I got used to it. Now I'm still not so stressed about it as before which is something which I always wanted to feel, freedom. Fuck the shame. And when you go back from the pool you can put you pants in a machine which uses centrifugal force to dry it out. Works pretty fast.

In the evening we met more organisers at the party at our house. I can say girls around there were pretty big, aggressive and "open". Well, yeah, it's cultural exchange, it's all very interesting.

Next day we went to the city and walked around. Some parts were full of birds which you could feed. Sometimes when you throw food you can watch air battle between birds fighting for the flying pieces. For the first time I've been to Lutheran church. Minimalism rules there, white colour, big space, no pictures, only few statues.

Did you know that you can enter a house of the Prime Minister whenever you feel like and go and chat with him, if he's available? Well, you can! They really seem open-minded people. You can also sometimes meet him during lunch time at nearby hot dog's. It's kind of special, president Clinton also ate there when he visited Iceland.

Buses in Reykjavik drive on hydrogen. At the time, they were testing it on the cars as well. Resulting product of using hydrogen is water. A guy who was giving us presentation of this technology even started the engine, waited for few seconds in front of exhaust pipe and picked up water which went out from it and drank it. Of course, this isn't the best water to drink, but it is kind of drinkable. At the time in Reykjavik was 1 hydrogen pump operating (without profit, but it's a beginning).

20100604 BEC Zagreb 2010

2010-06-19T15:25:00.005+01:00

20100604 BEC Zagreb 2010

BEST Zagreb organised one hell of event. To be honest, I was really waiting for it, hoping to have fun with European students. And it worked perfectly. I felt like a student again and for me this was a great time of my life. So, here are some things to remember...

I've done my stealing camera prank again. When the guys are walking around the city, they aproach me wanting me to take a picture of them. I take a shot and run with a camera. 1st time it was in front of Cathedral. I ran down to Tkalca, one of the new organisers was following me. In a passage I stoped, waited for him, gave him camera and he instantly turned around wanting to go back. So I had to stop him and explain him whom I was and that it was a joke. Then I went to Tomiceva street where is "uspinjaca", a "tram" driving uphill to upper city. There I was exploring trash cans when the next group approached me wanting me to take a picture of them. On the same place I've done the same thing one more time, so 3x times in total that day. I was exhausted of running with cameras :) But it was really fun for most of us and people remembered me very well after that.

Same day we had hospital party, that was kind of cool. I slept for 1 hour, if you can call it sleeping. We got up early and left to Istra for the weekend.

During the weekend we visited Porec, Pula and Pazin, where we slept in a gym and had dinner with huge amounts of medica. Late in the night when we came to our sleeping place, we noticed how we left one of the organisers in the restaurant.

Near Pula we found a very nice beach, I must say unexpectedly clean and pleasant for our bodies. Waqas, a participant from Pakistan, didn't know how to swim so I gave him few lessons. That was interesting. I was suprised when I learned he is engaged to his cousin, I think she is daughter of his mother's sister. That would be quite unusual in my culture so I was interested into this subject. They find it acceptable if 3 generations before them didn't do the same (then it's safe to do it).

My focus was already put on one girl whom I find to be extremely beautiful and a nice person to communicate with. After the weekend I've told her what I desire, but it didn't seem to reflect on her the same way as me, so, nothing happened. Life has proven to be challenging because in during last week few times it happened that a friend of mine would tell me how some of his female friends gave a very positive feedback about me. Of course, it always happens during this times when I'm focused on somebody else so this feedbacks don't seem to be immediately useful except for a ego-buster. God truly had a lot of fun while designing us humans. Fucking oneitis.

New hit for me on international evening was Tatarsky čaj, nice drink, but still Beherovka rules together with Vana Tallin and Riga black balsam.

Pub crawling was true Sodoma & Gomora. In one pub a lady recognised me as she remembered me running with cameras down Tkalca. So she was curious what was it about this time. Murat from Turkey put the whole event onto another level by pissing into the bottle and drinking his warm piss which gave victory to his team. To make it more spicy he kissed with some girls afterwards.

Egyptian party had very funny trick. You put a fold on a person and bring it on the stick which is lying on the ground. In front of the stick are some pillows where a person will fall later. While he is blind standing on the the stick, some guys lift the stick up, just a bit. At the same time, onether person is helping blind person to balance himself by holding his hands and slowly going down. Going down makes the blind person feel like he is going up so he starts shaking like hell and you can notice how he's a bit afraid. Everybody starts shouting "jump, jump..." and after some moments blind person decides to really jump thinking that he is 2m above the ground while he's actually 10-20 cm above. Whole scene of falling down from 10cm looks hilarious!

Participants were supposed to make water bycicles which we used on a competition on lake Jarun. That too was a very nice day spent.

Next day we went on a walk through park Maksimir. It was interesting to notice how people were shy when they are sober. We were suppoused to make picture of naked asses, but it didn't work as expected. Still, this park is very beautiful and I hope people used the chance to enjoy it.

On Sunday we went to Hrelich market. We were divided into teams with a mission to dress ourselves for the following party. Each team had 50kn which they could use for dressing up 5 people. We managed to get clothes for less than 3kn per piece of a clothe and spending rest of the money on a special requisit. My team won the show, yeah!

That was the last evening. I felt great altough at one moment I almost burst into a cry so I decided to hurry up and go home and get some sleep before the work. I've meet some very cool people and had a lot of fun on this event and didn't need to sleep as much as usually :)

Life is funny.

dreams... getting closer

2009-11-01T09:00:00.003+01:00

Yesterday I set up an alarm for 30 minutes later. It was evening and I felt like taking some rest.

Entered dream-like state where I was aware that dream isn't some random event. I was feeling energy flow through myself and was aware that it was kind of controled by me. Like another level of reality, it all happened in 'dream' level but was result of something which I wanted to experience before I entered this state. In this dream I felt like in meditation where I was going to another level. Almost felt like leaving physical point where I was, but the alarm woke me up. It's hard to describe this control and reality where I felt it was all happening as it is suppouse to happen. Like having different levels of control in vertical hierarchy.

Looking forward to experience it again.

20090816 Kuterevo, voluntary camp

2009-09-20T19:25:00.005+01:00

http://www.kuterevo-medvjedi.hr/

20090816 Kuterevo volonterski kamp

In August I participated on SCI working camp in Kuterevo. It is small village near city Otočac in mountain Velebit. There is shelter for bears and we mainly worked on shelters. From Otocac I began walking towards the village and at some point a got a ride, changed a car and finally reached the village. Impressions of the place were great already at the beginning. I saw it was a place where I will learn something new.

My friend Tomislav took me for a beer in Bear pub near the shelter where I met a friend from primary school. Haven't seen her for a long time. Recently I was thinking on meeting somebody from my class and she was one of the choices. I was anticipating she would be interesting to meet although we didn't hang around in the early days. But she sure was interesting and I enjoyed her company. Weird place, I thought.

Our accommodation was wooden house with 3 floors. We slept on the floor. While somebody was walking around on level above or below, you could easily hear him/her and sometimes even feel the vibrations of the movement. It didn't work as massage, unfortunetely. Water was available in limited amounts. Toilets which we used were called compost-closet. After you did your job there, you were required to put sawdust onto it, not water. That was cool, no one could know what were you doing there since it was very silent. There were 3 toilets & 2 shower. Each group of volunteers had a chance to take a shower once per day at specific time during period of half an hour. Shower was cold and refreshing. We cooked mainly vegetarian food as it was cheeper and more environmentally friendly.

In the beginning we shared house with the group of volunteers from USA. There were few girls and one guy who was very friendly and hanged out with us much more than the others. It was very unusual what happened last night. Since it was their last night, we proposed to make dinner together. So we did it and when the dinner finished, Americans went upstairs while we remained sitting on the table, chatting, drinking, waiting for them to join us again. But it never happened. Does it mean that in USA they don't have big parties on the last night?

While days were very hot, nights were very cold. During the night we would hang out with the Belgians, also a group of volunteers. During weekend there was a "party" in the village. Young people gathered around some pub-van which offered cheap drinks. There was also a car with some folk music which I didn't appreciate very much. Veronique, my friend from primary school, and her cousin were there, so I joined them for some time. It's good if you don't stay too long. I didn't drink that much so it wasn't very funny to be surrounded by drunk people. Few times we, the volunteers, made a big fire and gathered around, singing,...

Recently shelter got new land, huge area which is connected to the peak Kopija. We went there few time to work and enjoy the nature. Up there one can find bear cemetary which has few bears. One of this bears was killed when one volunteer went inside of shelter to play some music which bear actualy didn't like that much so it attacked the volunteer. Soon this peak will be very interesting area when volunteers re-arrange it. One night we wanted to sleep there. There is also a platform from where you can spot a bear if you are lucky and also feel safe since wild animals cann't reach you. We slept there for few hours and than the storm came. In few minutes we took our stuff and went to the village. Soon afterwards big rain came and we felt lucky for good timing. I remember that one night when there was a storm a big lightning stroke down waking up virtually everybody.

Few tips for handling the snakes which we learned. When moving a stone, lift first the farther part since the snake can than escape out of your way. You can use a stick first and hit the stones a bit to alarm snakes that you are near. If you are bitten by a snake, you shouldn't move too much so the poison doesn't go around your body. You should put you wound (ex. arm) under the earth and leave it there for some time (hours). We didn't encounter any snake.

Each morning I went for the bread. Here in the village you need to order in advance how much bread you want for each day.

One can meet many interesting people there. Professor who shares his wisdom during the nights. He would often mention how this place is also a shelter for people since many of them come there to setle their mind and thoughts. It's true, I can say that one Belgian girl actively worked on defining her destiny there. She has a birthday on the same day as me. Last year some guy came with a monkey. He was a pilgrim traveling from Belgium to Jerusalem. They walked, donkey carried their stuff and searched for clear water. If the water wasn't drinkable, it would spit it out. Smart donkey as it was proved in many occasions. On fortunately, donkey couldn't cross a border to Turkey without spending some time in quaranteen. This year Mathew, the pilgrim, returned to Kuterevo (without donkey) and planed to go to Jerusalem with his friend from Israel.

In the beginning, when the little bears arrive to the shelter, a dog is put there to help the socialise and teach them how to behave, share food, etc. It's funny to look at them sometimes when bears are fighting, dog is barking at them and then one of the bears starts to chase a dog, dog runs, bear goes back to the other bear to continue the discussion, dog comes again, ... Dogs bark much more, bears are producing sounds only seldom when they are really annoyed too much. We would give them ice-cream: some corn and vegetables put in the ice. They eat meat rarely and if they do, it is rotten meat.

All in all, place is full of interesting people (and bears). You are very close to the nature, mountain is at hand. Morning is beautiful, animals playing around, sun rays and clouds surrounding you. Definetly a place you wish to visit again. And all this is just a part of the whole story.

20090827 Kumrovec TiGro SM

2009-09-02T11:24:00.003+01:00

20090827 Kumrovec TiGro SM

Kumrovec, village where marshall of Yugoslavia, Tito, was born. We slept in musem-village in old village houses. Enviroment was very nice, chickens and turkeys running all around us. At the very beginning we met very communicative host, Dunja, one of the leaders of the museum. She shared some interesting stories with us. Everybody noticed she likes to talk a lot, but she wasn't boring. I think she was very happy when few days later Junior came and asked a classical question: "Why do people say Tito was very poor when he was young and I see he was living in such a huge house?" Well, there were 2 families living there and both had something like 6-7 children. Tito's grandfather had opportunity to build such a big house. Today whole village has something like 300 people.

Participants were driven from bus station to our accomodation by tracktor.

In the evening had a visit from Samurai. We were dancing outside and suddenly some older guy appeared from the background. Tresh thought it was night-guard so we ran to welcome him, only to discover that he has troubles with speaking as he was pretty drunk. It wasn't a security guard. Samurai fought in the war were he once found Katana. He enjoyed museum village. Once he burned one of the houses and some other time he drove with his Opel Corsa over both wooden fences. He told me he lives on the hill and invited us to come there. There he had some pool (air-pool for kids) where we could swim. After we would pick the apples from the trees, he would make us bar-b-que. But we had some other job to do. Next day around noon he visited us again. Do I need to mention he was drunk? After some time, he decided to sit on a camping chair where he slept for few hours. Before the sleep, he made joke of Dunja, her old friend.

One of the days Kumrovec hosted event of Wedding in Zagorje. In the beginning, man's friend gather in front of the bride's house where they are looking for a bride. It's funny event, representatives of both sides make joke about each other. Traditionaly, first brides which are offered from the brides' house are some old hags but there where also some older men who appriciated their company. In the end our bride comes and the ceremony can continue. At the end, after the wedding, eating, drinking, dancing,... big fire is made and people jump over it. Ana H. and me jumped as well. All in all, Ana H. made her mind free, showed herself as very interesting creature. It was fun to watch and listen to her.

Drink of the evening was rakija, of course. On the first evening we had a nice one from Tresh. But it was drank too fast and the other ones were not so good in my opinion. I thought I knew what is bad rakija but this was something of a different class for me. One evening we had rakija rally, going around museum village in teams, drinking gemist (wine+mineral water) and rakija. Kert, leader of my team, was amazing, he could drink this shit in any amount without showing face of regreat.

One afternoon we visited Tuhelj pools where we had a lot of fun.

Most of the time during the day I was reading Norwegian wood by Murakami, meditating and playing didjeridoo. The book was amazing.

I wonder with will happen next time when I meet Zeljka.

There was some talking about big travels around the world. I hope our dreams will come true.

under the water

2009-08-26T14:54:00.002+01:00

Water, I love this fluid. Pure water is definitely one of my favourite drinks, often on the very top.

I enjoy snorkeling. Going under the water makes me feel like entering another universe. Makes me think about stuff I don't think when I'm on the ground. One can move in every direction, just like flying. Magical stuff, indeed.

Before I use to move fast when snorkeling, because I thought I don't have enough air, so I should try to get as far as possible. Now I discovered there is a better strategy. At this moment, I've been the most efficient when I was moving in rythm, something like 1 sec. moving, and then 1 sec. pause. Feels like breathing. It's better to be relaxed and enjoy then to hurry up, definitely. When I feel like running out of air, I relax for a second, then I can continue, then again I feel like loosing air so relax again.... Again, just like breathing. It's definitely different and better strategy. Keep the reminder for the next summer

TC @Ugljan

2009-05-10T19:02:00.003+01:00

On island Ugljan I attended training course on Volunteers managment for a week. We learned, produces some materials, shared experience, had fun...

There is a small island very close to the beach were we had lectures. I went swimming to there once. On the island there is a monastery so it wasn't appropriate to explore it in a swimming suite :(

One night was intercultural evening. We shared some alcohol and chocolates from our countries and we danced. All this parties can be exhausting for some. I didn't tend to stay last man standing so I could get up early, do my exercises and have a breakfest.

Island is pretty calm, actually just as I wanted. One couldn't hear city noise and one could relax. Well, there was a strong wind blowing all the time which was interesting. In the port one could hear an orchestra of sound from the wind and waves shaking the boats.

One afternoon we went on St. Michael's peak. That was very nice afternoon, nice trip, excellent view.

After the lunch, we had one hour to spare. So we were walking around the city. One day I noticed a sign for a traffic light. I told it to the others, gathered the team so we went there to take a look. We found it near a school. There we had some fun, a photo session for 10 minutes. I'm sure we managed to make few drivers angry/confused.

Course ended just before May Day when was to start team-building of VCZ. I stayed for few more days. We went on barbecue, another swim, out in the pub...

It was really nice to relax on the island, far from a big city, although the weather wasn't the best one.

picture for Mother's Day

2009-05-10T16:47:00.003+01:00

Mother's hands just before the sunset

book: Berlin - Portrait of a City

2009-05-06T09:48:00.004+01:00

As I'm visiting Berlin in beginning of June, my path lead me to city library to search for books on Berlin. One of them is in particulary interesting: Berlin - Portrat einer Stadt - Portrait of a City - ... (french traslation).

All the texts are written in 3 languages: german, english and french. This way one can read some of the original texts from german as well. There are more than 600 pages in large format. On the pages, there are usually big photos of the city/people. Content is divided in few periods of time, like before the WW, in between the WWs, end of WW2 and consequences, after the wall fell till today. Each chapter begins with some introduction (text) to this period, describing political situation, life of the people, cultural life, ...

Photos are amazing! On each of them are short comments what does it show. The book is kind of photo album showing Berlin in whole of its timelife. It's great to see both images of various people as well as buildings and famous and unfamous places. Pages contain quotes about Berlin and its citizens from various people, usually famous ones.

So much one can learn about this city from this book. By the city, I include people and their lives as well, their emotions. I feel like I fell in love with Berlin and still I haven't been there. It would be nice if I could travel to some periods of time to see & feel all this by myself as well. After all this, I hope Berlin today will be as fascinated as in the past. Different for sure, as this is one of the characteristics of Berlin.

This kind of books are like traveling itself. Already in the past I was considering to explore more unknown areas by reading books and web sites. It brings impression of travel itself in times when one doesn't have that chance to go to some city. And google maps and wikipedia could help exploring other ares than the cities. I could pretend I'm traveling there soon.

I'm also thinking about portaiting. It would be interesting to collect stories about people. I like geting to know them but it's not easy to make them open themselves. I wonder would people be more open if I would approachem them with clear vision of getting to know them and writing some kind of portait?

20090418 RastFest@Slunj

2009-04-21T22:34:00.006+01:00

I was to go to Slunj with Stips. Slunj is nice city which hosted RastFest, festival of rafting & music for 3 days.

In the morning I arrived to railway station in Zagreb. Weather was nice. Meeting with Stips was half an hour later therefore I decided to sit on the bench and relax in the sun. I was kind of meditating with my eyes half-opened. Some guy passing by stopped and started conversation. Am I meditating? Am I talking to Jesus Christ? Am I budhist? Church is bad, Jesus is cool. Now he was going to book a night in the hostel and following day he was suppouse to go to Ljubljana and then Praha. He invited me for a cup of coffee but I refused since I had a meeting with my friend at the bus station. He wanted me to tell him more about meditation and some other related and unrelated stuff.

Stips was late for few minutes, we had to catch bus 2 hours later. We went for a coffee to Limb, hoping to meet Borna as well, but he was to wasted and too asleep.

We arrived to Slunj and went down to Rastoke. City is very nice with lots of beautiful waterfalls. Rafting cup was already going, we watched the competition for a while. Kotic didn't answer the phone. Few hours later he called. Said that he lost his mobile phones only to find one of them later and phoned me back.

In meantime, we went to a camping site. Rain started, we went under the bridge for the cover where we met some people. We talked and hanged around. Suddenly, one woman started to touch other woman's breasts. Soon we discovered she was checking out the quality of plastic surgery. We wanted to try it as well so we did. I appreciate the gesture, really wanted to feel it, but I must say I didn't feel the thrill when I touched them. Didn't feel anything special at all which was a bit surprising actually. Still, I was very curious.

Finally we met my friend, Kotic. Haven't seen him for years. He provided us with a bed and food. Night before he had a fight with some rude guys from security who were pushing his girlfriend. In the evening we went for a concert and managed to get in for free. Main stars, TBF and Dubioza kolektiv were quite late with its show so other guys had to feel in extra time. Is that really necessary? After the concert we went to other hall where some DJs were playing.

Following day we mainly chated with the host family and other friend who was also there as a guest. It was nice weekend.

From 20090418 RastFest Slunj

20090416 spiritual workshops

2009-04-20T01:06:00.005+01:00

Last week I've been on 2 presentations/workshops:

presentation of Divine energy park
presentation on sound therapy

Presentation of Divine energy park

Day before presentation I saw a poster about it and decided to check it out. Presentation lasted for about an hour. There were few people from this organisation. They were introducing me to their concept and we did 2 breathing exercises. I was the only participant actualy :)

I support what they were saying at the presentation. Most of the stuff I've heard before. People from this society are very pleasant to speak to and it is nice to be in their presence. They shine positive energy and look happy.

I've learned new technique of breathing. One breathes with only one nostril. According to the theory, each nostril is connected with certain mind process (and other stuff). It's good to activate both nostrils. In the exercise, one blocks one nostril. Inhales with one nostril, than blocks that nostril and opens another one. Then you exhale and inhale with the same nostril. Then you change again.

This society provides introducing course which costs more than 150 €. They seem like really nice people to hang around, one day I'll attend the course. As for now, this money will be spent on other non-spiritual stuff.

Presentation on sound therapy

Presentation was held by Svemir Vranko.
There were many interesting things to learn about, hear and experience. Here are some of them.

Tibetan bong produced incredible sound. One hit makes very long sound. Bong represents solar system. Each sound is connected to one of the planets. Does interesting relaxing sensation.

Health analysis can be done through sound (not just healing) as well. Short presentation was held. "Doctor" produces interesting sound directed to a person. As he scans certain parts of body, doctor changes frequency of sound produced. Upper body gets higher frequency. If I remember correctly, doctor used his hands to reflect sound (or it was used in another exercise).

Didgeridoo was used on few occasions. I'm really gaining more and more interest into this subject. After the presentation I tried to play it. I can see it will be a long training and I'd like to do it. I'll start with PVC didge.

There were few exercises used to give special "healing" to one person. Of course, everybody was affected at least a bit. First one was presentation of techniques used by Aborigine to enter the Dreamtime. Person was lying relaxed on the floor. Few didgeridoo players were playing didjeridoos, most of the time are from this instrument was directed to their body. On the other exercise person was also lying on the floor. This person needed to chose something which he/she wanted to improve in their life. We were singing the name of this person in various ways, whatever we wanted. It was mostly in smaller pace. There were many of us, so we produces really interesting sensation which could at least boost creativity. In all this exercises people were like in trance after the exercise ended. Out of their mind, or to say better, out of their body. Most of them needed some time to come back to reality. Everybody was very happy with the whole experience. I think it would look very weird for most of the people if they would happen to see something like this on TV or through the glass of the window. If you do, watch the session until the end at least. I recommend everybody to experience this. There will be other workshops.

Throat singing was also presented. Very interesting technique, also something I would like to learn more about. I've heard for the first time about this few years ago from a friend from Russia. She was talking about singing in state Tuva (link).

I want to stress that this workshop was really great and I'm planning to go to the next one which will again be organised by Svemir Vranko. Svemir means universe in Croatian, interesting name.

20090407 movies@MM centar

2009-04-07T23:20:00.003+01:00

Wau, again, great movie there was in MM center. Truly great movies for free. I like going there. This time there were 3 of us (actualy few more but they were late & soon left the place). I'm going again on Thursday and Friday. Whoever likes movies & spends time in Zagreb, I would recommend going there when you catch an event.

Today we (by chance I met 2 friends) watched Fitzcarraldo. Nice movie about man trying to achieve an unusal dream. Main character was Klaus Kinski, both interesting actor & character. I'd like to watch it again concentrating only on him :)

Something interesting happened today as well. I was planning to watch "Blow-up" today. In the morning I was watching TV while having a breakfast and some photographer on TV recommended watching it. I like geting positive replies on my thoughts or some answers like this. Doesn't happen that often, but I like when it does. Interesting coincidence at least.

20090406 TV appereance

2009-04-06T17:29:00.003+01:00

It's been a while since my last TV appearance. I believe it was on Danish TV.

This time I've been invited to national TV in Croatia to be a guest in "Briljanteen", popular show for young people. Topic was volunteering on international voluntary camps.

I was very excited. Didn't say all that I wanted. It just suddenly ended. My heart was beating really hard, I hope they didn't hear it on TV, since microphone was attached on my chest. I like this feelings of excitement.

There was also a problem with smiling. I felt like laughing all the time and had troubles with resisting to it. Hope I didn't appear too stupid. Ah, yeah, almost forgot to say that I was wearing make-up, yeah!

gift of birth

2009-04-05T17:31:00.002+01:00

When I'm unhappy, I'm trying to solve my problems looking from rational views. Here are some thoughts on receiving and birth, which I was using to make myself feel better.

I was born naked. At that moment, didn't have that much in my life. From that moment on, I started to receive presents. First I got some clothes. Then I get some food & drinks. Later I got toys. People were teaching me how to speak, eat, walk,... I ate my food. Some of that made me bigger. Some of the clothes I couldn't use any more. Some of the toys I broke, some of them remained.

No matter what, I began my life naked (and empty, in a way). Until now I lost & received some stuff. But compare to the moment of birth, I'm still in a gain. I should be happy, since I have more than what I used to have. Because I get more than I loose, I should concentrate more on what I get and less on what I loose.

Of course, even before I was born, I was receiving. While I was in my mother's womb, I was getting warm, food, drinks, O2, love, ... I could go even further...

Life is an opportunity to develop yourself and gain.

Turning 24

2009-03-28T16:16:00.003+01:00

Currently I'm twenty four and a half. In my childhood, "and a half" meant a lot. If you were five and a half, "and a half" would give you an advantage over those who were just five years old. This half of year were quite interesting for me and I was considering to write about this much earlier. Perhaps I didn't because I was thinking it could all end when I put it on paper.

When you meet people, they try to guess how old are you. In my case it was usually women who were interested into this. Most usual guess was 24. These statistics gave to this number special meaning. In my thoughts, I expected something special to happen when I turn 24. Special things did happen. I'll try to name few of them, the whole subject is rather large for me.

First thing which I noticed that I was happy. That was quite noticeable because last few years I was suffering for most of the time thinking about my great love and a nice dream which could now only live in my imagination. This fact destroyed some of the meaning in my life. When I was unhappy, I promised myself to appreciate much more times of happiness. Now I felt free! Other thing about being happy was that there wasn't any particular event or happening which made me feel happy. It wasn't like when I was traveling and meeting people, or won the lottery, or whatever. Simple as that, I was happy. It's something which I care about in my life and now it was happening. Will it last long? Don't know. I felt something new was happening to me and that this is the time of changes. It was leading to something big. Step in the right direction.

Feeling happy and free, feeling of changes... I was aware of the changes so I was ready to experiment with myself and with my life. Looking optimistically in life was something which I wanted to give a better chance, and now I did. I was smiling a lot, feeling happy, trying to be positive in all that was around me and in me. Interesting experiment. Nice story goes about the game of pictionary played in December with my friends from BEST. My partner and me were one of the losers together with one other team. On the other side were 2 teams to whom the victory was smiling. We were stuck at the very beginning, many steps behind the potential winners. People were laughing about my partner remembering his bad skills from the last game. I was quite enthusiastic and optimistic. When we did wrong, I was saying we were close and almost won, and when we guessed good, I was "out of my mind". Focus was put more on the game rather than on the winning, although I was encouraging us to win. At certain moment, we had some considarable winning strikes which unexpectedly lead us to victory. Amazing and glorious winning! At that time I applied one of projects in BEST for a grant and we got good money for it. And so on... Things were going pretty good. Not for everyone. One of my best friend who was always happy, now wasn't very happy. Some of my other friends as well. Economical crisis in the world was a big issue.

Let's get back to changes. Every morning I made morning rituals. That was streching the body, breathing exercises, meditation, shower which included cold shower as well. I beleaved this things were important aspect of staying happy. One other thing was that I finally got a girlfriend. She was great and really made me feel happy even more.

Here are some events from that time which were rather cool. In short time, some interesting things happened. At the very beginning, I volunteered on "Healthy cities" conference held in Zagreb. Huge event with lots of "important people". My job was to lead the group of high-school students who were supposed to assist the guests during the conference. Great experience, mainly due to feeling of being surrounded by great team from Voluntary center Zagreb who invited me to join this project. Later on I joined them on some other projects as well. They even made few really cool parties. I made a good training of communications for BEST with my friend. Soon after that I celebrated my birthday. After that together with other volunteers, we made surveys with people on the street about how safe they felt in the city. At that time there were few really bad incidents which happened in short time and made people of Zagreb feel unpleasant. On 20th of November, my friend Enis celebrated becoming an engineer and finishing of studies. That day I left the group for a while to give instructions to a girl, get some money and returned later to continue with the party. In Purgeraj we spoke to few groups of girls. There was one girl which I noticed, quite special she was. I clearly remember how she was shining in the dark, much different from anything I've seen before. Passed near her few times and felt I should get to know her. At a moment, my friend was stopped by her friend which made me instantly move towards her. We danced, talked, kissed. I managed to get her number, which wasn't easy to my surprize. Told her about Pink Floyd and "See Emily play". She download the song very soon and kind of liked it. Next day I thought about her for the whole day. I knew I was falling in love. The day after, I participated on "Intercultural navigators - selection event". Met few interesting people. Very soon I got news I was one of the selected ones. We, the selected ones, participated on 3 modules, talked about conflict solving, identities, groups, sharing different thoughts ... Nice stuff! After the selection event, I rode to Split to join IFISO meeting organised by a friend of mine. It's always cool to participate on this students meeting. Sleeping in the dorm, meeting new friends, partying, discussing, ... Then I went to Ljubljana on Aikido seminar with Kenjiro Yoshigasaki. First time to see him and I worked with his woman as a partner and he demonstrated few stuff on me. I was really special, heheh. When I got home, Andreja sent me SMS and wanted to meet me. We talked for few hours and laughed a lot. I learned a lot from very instance when I saw her shining that night. And from this one talk I learned many other important stuff about her, her views to a life and relationships. It was hard to feel surprised about things which later happened, altough I didn't know what would excatly happen. I wanted to give it a shot. A week later we met again on Beatles revival bend concert, kissed again. I hoped it will turn into more than something. In the December I volunteered again, selling magazines together with homeless people about homeless people. There I heard few interesting stories. Later we had few short actions with them as well. On one occasion we were to search for some artists among them. I was sent to some rather complicated home for them to meet with them. It sounded like it was being done because we should go there as well, but no one expected much from that visit. Anyway, we managed to find some guy who does some drawings on the cover of cans. In January we had intercultural navigators module in a hotel. All the expenses covered. Nice meeting with nice people. I was working on my thesis and managed to get some good results which I could finally demonstrate. That was a huge step. My thoughts from now on were with my girlfriend. Even thesis has an important module which is called by her name.

I got a feeling people around me felt very good in my presence. Many people wanted to hang out with me more than before. Many girls wanted to meet me which was great. I felt like I was shining happiness through my eyes and my hands and sometimes with my whole body. Specialy with my girlfriend. She gave me a lot and is still affecting my mind, my thoughts and my mood. She made me draw. I really like all the drawings which I gave it to her. We enjoyed art, listening to the music, commenting it, discussing about my drawings and art of Trnski. We massaged each other. We felt good. We laughed. Something which specially meant to me was this feeling of special energy flowing through my body when I was near her. I'm not talking about falling in love, this was something different, altough it was present as well. Something similar I felt on 2 seminars with Kenjiro Yoshigasaki. It's feeling of love and peace in yourself and being more aware. Something like that. I felt like that when I was near her, massaging her, sleeping with her,... She is one of the people to remember in your life. One of those who leave a big trace even when she's not around. But she is there somewhere. Since she wants to be gone perhaps I should let her go as well. It happened and I don't like it ended... I could say that so many things seem to be connected with her. She influenced me. Even in other stuff, I was thinking about her when I was doing them which makes her present in many thoughts and memories.... Hope she also has a nice memory of me.

What about now? When she left me, part of me just parted with her as well. It was something too important and somehow it got to connected to her. Now it's time to feel this hole with something new, something better and stronger. I'm still doing morning rituals. Just until lately it wasn't the same. I lost a lot, too much. "Life is a bitch". But as the spring is coming, I'm coming back as well. It was good to remember this positive aspects of something which was here only until few weeks ago. Let's continue with experiments, work harder, enjoy more & develop. I got some new/old ideas. I'm trying to analyze less and think less. I'm trying to feel more. But I'm distracted. When I go out, I'm thinking about her and just feel isolated from my enviroment and real world. That's why I want to think less :) I have goals and I'll work on that. Perhaps I'm still on the good path and this was something from which I learn. I'm looking forward for some spiritual experiences and development.

Writing of this text reminded me about many good stuff which happened in last months. I feel much better at the moment. I was laughing!

20090321 entering a dream

2009-03-22T08:56:00.004+01:00

She didn't read the message which was to be read today only. I just could not let her out of my mind. Not because of the message. Going out becomes a bit frustrating.

There are other things which could make me happy, like flying/levitation. Sometimes I dream about that. Here is brand new story from this collection.

During meditation I tend to relax, feel myself and become more aware of myself. I try to do similar stuff before falling asleep. Most of the time I don't remember my dreams. Most of my life I had problems with sleeping. That's why recently I don't just let it go, I try to make it better.

While I was lying on my back, I was observing darkness and piece in my room. Tried to relax, feel myself and energy flowing through my body. And I felt it. While enjoying it, I felt my body becomes lighter. Since I'm fan of flying, it fell on my mind to try to fly. So I tried.

Feeling of gravitation became less present, but I didn't put any attention to this thought. My upper body left the ground/bed. It was slow, full of joy and no confusion about this whatsoever. Then my lower body levitated as well. I went into a bit vertical position and pulled my legs to myself, since I still wasn't very high and didn't want to touch the bed. I could enjoy the levitation, move slowly through the room and observe everything around me as I wanted. Finally free.

I grabbed my mobile on the table. Opened camera and started recording. The picture was amazingly bright. It almost made me think it was a dream, because it was so unnusual. Instantly I threw away this thought. Since I didn't fall asleep, how could I be dreaming? I was levitating in the spot, moving and rotating my body.

After I recorded my room from higher altitude, I started to record myself as well. Suddenly mobile phone rang. I got SMS. Fuck! I was in lying in my bed! It was a dream after all.

What would happen without this SMS? Perhaps I wouldn't remember this sensation. Perhaps it would go into something more spectacular.

It was so amazing to notice that there was no moment of me realizing I was starting to dream. It was a constant flow of "my reality". Thank you!

it's hard

2009-02-26T00:32:00.002+01:00

It's hard
not to notice
how attractive you are.

It's hard
not to want you
when you are so attractive.

It's hard
to live
without wanting you.

Is it easy to die?

flower that was never drawn

2009-02-21T03:22:00.003+01:00

...on the painting which I gave it to her. If you don't understand this, you're not ment to understand :)

Am I so stupid? Why I feel so stressed while waiting 45 minutes in a stupid queue? Why does it hurt when I bleed? Or when I strech my body? Or when I'm late for the train? Or whatever?

Why do I feel cold while taking cold shower?

It is pain, but not the real pain. Real pain is feeling of being unable to help somebody you love. Or being surrounded by people and yet feel alone. Or being near her and still feel alone. Real cold is when I hug her and don't feel warm.

At least I can laugh. Only sometimes. When I see how stupid I'm when I feel cold but it's not real. And I feel pain, but it's not real.

I feel empty. There is pain and other feelings, but at this moment, I can only recognize feelings. When I look at my hands I can see how empty they are now. My hands are cold. They don't shine love and heat. There is no real energy, no power. It's not like before when you could feel me without me touching you. Now I need to touch you to feel me. And you don't feel the same either.

I wish for her to love me. And for me to love her. I am who I am and everybody else has freedom to love me (or hate me) as much as they want to. Freedom is fucked up sometimes. Anyway, I want her to be what she is, as well. Because I love her for what she is...
We dreamed about dying together. But since we aren't living together it makes no sense to die either.

one of those moments

2008-12-26T10:25:00.007+01:00

Describing this could be compared to translating perfect expression in english to your mother's tongue, or even more difficult: from japanese/chinese to some indo-european language. It's just hard, but you should be able to understand 'cause of your experience. If you lack this experience, you should look forward to it!

This was one of the best moments in my life. Happened on Christmas. There I was in my room doing something. Suddenly it struck me like a lightning. It shaked my whole body & I entered 'nirvana'. Since I'm not still in this state but affected by it, I can't say it was real nirvana, but that's the closest thing which I 'know' about.

The time stopped. Or it flew away and it didn't matter. My whole mind was suddenly clear. All of my thoughts where silenced, my brain wasn't aware of what I see or hear. As my thougts started to flow away, my body&mind started to fill with happiness and love! It was growing outside of my physical body and started to touch my universe. There were no worries. My tasks dissapeared. My pain, everything that boddered me, little things (like chocolate) that could make me happy,... all of that lost their significance. Only thing which I felt was love & happiness filling me and all around me. So happy I was for this moment. It makes you feel good for being alive.

After few minutes I sat on my bad and enjoyed the benefits of this experience. I didn't care for anything else in the world. Except for love & her. In my room, there was a gift. A nice book wrapped in a nice paper. I even liked the paper 'cause she put it around the book. More beautiful part of the gift wasn't the book itself (although I liked it), but the note which was written inside of the paper. The note which put me in ecstasy. I could feel she understood the concept of love and I felt loved. The note says:
"* TO ME YOU ARE A WORK OF ART"

200807 Stockholm

2008-09-22T21:49:00.006+01:00

From 20080708 Stockholm (pre-CE)

My trip to Iceland began in Stockholm. There I spent few days with some of my friends.
As the journey began, we encountered some problems. Dim had a air-pump for air-mattress which was broken when his bag arrived at the baggare reclaim. Then we noticed that Ema didn't get her bag at all. When we got to the hostel, Mislav discovered that his bottle of alcohol in the bag was broken, making some clothes wet&stinky. Few days later Ema's bag came to the hostel with the similiar problem. Even before that, Bero lost his booze from duty free in Zagreb. It was taken away from him at transit zone in Copenhagen.

our hostel

Our hostel was pretty cool, very cheap , with kitchen, just what we needed. We talked until late in the night. Drinking was forbidden, but cameras didn't catch us.

Supermarket can be pretty cheap so food expenses weren't an issue.

Around the city we encountered many cultural events. There were few exhibitions in the open. Jazz was playing near the fountains, nice to hear. We really enjoyed a lot walking around the city and experiencing its culture. Guys from the group noticed many beautifull mothers walking around with children. I think that group was actually the most beautifull women we encountered in Stockholm.

...if you'd like to minimse communication in the pub?!?!

One night collegues from BEST Stockholm invited us to the party in student dorm. There weren't Swedes at the party at all, mainly Erasmus students from EU. On one occassion I suggested some guy to be a gentlman and offer his seat for a girl. The suggestion was denied with reply: "In Sweden we threat women as equal. Therefore I don't offer my seat to a girl, since I want to seat here as well as she does. And we are equal." It was very interesting point & I was hoping to hear some reply from the girls, but there wasn't any. During the night we drank alcohol & played some games, like 'I have never-ever'. My conclusion is that games like 'never-ever' & 'bottle of truth' end up pretty soon with themes about sex. This particular session was dominated by Santiago and his many advanterus in various places.

In the hostel I met Japanese guy who was sleeping in the room with us. He didn't feel like joining us on parties & sightseeing but was interesting into talking with me. What was interesting is that he spoke some words of Croatian. The reason he stated was that he wanted to surprise one of his friends from Japan. He's traveling around Scandinavia, doesn't have money (hm..., he picked really cheap region to travel), his mother is giving him financial support. Croatian was a bit easier to learn since he studied Russian in Moscow for years. On the picture, you can find his bags locked. We were not to be trusted, I suppouse.

One thing not to miss is definetly visiting archipelago. We concluded that we should buy a house on day somewhere on that land. It was so picteresque.
Spending some time on the grass in Djurgarden can be nice as well. Not always. Some bird shitted on Dim. Upon leaving the hostel he broke full bottle of beer.

Summer 2008

2008-09-14T15:14:00.003+01:00

This summer was again full of traveling. At the beginning of summer I didn't feel like passing exams so I was hanging out with my friends.

In July we visited Iceland. The nature was breath-taking, something very unique. Highlight of the trip was swimming in the hot river around midnight. On the way there, we spend few days in Stockholm. Immediately we decided to come back, some promissed to even continue their studies there :)

After that I went on the seaside to island Pasman & spend some nice time with new friends. Again enjoying the beautiful sea.

In August I visited Ukraine for a voluntary camp. 3 weeks there were really memorable, it was hard to leave all that and return home. Most of the time I was in the villages experiencing real Ukrainian culture. That's something really interesting, moving away from the cities on the trip.

Following posts will tell my advantures & some info about countries I've visited.

lunar eclipse

2008-02-20T10:13:00.002+01:00

It's tonight (in my country).
Nice link about the event:
NASA - Total Lunar Eclipse
Check your timezones and visibility (where the map of the world is).

Go to bad earlier, if you need, or party until then!
Enjoy this global event