September 15, 2024
Miles: 50.20. Total: 6,951
Today I crossed into Croatia, the ninth* country on my journey.
Unlike other EU nations, the Croatians mark their border with several signs welcoming visitors in four languages. Ever the Southerner, I appreciate the hospitality.
The sky here is wide and low, and so I could watch the weather rolling in. After an hour of dry wind, the spigots opened. I thanked my morning self for fashioning a raincoat for my cell phone, so that I could still have tunes and navigation in the deluge.
I had wanted to reach the city of Osijek today, so that I could get nutritious vegetarian food from the Lidl there and then choose from an array of hotels. But the wind and rain slowed me. So I stopped for the night in Suza, a small wine country town.
At the local restaurant, over my plate of fried cheese and potatoes and under a wall of taxidermied fish heads, my server shared that he learned English because he loves Elvis and wanted to understand his lyrics. I told him I'm from Memphis, which delighted him. We discussed our favorite Elvis songs, and he mentioned some I'd never heard of. I need to up my Elvis game.
My college roommate, the Booker Prize-winning translator Angela Rodel, used to joke that there's a tunnel from the U..S. South to the Balkans. She came to this conclusion when we traveled through Bulgaria with our college singing group, the Yale Slavic Chorus, and we kept noting the similarities between my cultural instincts and the way things were done.
I reckon Elvis is in that tunnel, eating fried cheese and living his best second life.
*The other eight are the U.S., Portugal, Spain, France, Switzerland, Germany, Austria, Hungary.
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