Bonnet bees

Where the national Serbian basketball team was a let down to the nation when they lost to the Russians in the quarter final of the recent Eurobasket the popularity of tennis courts is rising since all kids want to be Djokovic.

The following section mainly originates from personal frustration. It seems, nevertheless, that frustration can be a fruitful source for comedy, or otherwise, sympathy. You can decide for yourself how the following fits in.

Here’s to the wasp that stung me right in the heart. Up yours, mate! When you find that dogs are chasing you, don’t speed up, but slow down and start barking back. This will prevent them from biting your shoe and/or the water bottle used for defensive purposes. It not only saves you from having to replace those items, but it also serves as a ventilation for anger management issues caused by all the inhaled diesel fumes.

Many of you know the Fleet Foxes, but is all of the red traffic victims on my way were given an instrument, one could imagine the Flat Foxes as a 32-member symphonic orchestra.

Holes in the road are a bitch, but the problem is worsened by rainfall. If you can normally measure the depth of the potholes and change your speed accordingly, full and muddy holes in the road offer a new form of excitement and adventure in an increased risk of broken material and bones. But since you need to get from A to B, peddle on hoping that the universe is behind your plans.

Another challenge, invented to circumvent natural barriers but a barrier in itself, are the numerous tunnels. Judging by the strewn bodies and bike skeletons it looks like Im not the first cyclist who has tried to cross the kingdom of Moria on two wheels, but the next time I will bring a fire torch. The first meters are ok, but then the fun starts as the light quickly vanishes and the next colon of truck hoping to get to Istanbul by nightfall thunders past, adrenaline is free of charge.

Oh, and one other thing. Let me here and now put an end to a very current, yet completely irrelevant debate. It is often heard that when focusing on feline traffic victims, there is on the one hand the ‘flat cat’ and on the other the ‘splatter cat’. Usually the flat cat is described as being reduced to a merely two-dimensional status. Splatter cat, on the other hand, is believed to have remained a fair percentage of its original shape, yet on the point of contact with vehicle has some inner body parts now exterior to its body. Some claim that flat cats can have comical features, like the resemblance with the Tom and Jerry cartoon where Jerry, when driven over by a (stoomwals) has only his ears sticking out from the floor. In the same understanding of the flat/splatter binary, the splatter cat is associated with negative feelings that range from nausea to a grasp of the temporary and cruel nature of existence. However, this binary is in my view unproductive and leads attention away from the real issues that currently plague ‘road kill studies’.
For one, flat and splatter don’t exclude each other. Some splatter cats are flat and some flat cats are splattered. If there is such a thing as adivision, it is on a sliding scale. Secondly, flat cats can bring about negative connotations too and even the gory splatter cat can be amusing to some. And thirdly, and most importantly: both splatter and flat cats are dead cats. If we want to come to productive results we need to focus on the similarities of these supposed strains of theory instead of polarizing, or road kill studies itself will become the victim of the never calm motorway of current day academics.

Apartman and other local favourites

Nothing beats the smell of three week flat roadkill wafting on a sizzling afternoon. Well, maybe the smell of my Teva’s after a day on the bike. Zadarian Boris confided in me that due to all the cycling his knees are like those of professional basketball players. Luckily enough for my knees I have never wanted to pursue a career in either two sports.

Every country has its own heroes and its good for the traveller to keep an eye out for these figures: they will tell you a lot about the place you’re visiting. In Croatia there are a couple of local favourites: first there is the recently convicted army general, and then there is a local super hero better known as Apartman. His name appears in all regions of Croatia, but his cult is strongest in the seaside towns, where his name is displayed on signs that are sometimes even carried or have people guarding it. His name is often accompanied by any number of stars, and in the local folklore Apartman is aided by his trusted companion, the German shepherd “Zimmer Frei”. The super powers of this hospitality oriented myth include: providing instant room dividers, dropping and rising rates at will and speaking random phrases in all the languages of the earth.

As a regular camper, and by now possibly some sort of expert, I have observed that there are several types of camp sites. Here I will shortly describe the two extremes.

At one kind the busy owner, helped out by a multitude of notes indicating rules, opening times and advertisements for services offered, will not leave a single thing unattended. Handling reservation, check in’s and the buffet all by him/herself, you see the inability in their faces to leave even the smallest detail up to another person, or pay them for it. They are the first to arrive in the morning and the last to leave. I always hope that they have a nice hobby to pursue when the camping season is over.

Then there is the type of camp site where you will wonder if there even is an owner and if he cares at all. All crucial positions are left to be filled in by 15-year-old city girls flown in for the season and unable to respond even to the smallest question. When you really need something, you feel as lost as they are.

Something to try for the connoisseurs, and maybe even sell on the better farmers markets, are bush dried raspberries. The pomegranates are ripening on the trees as promises for the future. And if you like fresh figs from the tree, don’t come to Croatia, because I finished them all today.