One month, a day at a time

It has now been an entire month since I left from Maastricht. I am writing this blog from a much less idyllic place than last time, nevertheless it is very comfortable. This blog is being written from a bed in an apartment located in a small Croatian town called Delnice (Del- ni-zhe, not Del-nice, made that mistake once and people had no clue what I was on about).

Same cycling new experiences

Since my last blog I have cycled from Bled to Ljubljana then to Postojna and finished my short week of cycling in Rijeka. Arriving in Rijeka means that I have now crossed into Croatia and am paying with a new currency, the Kuna. Paying in a new currency is still very confusing as some products are more expensive than I am used to, some are cheaper but for every single one you need to do some quick maths. But a new currency is by far not the most exciting thing about making it to Croatia.

The Croatian border!

The first exciting moment was when I crossed over one of the coastal mountains and saw the Adriatic sea (which I called the Mediterranean at the time). After that it only got better...

A well deserved dip in the Adriatic sea after a long day of teaching.

I cycled 300km extra in order to see one of my summer camp friends Deni Kirinčić and we were supposed to hang out for a few days while I rested a bit and chilled at the sea. This all happened but there were some other things that have made Rijeka one of and maybe the best stop so far. Deni is an English teacher at a local highschool and he asked me if I could talk about the project at the school for a bit.

Deni and I in the Rijekan harbour.

This one talk turned into me teaching for 3 full days at 2 different schools reaching the required 21 lessons quota that a language teacher has to reach in a week. It also introduced me in a network of English teachers around the country and I will be cycling from school to school to talk about our project.

Teaching at a highschool in Rijeka

And as if that was not exciting enough some strings were pulled and suddenly I had multiple articles about the journey on online newpages and found myself being interviewed by the oldest Croatian printed paper.

The interview for the Novi List

Rijeka has given me a big boost in morale and social media backing but more importantly I made a lifelong friend in Deni and met some people I will never forget.

For next blog I hope to be in Belgrade and I am convinced that I will have more unexpected encounters and adventures.