Mark's Travels

10 years of travel blogging from 35+ countries around the world

Shopping in Rejeka 11th August 2007 in Rejeka, Croatia


We wondered around Rijeka shopping and drinking coffee's in an outdoor cafe today.

In the evening we stopped at a lovely restaurant on the way back to Porec and had a really nice dinner. One thing that's easy about speaking German here is that most people in the service industry have a rubbish understanding and pronunciation of the language so it's easy for me to deal with them. It's more like some sort of Auslaender Deutsch and it's like talking to a four-year-old sometimes. Don't get me wrong, they can communicate and they probably have to say the same stuff every single day. It basically puts me at ease because with normal Germans, they tend to use a wide vocabulary / odd dialects and keep me on my toes. I don't have to worry about that here.

I spent the evening running in Porec and watching a BBC documentary about alcohol bootlegging in Pscov, Russia which is about 30-50KM from Tartu, Estonia and is the birthplace of my Grandpa. The alcohol being sold turned people yellow and killed them. It was scary to watch because I know of all the pipes that are used to smuggle alcohol from Russian into the EU along the borders. Something like half the worlds alcohol that's consumed isn't labeled but thankfully, everything I drink and everyone I know that drinks, usually takes pride in what they drink and wouldn't settle for this cheap shit.


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