Don't Worry. Be Happy.

"Did you try Turkish coffee?" "Yeah." "Is it similar to anything you've tried before?" "Uh, yes. Crack." - Anthony Bourdain

I've pretty much got the routine here down. Every morning I wake up around 6:30 or 7, wash my face and make myself a cup of coffee (because, really, one more cup a day won't kill me). I spend the next hour trying to get a wireless signal, and the hour after that (provided I've found said wireless signal) checking my e-mail and taking care of future bookings, banking or other pressing business.

Around nine, Iris calls me down for breakfast and we discuss plans for the day over bread, cheese and more coffee, this time the sludge-like Turkish variety that could fuel a rocket. If Alan and Iris are busy with the kids, I might spend the morning writing or going for a walk on the beach, passing the local kanoba where the owner will always wave to me and shout "Hey! CANADA! Where are you going?!" Good question, I think every time. Sometimes, though, Alan and Iris take me into town for a slice of Frankopan cake and a cappuccino by the harbour. The water is so clear the boats look like they're floating on air, fish weightlessly suspended beneath their keels.

Lunch is around 3PM, and always starts off with a soup course followed by a meat entree, bread and salad from the garden dressed with nothing more than salt and a little lemon juice. Often there is dessert, too. When there isn't, I walk back into town for an ice cream cone. The afternoon is either free for me to spend as I wish, or I go on an outing with the family depending on plans and the weather. Dinner, if we have it, is usually a light snack around 8 or 9PM (we've had scrambled eggs with cheese and bacon, a pan of fried potatoes and zucchini and homemade beef-and-egg salad, but more often it's a simple spread of bread, fresh cheese and ham). Sometimes, if we've had a particularly large or late lunch, I will politely decline the offer of more food and take one of the apples from the market up to my room to eat in my pajamas during my nightly, pre-bed reading session. Sleep like the dead and repeat.

Crikvenica is a vacation from a vacation. Although I've certainly gone places and seen things, I haven't done nearly as much over the past week as I did in Rome and Florence, and I'm okay with this. It's possible to suffer burnout even from the best experiences, and I was well on my way before I got here. My time with Jozica and her family has been a welcome breather mentally, physically and spiritually. It reminds me of the lazy summers I used to spend with my great aunt and uncle on Calumet Island, where the most excitement we had in a day was the main meal. The soul needs the simplicity of skipping rocks on a beach, or watching a child chase ladybugs to remember how lucky it is just to be alive.

May 1st is Croatia's Labour Day and a national holiday throughout most of Europe. Snjezana and Branimir took the day off work to help Jozica and her husband prepare the customary family meal, Croatia's answer to a turkey dinner. Traditionally the community celebrates with a BBQ in the woods, but there was a cloud on the horizon, so of course that was out of the question. I didn't mind. Spit-roasted lamb suited me just fine.

Alan was back from Zagreb and along with him Iris' sister, Eva, her husband, son and pregnant belly. After breakfast we all went for a walk to the city centre, where we met up for coffee with more cousins and watched traditional live music and costumed dancing in the square. Croatian music, like the Croatian language, always reminded me of some enchanting symphony of Spanish, Celtic and Russian sounds, an opinion apparently exclusive to my ignorant Canadian ears.

Most of the spectators enjoyed a slice of cheese or apple strudel with their coffee, and there were tents set up on the harbour-side lawn where free bread, wine and Batuda (a hearty corn and bean soup) was being ladled out. "You want to try?" Eva gestured to the tents, offering to go with me to get some. "Is very traditional Croatian." The soup, while delicious, was really more of a chili or a stew, thick with chunks of pork and potatoes that hit the stomach like a brick. This was all before the massive family lunch, by the way.

Alongside heaping platters of roast beef and melt-in-your mouth Spring lamb, we enjoyed roasted potatoes and zucchini, salad, bread, fresh cheese similar to ricotta, green onions from the garden and wine. Helping myself to seconds, I asked Alan if lamb was something they ate often, as it was a special-occasion dish at home. "Only when it's in season," he shrugged. "When it's young, it's good." I could see what he meant. The meat was so tender I could barely get it from the bone to my mouth without it falling off the fork. Watching everyone else, I eventually decided it was acceptable to eat with your fingers and gave up, using bread as my only utensil.

More of the family showed up when the coffee was being passed around, and all at once the little apartment was overrun with kids on sugar highs. Most people, to my utter disbelief, accepted Snjezana's offer for seconds of dessert. "Alex," she called across the room to me with plates of banana-and-cherry tiramisu lined up on her arm, "will you cookie?" This made Snjezana the butt of inside jokes for the remainder of the evening. Her English was fine most of the time, granted she sometimes got word orders mixed up. Her attempt at asking if I wanted more cake, however, was so far off the mark that my careful diplomacy cracked for an instant.
Before I could stop myself, I furrowed my brow and responded with a blatant, "What!?", which made everyone laugh. Snjezana blushed and apologized for her English, but, regaining composure, I quickly shook my head and insisted - not for the first time - that I was the one who should be sorry. This was their country, after all. No matter how many times they assured me English was a standard deviation for them, I couldn't shake the guilt that we should be speaking their language. I'd learned Italian before coming on this trip, but Croatian grammar was harder than any of the Romance languages, German or even English, according to Alan. Still, I wished I had taken the time to try.

Did you know there are no buses that go from Rijeka to Brtonigla? Neither did I. I was sure I'd found one online that ran at 1:45 every afternoon, but when Iris called to check for me, she was told it only went as far as Umag on the coast. From there I would have to take a taxi the remaining fifteen kilometres inland to Brtonigla for the Istrian wine tour I'd booked. That it didn't run on Saturdays was another issue. It meant I would have to take the bus to Umag on Friday, find somewhere to sleep, then continue on to Brtonigla in the morning.

We debated over options for hours. There was a bus that ran from Zagreb to Novigrad that would get me a little closer to where I needed to be, but I would have to get to Zagreb first, a good two hours away. Taking a taxi on Saturday seemed to be my best bet. As much as it would cost to go straight from Rijeka to Brtonigla, it would be less expensive than taking the bus to Umag, paying for a night in a hotel and then taking a taxi the rest of the way, not to mention simpler. "Think about it for a little while," Iris encouraged. "Then, when you're sure, we will reserve a taxi for you."

I was walking along the beach - the slow, ambling walk of someone who is far away in their mind, teetering on the edge of overthinking (again) the task of getting from one place to another - when I passed a man with waist-length dreadlocks in a T-shirt that read, "Don't worry. Be happy." The unlikelihood of the coincidence stopped me in my tracks. Suddenly I was back in Rome discussing life philosophy with Marcello over pizza Margherita.

"The Italians have a saying," he'd told me. "'Don't worry. Be happy.'" At the time this had made me laugh.

"Yes," I nodded with a charitable smile. "We have that saying too."

"Everyone has this saying," he shrugged and took a bite of his pizza, "because it's true everywhere."

The next morning Iris told me they had found someone to take me to Brtonigla for a reasonable, pre-determined price. "A taxi?" I confirmed.

"Not a taxi." Alan said he was a friend of the family, a very good guy, he promised, who wouldn't rip me off or kidnap me. He drove a kind of shuttle around the country for a living and had agreed to pick me up right here in Crikvenica between 11 and 12 Saturday morning, and drive me straight to the San Rocco Hotel for the start of my tour.

I spent my last day as a twenty-two-year-old exploring Trsat Castle, a thirteenth-century fortress just above the town of Rijeka. Rising over a steep gorge alongside the Rjecina River, the site is strategically positioned for easy access to the sea and has been in use since Roman and even more ancient Illyrian times. Standing atop one of its crenelated watchtowers, looking down at what is now the Mediterranean's leading shipyard and Croatia's main seaport, I couldn't think of a more perfect way to say goodbye.

For lunch Jozica had made my favourite fresh fried sardines with olive oil, after which Iris and Alan drove me to Rijeka's old town. There they showed me the Shrine of Lady Trsat, where legend has it Mary's house in Nazareth mysteriously appeared and then disappeared in 1291. Nearby we found the Trsat Stairway, built in 1531 for pilgrims on their way to the baroque church at the top of the hill. Outside the church sits a lavish bronze statue of Pope John Paul II, who made the pilgrimage himself in 2003.

Now, as I watched the silhouettes of freighters and fishing boats backlit by the sunset over the Adriatic, I thought about the next stage of my own pilgrimage, a pilgrimage to my future self. This time to cool my heels and recharge had been crucial to its progress. My interlude with Jozica and her family had brought a peaceful and fittingly quiet close to the past year of my life. Tomorrow I will be twenty-three. It's time to strike out on my own again, and I plan to jumpstart the adventure with something spectacular.