My Little Rijeka

It's been a while since I posted on this blog. There's nothing much going around here for quite a while besides the Riječki Karneval which took place in February and we had a good decent bit of fun.

Let's introduce a little about this town. It's not hard to find facts about Rijeka. Just do a google and you'll get plenty of results. So I'll just share my knowledge of what I as a Rijeci here for over year with you my reader.

Rijeka, or as the song goes "The River without a name". Yes, this town is named after a river. "Rijeka" is "River" in Croatian. The Italians called it "Fiume" which is also "River" in Italian. The only cargo port in Croatia which houses the 3 shipyards of the country and which the town depends on mostly for revenue. The town has refinery too and many Croatians will remark, this is nothing but an Industrial Town. But they can be so wrong.

Drive down the undulating roads of Rijeka (due to its unique geographical location, it is not flat like most towns in Croatia), and you'll see throngs of students walking down the streets or waiting for Autotrolej buses. This is a University town. Or the town mayor calls it a town for the Young. I'm not too sure how many faculties (Fakultet) this town has but I know it has Medicine, Law and Tourism in Opatija.

Not to mention, the beaches attract the German tourists to our town each summer. The number of campervans that causes major traffic jam along our roads is an evident of how much they enjoy our rocky beaches. Take a walk along the Kostrena beach with an ice cream cone (costing only 5 kunas) in your hand. The summer passes without you noticing.

Feeling a little posh? You can always drive to Opatija. The passe town of hotels and boulevard dotted with tourist souvenir shops. This is the only place where you can put on your faux furcoat and sit in a hotel lounge to try and mingle with the locals driving Porsches or BMWs.

This town may be small compared to Split or Zagreb. Wikipedia lists the number of inhabitants as 144,043. However, don't forget it is a halfway town (literally and geographically) between the Zagreb capital and the Dalmatian South. The attitude of Rijeci is open to new ideas and yet retaining the Croatian spirit in them. Gays and lesbians that are not tolerated in most parts of Croatia settle here in groups. Most other towns mock this phenomenon but it once again shows you the tolerance of Rijeci.

On top of the colourful punk rockers in this town, people of other nationalities find a little more comfort in making this town their homes. Where the war hatred cannot be forgotten in other towns, the Serbs and Bosnians live in harmony here. We are not "metropolitan" like in Zagreb but we don't have Hate groups going around beating other minority groups.

So that's my Singaporean take of Rijeka town. I'm happy to be part of it.