“It is harder to come back then to go somewhere in the first place”

My mom recently told me that since I returned from Croatia I am more anxious and impatient. I have to agree with this, not having an idea of what to do next and how to assure another peak in life brings frustration. .

But I have changed much more than this… Many things which I am not sure if I can put in words but I have been reflecting on this for a while so I think it’s great way to close this chapter in my blog by sharing a bit.

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My first year in Croatia was one of hardest I had in my entir.e life. I realized that until then I had been lucky with the people I worked with, I realized that I let myself be influenced by negativity and laziness and so many other things. In my first year I found out the worst side of me, I had many downs and at some point I wanted to leave.

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Looking back, I’m so glad I didn’t, I’m so glad I did exactly the opposite and pushed myself to stay a year longer despite my lack of motivation, confidence, trust… All of that based on hope and believe that AIESEC in Croatia should and could be better.

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So initially I became a worst person, no energy, no willingness, no strength, too flexible, lazy and I couldn’t recognize myself.

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Later on I picked up the pieces, I grabbed an idea, I stayed because I wanted better memories from Croatia and my last year in AIESEC than the ones I had until then. So in the second year I again changed and I started recognizing myself again.

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So, comparing with the Catarina who left I am now more flexible (but just enough), direct, I accept jokes easier and I say them more often, I’m more confident with higher self-esteem, more extroverted, stronger, I feel more safe, I care less about what others think of me, I am more bitchy (in Croatia it is a trait), more tolerant and a bit more lazy, I use irony all the time, I am more independent, I am less harsh with myself and I am also more girlish heheh. I also started believing in relationships, I am less rational in it and I am so much more easy-going generally.

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My values became more solid, as well as, my personality. I think I will always be a bit Croat from now on, and I like it :)

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All of this came from the experiences I had and the learning’s I got out of those experiences. Maybe other people would have learned different things in the same situation, but these are lessons I took forever. So I learned:

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- What is like to work with people that bring the worst in me;

- To appreciate my country, to admire some of Portuguese values and history;

- To represent an entire country which is not mine based on trust;

- The difficulty to define “home”;

- Consequences of bad and lack of leadership;

- What is to be a Croat, to think as a Croat and what is the meaning of the Croatian flag ;)

- To be a tourist guide in Zagreb and Split;

- To realize that visas are a major issues outside EU;

- To be even less materialistic;

- To smile differently to take pictures;

- What is to work and live in the same house with the same people;

- Travel by train more than 24hours in a row;

- How war affects a culture and a country;

- What is to be rational, direct, concrete, honest in CEE style :)

- Balkan humor;

- The true meaning of “Saudade”;

- That I am a real AIESECer;

- What is Carnival without Brazilian music;

- Share the room with a crazy Serbian girl together with a Indian in the same house, and share a dorm experience with a Ukrainian;

- Dorm life;

- Push back the very barriers of my own personality;

- How hard it to use English to express feelings;

- I learned how the worst “me” is like;

- That something my values bound;

- To ask myself everyday “What the hell am I doing here?”;

- True friendship;

- Varazdin effect ;)

- How to drink Rakija without making a face;

- To be everyday out of my comfort zone;

- To gain perspective;

- Being able to read body language much better;

- All teams are different no matter how much we try;

- And a bit of Croatian language heheh.

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And to finish, do I miss Croatia? HELL YES! I miss people, much more than I would imagine when I first left Portugal. And I miss small things, like people calling me Cata, travelling by tram, the sound of Croatian language, people speaking loud in the public transportation, speaking in English, feeling unique because I was a Portuguese (here is not unique at all), the coffee bars, hearing “dobertek” before any meal, the nationalism, the hospitality, the bakeries and even the music!

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In the end, it was really worth, all the good and even the bad. Now I’m sure I did change but for better.

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Hvala puno to all who have contributed for this experience to be really life-changing.

“A man must travel. By his own, not through stories, pictures, books or TV. He’s got to travel by himself, with his eyes and feet, to understand what is his. To one day plant his own trees and value them. Knowing the cold to enjoy the heat. And the opposite. Feel the distance and absence of shelter to be well under his own roof. A man must travel to places that he does not know to break this arrogance that makes us see the world as we imagine it, and not simply as it is or can be. That makes us teachers and doctors of what we have not seen, when we should be students, and simply go see.” Amyr Klink

P.S: Sorry for the long post but then again, it’s the final one about Croatia so it’s special :)

Nomad Life

My last month in Croatia after the conference was one of the best gifts I could offer to myself. It was just what I needed to adjust to the fact that I was returning for good to Portugal, to say goodbye and see you soon to my good friends, reflect and finish all transition with the new team.

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I started the month by coloring my hair (actually, my successor did it) and by participating in another drinking marathon in Zagreb which was amazing and crazy :)

Then my friend Teresa came to visit me, we went to Slavonia (the north part of Croatia) to Slavonski Brod where my good friend Ana hosted us, then we travelled to Osijek to a party which was also by goodbye from this amazing city and people which always made me feel like home.

Then we went to Budapest where we meet Barbara and Marijana. I had time to get to know the city better and then we went for a day to Bratislava. We took a bus which cost 5€ and we paid 2€ for the return ticket from Bratislava to Budapest – only in Central Europe! I really liked Bratislava, it's small but sweet city.

Then we returned to Zagreb for a night, had a great breakfast prepared by Miran who hosted us, went to the coast, to Rijeka, then finally I visited Istria by going to Labin and Rabac where Alen and Irma received us :)

It was the perfect ending for the crazy trip with Teresa where we could rest and go to the beach.

Afterwards we got back to Rijeka for a very cool goodbye party that the Local Committee prepared, and Teresa left and I stayed in Zagreb.

Had good fun for a week, drinking Porto Wine by the river with good friends, went to birthday parties and visited Varazdin for a night. It was really worth going there to meet such people which I will miss a lot.

Then AIESEC in Croatia hosted the European Presidents Meeting in Zagreb where I meet some good friends and then some of us went to Split. It was rainy but for me what mattered were the people with whom I had great experiences, nights, morning and laughs during those days.

Back to Zagreb, Marta arrived, I had some goodbye party with Zagreb people and not only, including my non-AIESEC friends and the day after I finally visited Bosnia & Herzegovina. We went to Sarajevo where we were so well received by Dan and Zlatko, then travelled to beautiful Mostar where Reno hosted us. It was a very nice experience to visit this country, it's visible the huge effort being made to put the country in place after the war and the people are as nice and welcoming as I have been told several times.

Finally, back to Split for some resting because I got sick. But even so I went night swimming and had opportunity to visit Brac and have some crazy nights as usual.

Marta left to Zagreb and I went to visit Marijana at Kukljica where I finally had time to rest, relax and reflect. I also visited Zadar and then I left to Zagreb to catch my flight…

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It was a crazy and hard month. I was sick and tired of packing, travelling, sleeping here and there, I was sick of that nomad life but it has good things… The best was the possibility that I had to see all those people again, to realize that I made great friendships during my period in Croatia and that no matter what, I will return because these people are now part of me.

Mezanima me :)

And with the end of the month and of the term, came also my last National Conference in AIESEC in Croatia as President.

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It is hard to condensate everything I felt in words but the best word to define it is fulfilled. After 2 years in Croatia I truly feel that the organization evolved, there was positivism in the atmosphere, there were achievements to celebrate, there was a legacy that we passed on and amazing people that will lead the organization.

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On the personal level, there was such a mixture of feelings. I was happy but also a bit sad and emotional. The probabilities that such moments will ever repeat are minimum. Some of the most important people that influenced my experience in this country were there, most of my best Croatian friends were there and some of my best moments in AIESEC in Croatia including parties in the hallway, bush diving, sunrises, conversations, faci meetings, MC roll call, succession of AIESEC in Croatia and a lot of randomness happened in this conference… So much to remember…

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In the end, Hvala Puno AIESEC Hrvatska! Make me proud :)

Last month of my AIESEC active Career

My last month as an active AIESECer just began by going back to the roots. I went to Portugal for a weekend because of the wedding of a very good friend of mine who was also the President of AIESEC in Portugal when I was working on that team that year.

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The whole experience to meet team again, to remember all experiences we went through made me feel very nostalgic but also satisfied by realizing how we all evolved since then and the amazing experiences we are all gathering from all around the world literally!

Then I managed also to be present in the moment where many people that influenced my career became Alumnus and to participate in my good friend Hugo farewell dinner before he leaves to his new challenge, Netherland and the AIESEC International.

Finally, I became Alumnus of my home LC, AIESEC Lisboa ISCTE. It was a natural step to take and it felt good to have there “present” the people who contributed so much for my experience to be what it was. It was like to look at my life through others people eyes and it also made me realize how lucky I was to have such extraordinary people in my AIESEC career but moreover as my friends! Everything was special and memorable as I always wanted it to be, including the end. Even when some things do not turn out the way we would like to, it just adds value to the entire experience.

And when I returned to Croatia, WILL found OPPORTUNITY so I did a lot of things that I always wanted to during May:

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Have a chilled lunch with my team;

Visit one of the most beautiful places I’ve been into, the Plitvice Lakes, a natural park of Croatia;

To see finally how the St.Mark church in Zagreb looks like after the recovery works done;

And to enjoy the fact that Zagreb had a record number of interns with whom I had many quality moments :)

"At the end you remember the beginning"

In one month I will finish my responsibilities as President of AIESEC in Croatia, I won’t have any more title below my name, I won’t be actively working in AIESEC anymore, I won’t have an address, I will have no work or job to do. I will be just an unemployed recent graduate in Psychology with 24 years old. I will have to rebuild my life from scratch, find a new place to live, a new job, a new passion, a new flag.

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How does it make me feel?

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I believe AIESEC is just a bus stop, it is never ever a destination. We meet some cool people on the same stop as we, some other less cool people, some of them we are sure we will meet somewhere someday, we go through sunny days but also through a lot of rainy days, some days we are tired to wait, other days we feel like never leaving that place.

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And once it gets comfortable it means that it’s time to catch the bus. And I feel that this is the right moment to catch my bus, I am sure it will be the right one and I am sure that will lead me exactly where I should be.

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And how does that make me feel?

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Tired but at the same time I know that the next 30 days are the last days I have to do anything meaningful in this organization, are the only days left to make a change, to leave a legacy, to do something that will make my last years all worth.

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I’m also tired of jumping around and I miss having a place called home. But for now that is something I can live with as long as I have friends that make me feel home in many places in the world.

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How does it make me feel?

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Nostalgic and it makes me think about the person I was when I joined AIESEC, it makes me feel a bit old and it makes me feel I went through an amazing changing process. When I look at the pictures I see that apparently I haven’t change that much but I know the truth, I’m not the same scared, low-confident, impulsive, with bad English, with fear to speak in public girl I was when I joined…

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So what´s the feeling?

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Happiness because I had an amazing experience. I will leave Croatia with the feeling I have done the right choice by staying one more year, I will be sure that all doubts, fears and even tears were worth. I will leave my active life in AIESEC with absolutely sure I made the best out of it, I kept the right people around me, I learned what I needed for my personality and character to become stronger, I took challenges and I grew beyond what I ever expected.

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How does it make me feel?

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A bit scared about the future, anxious. AIESEC is a peak in my life. I mean, how many times in my life will I have the opportunity to lead ambitious, young and exciting people? How many times will I be managing an organization with more than 300 people? How many times will I be in my life the main representative of an organization present in a country for over 55 years in front of more than 100 countries? How many times will I be the main representative of a country which is not my own? I think the chances are pretty small.

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I think things will get harder, it will require more passion and willingness, but I am determined not to make AIESEC the peak of my life. I just need to find something I believe in and dedicate my life to it.

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And how does makes me feel?

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In the end it makes me feel good with myself.

The real difference between Portuguese and Croats

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During Easter I went to Split where I had a lot of time for myself and normally in these occasions I also come up with rather interesting theories (at least for me). So while in Split I dedicated a bit of time reflecting about the differences I have been noticing between the people from my own country and the people from the country I have been living in the last 2 years and this is the result:

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Croats are “black or while” and Portuguese are “grey”.

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Croats (and I would like to emphasize that I am generalizing) are extremists: a guy is either cool or not, either they are dating or they are not, either they are friends or they are not. Generally they are very direct and straight forward people. They are a very nationalistic nation and although they seem into travelling, several Croats told me that they have here everything they need so they would never live abroad for choice. I know a lot of religious people, and I mean young people. Also I’ve heard from many people that they aim to get married, have a good house, raise kids, enjoy life. I have met so many happy people and families, happy with what they have, with who they are, with what they do. Normally they are not satisfied with the Government but I guess that is a global feeling. I think Croatian music is generally happier, they drink more and they work to party afterwards. That’s why I say that they point of view is much more extreme like “black or white”.

Portuguese (and I am again generalizing) are by nature frustrated with everything, with the country, with their lifes, with their job, with the weather, with the traffic, with the prices, with their emotional lifes… Normally Portuguese people always give the benefit of doubt “He seems an asshole but maybe this is not his day, I will give him some more opportunities”. Generally they are not proud of their country and they live convinced that all other countries are better. According to statistics majority of Population is Catholic but actually most of my friends are agnostic. I would say that Portuguese have difficulty to believe in happy endings, most of the musics are about sad love stories and my friends and even I tend to dream about impossible relationships. Sometimes the longest period of emotional relationships is the flirting, kissing and what we call “to have fun” part, to date is a very advanced stage and normally takes quite a while to begin. For all of this I would say Portuguese are more in between, more “grey”.

I would say the good thing about Croats it’s their capacity to be happy and to find happiness in small, beautiful things. They are more confident and proud of whom they are and of what they have. This is from my point of view highly influenced by the fact that a bit more than a decade ago they had to fight for their country and for their own freedom.

The good thing about Portuguese is that they live in this continuous frustration which also makes them always to look for alternatives and to change if necessary in pursuit for that happiness or perfection that they actually don’t believe exists. I also think this is present in Portuguese way of being for centuries and it explains a bit the discoveries period and why people who are blessed with a beautiful ocean, great fields and warm weather decide to engage in adventures and endless boat trips to find new worlds. But then again, maybe this is not the majority I am talking about…

The bad thing about Croats is that sometimes they just don’t care because they are happy. They are not concerned so much in details and perfection, and sometimes they don’t seem interested to find out other ways of doing things which could even be useful for their country or for their lifes. They are satisfied with what they have and I also believe this is visible in AIESECers in Croatia but the question is what else could they have or be? What about excellence?

The bad thing about Portuguese is that they seem never to be happy or satisfied, they complain so much about everything and they lack positivism. This would be good if people would fight and do something to change their lifes, but the truth is that many people don’t do so, and they complain their entire life. And AIESEC was a reflection of this bad side until a while ago, I think now things are changing…

Bottom line, both cultures seems similar on the first sight, and they are but some key values in the basic structure of these cultures are not shared.

Which one is better? I think that the best is to find a balance between being able to enjoy what you have and at the same time risk and challenge the boundaries that we impose to ourselves.

I think I manage to find a good balance between this 2 point of views after 2 years in Croatia and that is maybe one of the biggest learnings I will take with me… I’m actually starting to believe in happy endings…

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P.S: of course these are statements based on my assumptions and perception therefore it is only an assessment, it may even be a bit grounded but it is not necessarily right and I hope it doesn’t offends anyone :)