A bit of back and forth

Photo by the evil genius Khan Kanga

Serbia feels like home, its so familiar and comforting, so warm and filled with the faces of people I love and have been through so many experiences with. I am just visiting for a few days because I will work in CE in Graz next week, so it does not leave much time, but its so wonderful to even have this short time here. Every time I arrive at the bus stop in Novi Sad I feel so excited. I look out of the bus window all along every street I know, and just wait for it to stop, then I take my things and walk as fast as I can to CE. Serbia has been my home for so many years, I also did and experienced a lot of crazy things here, for me… this is the one place on earth I feel a true connection with (so far) and every time I come back its very special. This time my friend Zapa (from Graz) travelling down to Serbia with me, adding a lot of cool moments to the trip.

 

I had a real adventure getting to Novi Sad. Recently I have really rebelled from the mainstream transportation, mostly because its boring, but its also expensive and takes such a long time. I normally travel either with Blabla car or with hitchhiking. This time I found a shared ride going to Zagreb and took it, I knew I had friends t here I wanted to see, and also I like to mix it up a bit and not go directly. We were driven there by a catholic priest, pretty funny, I am sure he had a lot of interesting things to say but I slept most of the way.

When we arrived I went to see two friends who I had met during the TEDx, Martina and Khan. Martina is from Zagreb and Khan is from a bunch of different places, they met in San Fransisco and recently moved back to Croatia. Both are designers and work on many exciting projects. They are such good hosts and made a wonderful dinner for me, with lots of wine and Rakija and made me feel so warm and comfortable. They really showed me what it means to be a good host of people and how to welcome people into your home and life (the lesson is to always have Rakija available to guests). 

 After this we attempted to hitchhike first to Osijek and then on to Novi Sad, however we were pretty slow and went at our own pace, in the end we got a message from a car share going to Osijek and took the ride. Gordan was our driver, a very interesting fellow from Osijek, he owns Tufna, one of the biggest clubs in Osijek, he also owned a few smaller businesses and  hostel. This was lucky for us as the last bus to Novi Sad had already gone and we needed to stay the night in Osijek. He is a very interesting guy, working his way up in the business world, starting from square one to finally get to where he is today. He is a high energy person with lots of good business advice, I enjoyed sharing with him the story of CE and my small experience in business. Seeing as we got on so well, he invited us for dinner in an adorable little traditional restaurant, we drank a lot of wine and rakija (again) and had a wonderful time with him. It’s so amazing to see the people that you can meet along the way of your travels if you are open and have respect for other people. I always find someone to connect with and learn from, everybody has something to share. 

 

 Carrying on we went to Novi Sad early the next morning and spent the next 2 days there. During this time I got the chance to see many of my friends and spend time with them, I am so lucky to have so many beautiful people in my life, supportive, kind and inspiring. I also got to do a short TV interview on ‘Just Give’, work on my connection to the TEDx team (I will be giving some input to the Novi Sad TEDx crew), and get a tattoo… what a packed weekend.

 

CE Novi Sad is blossoming, not only does it look beautiful but the vibe and atmosphere is as sweet as ever. Looking around the city of Novi Sad I saw so many cafe's and bar's that were closed since the last time I was here. In the time CE has been open, so many cool places have closed and opened for different reasons. I am never happy to see another shop owner go out of business, but it does make me appreciate the length of time that CE has been standing its ground. We have really been through so much, a scandal, deportation, renovation… we have gone through real depression with the business and also experienced such feelings of joy and satisfaction. I really see CE as a pillar in the community of this city. Most people know about it, have been there and enjoy the place in so many ways. I am so proud of it, of myself for being part of it and for every person who contributed to making it what it is. There is no café like it. Of course there are many cool culture spots in the city, but one thing that makes it so magical is the story behind it, a real story of perseverance, courage and determination. We didn’t give up, even when all the odds were against us, I feel like the CE team has really big balls to do what they have done, and CE today still stands as a testimony to their diligence and courage in the face of many obstacles. A diverse team of 7 young people, coming from no where… to where we are today… what a wonderful story and what a wonderful life. 

Looking over at the story in Graz and how its developing, there have been many roadblocks  that we continue to face. The situation with our license has been a continual source of frustration. After our meeting with the main inspection officials of the city and some of our neighbours, we pressed forward with the changes that the government wanted us to make to fulfil all requirements of the license. These included creating sliding doors to the bathrooms, sealing off the 2^nd door and creating a automatic door in our front entrance, not such small things. We did everything that they asked and got the stamps of approval from all of the inspectors.. all but one. The main guy in charge of the paper refuses to stamp and sign the last document and send it to us. Apparently it is sitting on his desk and he just does not have the time to do it, nevermind that we have been doing the paperwork for one year now, and fulfilled all requirments around 2 and a half months ago, nevermind that we are a group of struggling young people who need to earn something to survive, nevermind that this is a start-up business and not a huge corporate entity, he does not have the time to stamp our paper and send it. To make it even more unbelievable he told our friend who regularly goes to talk to him about the progress, that he did stamp it and it was in the mail, every day we were waiting and then his secretary told us that he never sent any completed paper to the post. So we are still waiting. However because we have the news that the paper is completed (or so we assume) we are moving forward with the progress of CE and getting the business to run a bit better. We did some advertising and can now post our menu online, we also are able to host a few quiet gigs, though its kind of in experimentation. Altogether in some ways it means we are moving forward, for sure we are closer to getting the license paper then before (I guess we cannot be moving backwards). All over the story of CE has been one with many giants that we have had to fight and it is a struggle, but we all feel like it is worth it and will be worth it even more then now in the future. Whatever we do, I guess we want to know that we gave it our best and we put 100 percent . 

We are all working full time at the shop in Graz at the moment, which is me, Simon and Mary and Oli too, but he is travelling a lot at this time. After working the whole month we are really left with very little money to live, and I mean really little. I guess it can be discouraging to see that you are not earning anything with so much work and most people are earning a lot more but with less work. Of course I am not saying that they do not deserve it, but it is a hard thought sometimes when I realise I am definitely living with less then a third of what most people do here in Austria. I do feel that CE in some way will one day be financially successful, its been successful in so many other ways already, I really feel its only a matter of time before it grows in every way that we need. Even if it dosen’t, we all gained so many amazing experiences from this whole journey, it really toughened us, I feel my character and depth grew so much since the beginning 4 years ago. I cannot imagine my life without CE, with all the joys, happiness, magical moments, depression, sadness, and yes.. a lot of tears, also a lot of work. I do feel privileged in many ways, blessed to be able to live a lot of my dreams, work on something I care about and be my own boss. With all of these great benefits, the lack of money seems a small and insignificant detail, considering that so many people with so much money would for sure wish to have some of the wonderful life moments that I have had. 

There is just no way to compare or put your life in its entirety up to another persons and decide what would be better or worse, we all got our cards and we are playing them the best we can. What is important to me is to be happy, but also to be a good person, to work on my character, to see the traits of love, understanding, passion, dedication, honesty, integrity, and compassion grow in my life. It’s also important to me to be of service to others, I need to feel like I can give something important to my friends and family, all of the things I have gone through with CE have definitely given me lots of love and friendships that I treasure. May I take a moment to just breathe and say… all in all.. if I had to do this over again, if I had the chance to go back, take a different life path, study, work in a good job or go back to the UK.. I would still start CE with those 6 crazy people, I would risk it for that biscuit, because it’s a good biscuit and I like it, YUM