Labour Day (and photos of my apartment for those who asked )

I woke up to the sound of steady rain this morning, and rather than pace up and down my apartment (4 steps one direction, 6 steps the other direction)

or eat my way through everything in the cupboards (that’s what I can do if I have nothing to do), I jumped on the 10 o’clock bus to Split. I think I’ve said before that there is a wonderful book shop in the Diocletian Palace that has a huge range of English books – and my biggest fear is running out of something to read.
I should have thought it through, should have known… its Labour Day today (1 May) and so nearly all of the shops were shut including the book shop (not Zaras though). And it didn’t stop raining. Labour Day here, like the rest of the world celebrates the 8 hour working day – although I know from watching, that the people in towns whose income is based on Tourism certainly don’t work an eight hour day – more like an eighteen hour day.

The rowing trener and I were talking the other day, sitting watching the rowers.. actually, I‘ll start that again, because I have learned that if I just sit, eventually he starts a conversation. He said “kids now days. Problem with kids is computer, tv. And only one kid each family. All focus on just one, and spoilt.” Then he made a gesture which meant that they were weak….”no, how you say, back. No hard work”.
We went on to talk about how modern parents do everything for their (one usually) child, and now that families are more financial¸ they are able to provide children with everything without them having to do any work around the house to contribute to the household. Children (as teenagers) are not expected to have a part time job, even though the same parents would have been required to work at the same age, helping with the gardens, the olives etc. I talked to a woman the other day who has two children – the family has nine apartments that they rent out for the tourist season, and also have a large caravan park. When I asked if the teenagers were involved in the businesses (cleaning the apartments, clearing the grounds etc) she said no – it was not clean work, and the family had enough money and they didn’t want them to work. Which I get, I understand, but it seems that the work ethic that was part of the Croatian history is being eroded. Which gets back to the conversation that I was having with trener, where we agreed that children have no hunger, no drive to push themselves because they have it too easy now. Putting it in perspective, we were talking about rowing, but we were also looking at a bigger conversation.
And of course there are always exceptions – the sixteen year old boy in the apartment next door has a wonderful work ethic – he is always looking for things to do so that he can have an income. He was so excited the other day because he managed to get a job helping at the wine festival- and he is hoping to get a job as a garbage boy during the tourist season. This means being up at 5am and cleaning the beach until 8 am every morning. As with lots of things here you have to know the right people to get this work.
Anyway, Labour Day. There would have been a lot of damp celebrations in towns up the Dalmatian Coast today, and then everyone will be back at work tomorrow.