The new travel acessory

One of my biggest regrets in life is not learning a language. With such a passion for travelling, having another language under my belt would be such an advantage at times. Being raised in Australia by two British parents there simply was no ‘need’ to learn another language nor was there a desire from my parents to continue with the basic learning of Italian and Japanese throughout my schooling. As a child and now a teacher I have witnessed a lot of bullying occur simply because they 'stick out' from the norm. Yet for anyone who has ever bullied an ESL student you will or may one day live to be envious of them as they have what I consider to be one of the greatest skills of the 21^st Century-they are bilingual.

I am super lucky to be travelling with one of my good friends Natalie Herbut who is bilingual. She was born in Australia, has Croatian Parents and she has become a MASSIVE advantage to our experiences in Eastern Europe. She can speak Croatian and this is had a huge impact on the things we have done, the foods we have tried/eaten, the places we have visited, the people we have met and even the services we have been offered.

However, whilst she can speak Croatian this is not limited solely to Croatia. For those who don’t know, Croatia was once part of Yugoslavia and all the countries within this area speak relatively the same language (with variations of words yet similar enough to understand each other). Our journey through Serbia meant that Nat had to take her Croatian pendent off and ‘pretend’ to be Serbian by changing a few words and altering her accent (only a few people picked up she wasn’t Serbian). Why does she need to take her pendent off? The fall of Yugoslavia is still relatively young, occurring only about 10 years ago causing a very brutal and violent war throughout the nineties (1991-1995) and many people still hold a lot of resentment towards other countries within the Yugoslav.

Once we hit Croatia the pendent was back on with welcoming arms and remained on for the time we were in Slovenia.
As fresh history and as we travel throughout the various countries we have heard multiple stories to the fall and rise of each country so if I was to begin explaining any of it I would be here for days, possibly misinforming you and maybe even offending some people. Also, this blog entry is not about the history but more so an understanding of languages.

Nat’s ability to speak Croatian has enhanced our experiences like none we have had before. She has made us all envious of the fact that she is the only bilingual member of the group and has influenced many of us to possibly select a language and begin learning it. For those in Australia it seems to be a rather hard thing to do as whilst we may have a large population of bilingual students we as a country purely speak English meaning that we are vary rarely exposed to another language unless it is through our families. Some can say that we are as arrogant as the French in this manner, expecting everyone to speak English when in this country but due to our multiculturalism it would be interesting to see which language would follow closely behind English as Australia’s second most spoken language, maybe then we could incorporate into the school system or even our lifestyles in some way or another.

So forget your typical travel checklist of toothbrushes, clothes, adaptors and latest novels your number one item should be a Natalie Herbut, a bilingual friend who will enhance your experience. I dedicate this entry to her as she has created some ever lasting memories for me and taken me to places I would never have dreamed of going and made me try so many traditional foods that aren’t on the menus at restaurants, kind of like the vegemite of toasts of Europe, things that they see as everyday meals/snacks but we see as new creations (such as chicken, ajvar, potatoes and a homemade tomato ‘special’ sauce mashed together).

Finally, she wouldn’t let me capture her on video talking what we branded as ‘jibberish’ for a few days so I had to sneak a few clips here and there…