What a unique city!

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I don't know half of you half as well as I should like, and I like less than half of you half as well as you deserve.

yes it is! its one of my favorites.. i live only about 45 minutes from there, so i go there a lot, the atmosphere there is really amazing, like frozen in time

Nice! I'm super jealous! I love immersing myself in the old world like that. Are you originally from that area?

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I don't know half of you half as well as I should like, and I like less than half of you half as well as you deserve.

yes, im from a city called Rijeka in Croatia, in the north adriatic about 45 mins from the italian border.. with a car it would take me about an hour and a half to get to venice with the border and all, but there is also a boat, which gets me there in 45 mins

Ah, ok. I asked, because you use English as efficiently as if it was your native language, which is impressive if it's not! Rijeka is another city I would love to visit some time. There's lots of history in that area. What does it take to get through the borders over there? Oh, and I have to ask, is all of the stuff that happened between Italy and Rijeka between 1920ish and 1945ish still remembered, or is it ancient history that's not really a big deal anymore?

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I don't know half of you half as well as I should like, and I like less than half of you half as well as you deserve.

No, it's not my native language, thanks! you should hear my accent though Well, people who are native to these parts can go to italy and back with just their ID cards, i am really not sure how it goes for other people..

Well.. i would say it's forgotten by most people, there are still italians who live here, or come to visit, and many of us are bilingual. i would say about 80% of native people here is bilingual with italian and croatian.

there are however people on both sides who still shout about what happened, each side with their own arguments, mostly people who dont even live in these parts (in these parts i include kvarner, istria regions in croatia and veneto, friuli regions in italy)

on the whole i would say its forgotten, with some exeptions

Bravo on the English then, you had me fooled! I guess going to and from Italy over there is not too far different from going to and from Canada over here. Just go through a quick check point and off you go.

It's interesting to me to hear how a relatively recent conflict like that is perceived over there. That sort of thing is such a foreign concept over here, because we haven't had any real conflicts where we're left living with the opposition afterward since our civil war. Even that is still vaguely remembered, and there are sort of vague tensions between the North and the South, but they're very subdued and limited.

Anyway, thanks for the insight! Sorry for the random questions; I'm a bit of a history nerd, so this sort of thing is fascinating to me.

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I don't know half of you half as well as I should like, and I like less than half of you half as well as you deserve.

yeah i guess it's because there were so many wars around these parts, the most recent one being when yugoslavia collapsed. now thats still in the air, as it was only 15-20 years ago

its funny you should mention north vs south, in croatia its pretty similar, though we never had a civil war with the north, the people in the north and south are very different, the northen parts being similar to continental peoples, and the southern parts more mediteranean.

the tensions are mostly between football supporters (read hooligans) though, most normal people are beyond that

no problem at all, its rare to find someone that interested in history, im glad to talk about it

Right, I suppose with so many conflicts in the same area, people would only really bear the most recent in mind.

It's interesting though, most countries seem to have some sort of north/south division. The US certainly does, in the UK, there's Scotland and England, there used to be a similar rivalry in Germany, same in Italy, and apparently Croatia too. I wonder why that is? The only reason I can think of off the top of my head is that climate, and therefore economies, tend to vary more in a north-south direction than an east-west direction. Of course I'm sure there's not one single answer either.

How old is Croatia now?

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I don't know half of you half as well as I should like, and I like less than half of you half as well as you deserve.