Welcome back to the All Things Croatia podcast,
everybody. We've got Tatsu here and you may know
him better as Crow Samurai. You've probably been
seeing his videos on Instagram. Are you on YouTube
too? No, not yet. TikTok or just Insta? Just
Instagram. Just Instagram. Well, if you're on
Instagram, you've been seeing his videos, I'm
sure. If you follow anything related to Croatia
and he's singing, it's like day one of, what
is it, 500? of singing Croatian songs. First
of all, welcome to the podcast, I guess. Thank
you very much. Thank you, Stanko. Yeah, of course,
man. And it's been a while, actually, since I
did an episode. So this will be a fun one. And
I want to, of course, ask how you sort of got
into anything really Croatian. But what day,
before we get into that, what day are you on
right now of the challenge? I'm on day 20. day
20 will be my next video i just posted my day
19 one uh -huh wow yeah i'll be um i can't i
can't really just hear what i'll be doing for
day 20 but uh it'll be uh it'll be another big
classic song all right what song did you do for
19 and i'll let you 19 19 i did nice my dad went
and uh dad and sister drove to phoenix i'm in
los angeles i'm here in la they drove to phoenix
because jelko was playing just in this little
like cafe thing in phoenix and did a concert
and so they drove out like six hours to go see
him and they said it was pretty cool oh really
good show yeah yeah he's got some good songs
for sure Obviously, you love Croatian music.
You're a big fan of Croatia. If you're watching
this video, you see he's got the jersey, he's
got the beanie, he's got everything. First of
all, are you Croatian? I get asked that question
a lot. I've got zero Croatian blood, full Japanese.
How it started was I used to do tennis with my
best friend called Tommy Petica. He introduced
me to a few Croatian friends. And I think it
was the World Cup 2018. That was the first time
when I saw all the Croatia jerseys and the flags
in the middle of Zagreb. And that's when I was
like, you know, who are these people and what's
this country? Because I've never seen a country
that was so happy to represent themselves in
their jerseys. And they all obviously looked
very proud to be Croatian. And that was a sight
to never see before. And then after the World
Cup, I was just meeting all the different Croatian
people and going to the Croatian parties and
then getting introduced to the Croatian culture
and then just fell in love with it straight away.
Yeah, that's awesome. So you're playing tennis
with your Croatian buddies. Yes. And so you've
been friends with them for a long time and always
knew they were Croatian. And then when you watched
the World Cup, you kind of put it together and
got more into it or you met them and said, oh.
I met them first and then started getting into
the Croatian culture and the country bit by bit.
And so are they born in Croatia and moved to
Australia? Or are they like first gen? Yeah,
they're all born here. Born there in Australia.
And so I'm assuming they're pretty, you know,
big fans of Croatia, always talking about it.
Definitely. Definitely, yeah. In Australia, you
don't see too many countries and cultures that
are sort of proud to represent. themselves especially
in sydney so uh it's literally a small minority
and then seeing like such a small community like
croatians and then being so proud to be you know
croatians um there was just nothing better to
say than that and yeah that eventually just leached
onto me i guess uh -huh yeah it is we love to
talk about how it's a small country especially
when we do well you know in the world cup and
stuff four million it's definitely yeah absolutely
right now yeah and we're definitely proud of
you know being such a small country but still
being able to produce you know athletes and you
know thinkers and great people uh interesting
tennis we we got some good tennis players too
i mean chile just did good absolutely yeah chile
chip i saw that you guys did chile recently so
yeah yeah i had him on the podcast uh it was
maybe like six months ago he's a really nice
guy really good guy seems really down to earth
um i want i just went i came back from croatia
a few days ago and i wanted to you know go and
play tennis with him over there but i didn't
actually reach out because i didn't want to i
don't know who knows if he's even if he was over
there he's training or playing in another tournament
somewhere right now but yeah he promised me at
some point we'd play maybe back in my my grandparents
village oh really oh that's great yeah yeah wow
so were you learning were you asking your friends
to like teach you croatian or like teach you
about the culture and stuff or were you sort
of yeah like i still i still remember in the
beginning um trying to learn the uh trying to
learn the language and just bit by bit and i
remember um i remember trying to learn the learn
the word phala and in the beginning i asked my
friend how was uh spelt and he goes hb A -L -A.
So I pronounced it as Hvala. And then he kept
telling me, no, it's not Hvala, it's Fala. I
couldn't get that F pronunciation. In the beginning,
I was so confused. And then, yeah, bit by bit,
it was just the pronunciations, you know, confusing
the hell out of me. But yeah, after I got over
that hump, then it was just learning about the
culture and like the Kola dancing and the Rakia,
obviously. And yeah, bit by bit. Well, so are
you like... hanging out in the croatian community
over there's a big you're in sydney right that's
a big croatian community over there yeah yeah
very big gift so i've been with these guys probably
for about um probably seven eight years now are
you going to like any do they have like a you
know croatian picnic or something over there
that you ever go to or like the i know i'm sure
they've got croatian churches Yeah, they do the
Croatian family gatherings. I've been to those
and I've been to Croatian weddings and I've been
to the Croatian soccer tourney in Australia as
well. So I've been all around the Croatian people
and the Croatian culture over the last couple
of years. And to say the least, I think I'm blessed
to be around these kind of people. Yeah, yeah.
Well, that's awesome. I mean, I want to ask about
learning Croatian because I'm also... I started
learning maybe like four -ish years ago. I actually
moved out to Zagreb so I could learn it. I did
a program out there. But it's tough as a native
English speaker, as someone who only speaks English,
it's a really tough language to learn. And I
read somewhere that you're also, or I saw in
the interview you did, that you're also fluent
in Japanese, right? Yep. And so I wonder, like
comparing and contrast, well, I was going to
ask you to compare and contrast, but were you
like, was Japanese your first language or like,
did you learn that as a young kid? kid or did
you have to actually like study that to learn
that oh yeah japanese was my first language um
and then eventually it was it was english not
long not too long after that and japanese even
for me as a native i still had to yeah study
outside of school go to saturday school and practice
japanese every single week just to learn the
language um but yeah with croatian i'm eventually
i like to become fluent but you know just the
grammar difficulties i'm yeah finding a lot of
struggle so yeah just finding that yeah finding
the right mentor to actually be able to speak
the language and you know understand what i'm
actually saying not just learning the language
and using it in my head i'd actually like to
use the language and speak to other people in
croatian so yeah yeah that's the best part you
know once of learning a language is being able
to communicate with other people like that but
yeah it's hard for me i'm sure japanese they
say is hard for english speakers to learn as
well but like for me here we learn spanish you
know in school and like compared to spanish croatian
is super hard spanish is really easy but i want
i mean for you i wonder is it like tricky i mean
all the slavic languages it's they're tough because
you don't think like in the same way in english
you know and then you have to change the end
of a word in croatian even though in english
you would say in the beginning you know what
i mean yeah maybe i guess in that sense you can
say the croatian it is a bit hard but for me
personally i find like the pronunciations and
the accents it's a lot easier for me to learn
and understand compared to spanish for some reason
that's fair yeah definitely the the grammar point
it is it is very difficult to get my head around
as i think spanish and english it's very similar
you can just put the words as it is and form
a sentence but yeah croatia like you mentioned
you have to sort of change the words around etc
and japanese it's very similar in that sense
as well which is why i found some similarities
and yeah even a pronunciation it's uh yeah fairly
similar fairly similar to japanese And how did
you start learning Croatian? Are you just asking
from your friends and they're teaching you? Or
were you doing something online? I started from
the friends and then started listening to the
music and then just translating word by word.
And then, yeah, just learning word by word from
all these friends, just everyone coming up to
me and teaching me new Croatian words. Are people
excited, you know, when they see you or they
see how excited you are? These Croatian people,
they're so passionate. Like they say, you know,
they see like a Mala Kinezi, like speaking, you
know, Croatian and they just all get so passionate.
They're coming up to me and teaching me Croatian
music and, you know, teaching me new Croatian
words or teaching me about Croatian history.
Yeah. Yeah. It's so awesome to see someone who's,
you know, not a part of your culture being a
part of your culture, you know, someone that
you're not used to seeing. That's awesome. Now,
you mentioned the music and, you know, obviously
you've got the Instagram. It's called Crow Samurai,
right? At Crow Samurai. Crow Samurai, yeah. Give
a shout out there. And so tell us about how you
came up with that, what it is and sort of how
you even thought to do that. So a couple of years
ago, I actually had another Instagram account
called Mr. Hrvatska. And that was a very similar
account where I was just singing for fun and,
you know, posting for fun as well. But that account,
I never really took it seriously. And then maybe
sometime this year, I just got to a point where
I said, look, I want to try and maybe do it again,
Mr. Hrvatska, as I had a couple of people asking
me on that account saying to bring the account
back and maybe start singing Croatian songs again.
So I thought maybe this year I'll just, you know,
give it my all, see how it goes. and then yeah
from the first video surprisingly it hit uh you
know 700 000 views which was uh very unexpected
so yeah i just ended up continuing yeah it was
really crazy on the first video too yeah you
have to continue after that you know i mean i
have to continue yeah i mean if the first video
like i was i was honestly expecting like you
know 5 000 views and if it got 5 000 i was just
happy to take it easy and you know maybe day
two whenever i feel like it but yeah started
getting to like you know 250 000 and you know
got to like 300 000 i was like oh this is getting
a bit too crazy and then i had all these yeah
people started reaching out to me and um it just
got too crazy and then i think the second video
got like over 500 000 views as well so it's just
been unreal that's awesome yeah and you're about
to be on day 20 video 20 of that so looking forward
to see what that's going to be i'm sure you've
been getting a lot of requests people requesting
their favorite song for you to sing Definitely,
yeah. It was just my way to show my passion for
Croatian music, like something in a way to give
back to the Croatian community and maybe show
the world of what the Croatian music is like
because I feel like if a non -Croatian person
can find all this joy and passion in Croatian
music, I feel like the rest of the world can
somehow get influenced as well. hopefully i can
spread the croatian music and the positivity
of the croatian music to the rest of the world
and hopefully get other people leeched on as
well onto croatian music because honestly i think
there's nothing better than listening to croatian
music oh man yeah that's an awesome goal i i
respect that and that's i mean i'd love to help
as much as i can in that i love croatian music
as well what what are some of your favorite songs
to listen to uh um there's there's too many and
then you know you've got like the guru share
nowadays and um all the fast ones so yeah you're
listening to it just doesn't stop oh yeah i listen
to everything they only know that one uh what's
the conobar conobar conobar conobar man that's
that's hilarious i did not expect you to say
you're saying you know talking about oliver and
you know all these dalmatian i listen to everything
yeah like all um all artists like severina colonia
you know everything marty bulich oliver thompson
yeah of course and then yeah that's awesome man
i was just in um or no no i was just saying this
was maybe like two years ago, and I was in Zagreb.
And they had like their Zagreb beer festival
in the summer that they have every year, which
is really cool. And that's one thing I like about
Zagreb is they're always like having an event
outside that people go to, you know, and they
just hang out, drink or whatever. And they had,
I think it was an ACDC tribute band that was
going to play and a couple of like Croatian bands.
And so I went for that. But before them, Grše
was playing. And they wouldn't even let us into
the park because it was filled with all these
mostly like high school uh students because they
love going to stay over there and so they wouldn't
they were like at capacity and they wouldn't
even let us in until they finished and then you
know going to say finished and all these all
these guys just walk out and they don't even
want to stay for the other one so they've got
some you know a lot of fans out there yeah i
think that yeah music scenes are definitely changing
over there yeah yeah becoming like a little more
you know dance and edm focused which is good
that's true yeah i mean myself i'm like a big
rock and roll guy and i think that's one of the
reasons as well why i like a lot of croatian
music because it is like a lot of like 80s you
know sounding 70s yeah yeah which i like and
i love that everyone is singing i mean you go
anywhere in croatia i'm sure you're seeing it
in the croatian community over there you know
you put on the song and everyone's singing you
know at a concert everyone knows that's the best
yeah you go to like a party and then you know
certain songs come on and everyone just gets
off their seats and they start singing it's crazy
like you don't see you know anything else like
it especially you know for me coming from a japanese
country and culture we don't really get together
and all like you know sing together in a song
but croatians like no matter what the song is
like no matter what's in the hand like even if
you've got a lucky or cigarette in the hand they'll
they'll go out there to the middle of the grass
and they'll start singing that's true man yeah
that's awesome well so you haven't been yet to
croatia right i know never yeah maybe sometime
this year or next year i'd hopefully like to
go there i travel for about two weeks just see
the country and then yeah hopefully do like a
croatia tour maybe how long is the flight for
you eventually uh for me it's about i think just
under 25 hours i believe geez it's pretty far
that's crazy that's crazy that there's so many
australian you know croatian immigrants there
in australia and they you know fly out geez 25
hours it's nuts i think there's about i think
400 000 in australia i believe That's crazy.
That's a lot. How many, what's the population
of Australia? It's 23 million, I think. 23. Oh
yeah. It's a pretty big sizable population then
of Croatian people for sure. Yeah. They're crazy
out there. That's from just from what I've seen
on, you know, videos and stuff there, even here
in the U S you know, we're not as, uh, I don't
know. There's not as many of us, I feel like
in the same. area as there is in australia at
least in la i know there's some you know chicago
pittsburgh cleveland they got big you know centered
populations of croatians there but in la it's
kind of everyone's just kind of spread out a
little bit more you know uh -huh but we've got
our croatian clubs in la as well yeah we've got
uh we've got like two sort of separate areas
one area called san pedro and that's kind of
all the dalmatiansi move there because it's right
by the coast it's funny how they kind of stayed
the same way in croatia as you know over here
and then more inland and like the downtown we
have our other croatian church and that's where
most of the herzogovci live and go to so yeah
it's kind of funny how they still kind of stayed
geographically but yeah we've got a we've got
a pretty decent population down here but just
la is so big you know that everyone is so spread
out just as far as like where they live and stuff
yeah but sydney i imagine is it kind of the same
for you guys or do you feel like a lot of people
are sort of like concentrated in a small area
or what um yeah over here i think a lot of a
lot of people are more concentrated on the smaller
areas and a bit more inland compared to living
by the water as yeah living by the water it's
fairly expensive in sydney so it's very very
ridiculous Yeah, I can imagine. You mentioned
tennis. Are you following any other Croatian
sports? I'm sure soccer. You mentioned 2018,
the World Cup. Yeah, soccer and a bit of the
basketball as well. Yeah, well, here in LA, we've
got Ivica Zubac on the Clippers. Man, he had
a great season, best season he's had so far.
He had a really good season. I think Bojanovic
just retired also. I saw that, yeah. Man, he
was such a good player for so long for us. He
was a great three -point shooter. Yeah. I really
hope some of the young guys are going to have
to step it up. And there's some good young guys.
There's Carlo Matkovic. I don't know if you've
heard of him. He's on New Orleans. I believe
it was his rookie year this past year. And he
started balling out as they started giving him
more minutes midway through the season. So I
think we've got a bright future because, I mean,
back in the 90s, they were such a great team,
you know, Croatia and so many good Croatian basketball
players. And then lately, like last, I don't
even know how many years, but in recent years,
their national team, it's kind of, you know,
they haven't had as much success, even though
they're still producing some really good players,
you know. So I'm hoping the national team can
start to pick it up soon and some of the young
guys, you know, start to produce. we'll manage
to find a way i'm sure yeah i'm sure you guys
always find a way so what uh i'm sure i mean
you mentioned you've been to a bunch of family
you know parties and croatian you know gatherings
and stuff what kind of food are you enjoying
over there croatian food croatian food i'd have
to say really interesting oh yeah i love it Of
course, yeah, yeah. I was expecting you to say
Javapi for sure. Yeah, Sarma, that's a good winter
dish. I feel like they don't have it too much
when it's hot out. They won't have that when
it's hot, but then they'll still have soup for
dinner when it's hot. That's the thing that I
don't, as an American, I'm born and raised in
the U .S., that's still something I can't really.
get used to just when my baba has you know a
hot soup and it's july you know which is summer
for us over here 100 degrees out and 35 celsius
or whatever and then it's soup a hot soup for
dinner i'm like what oh man it was interesting
because um you know as a as a japanese when i
heard there was a there's a croatian meal with
rice in it i was like you know i have to try
it so i tried start of mine and uh i can't explain
the flavor it was just this explosiveness of
like flavor in my mouth it's just something i've
never experienced before and uh you know the
fact that rice was in there oh i just fell in
love with it straight away that's it yeah i didn't
put that together about rice that yeah i'm sure
it's a different flavor than you know japanese
rice dishes for sure yeah what about like other
what about like seafood dishes i don't know if
you've had any like um black risotto or anything
seafood dishes no not yet That'd be interesting
to compare because I know, you know, Japan has
a lot of good seafood. Have you been over there
to Japan? Japan? Yes, I've been there about 10
times. So yeah, looking looking to do something
different. For one sense why I want to go to
Croatia. Yeah, every every year, every two years,
I'll go to Japan for a holiday. And you know,
during the summer holidays, I've got all my Croatian
people going to Croatia. But during the winter
period, that's when I would go to Japan. So okay,
that makes sense. Yeah, man. Next year. You've
got to make it out there next year. I'm sure
you're going to get recognized on the street.
I'm going to make my goal. Yeah, that'd be awesome.
I'd love to go to the World Cup, hopefully. Yeah,
that'll be cool. They're going to have some here
in LA, so I'll be able, hopefully Croatia. You
must be looking forward to it. Yeah, we've got
the Olympics and the World Cup coming here to
LA. I'm hoping for a lot of Croatian, you know,
events and stuff, but for the world cup, they
don't know yet, you know, in what city they're
going to be playing, but hopefully, you know,
they will come to LA so I can see them. But yeah,
I mean, the Croatian soccer team, they're looking
really good. There was a period there that it
looked like they were slowing down, but now the
young guys are stepping up. Yeah. Not so young
guys been killing it lately. Yeah. They've got,
they've got some, I'm really excited for, for
what's to come from them. And I know everyone,
you know, with Modric sort of, nearing retirement
and the other guys getting old kind of seemed
like the golden years were going to end but you
know i think we're still in a really good spot
right now yeah i think it's great because well
i mean now that modulich is uh departing i think
you know other players should definitely step
it up now in honor of him and obviously croatia
you can never count them down so we'll see what
they can do in the walk Absolutely. Yeah. Well,
we're coming down here to the end of the podcast.
I, you know, I want to thank you for coming on
here. You know, you plugged your Instagram at
Crow Samurai. Everyone check that out if you
haven't yet. Anything else, you know, that you
sort of want to say or, you know, talk about?
No, like for me personally, like what made you
start the podcast as well? That's a good question.
I believe you probably have only the few podcast
channels in America, I believe. Yeah, there's
not too many. There's one in New York that there's
a couple around the world. There's a couple that
do it in Croatian, too, or like the radio programs,
you know, that one that you were on a part of.
What was that one called? Okay, that's over there
in Sydney, right? okay yeah and then yeah there's
a couple i think pods room pods room tv but yeah
they're based in australia as well okay good
yeah there's when i started this was like four
ish four or five four and a half four years ago
maybe and then yeah there was like wasn't much
out there or at least stuff that i could find
i'm sure there was some local you know like radio
stations but just nothing that would pop up you
know online for me that was like easily clickable
and stuff and you know in english because i didn't
know any croatian back then um and then i moved
out to croatia you know i was doing this language
program to learn it and i was working with a
magazine called croatia week and they put a lot
of good stuff all this in english but it's news
about croatia and um i was working with the guy
paul great guy and you know helped write some
articles and stuff and you know got to a point
where i was like what else you know can i can
i do to like be more involved in Croatian culture
and, you know, kind of spread and share what
I'm doing over here, you know, to people back
home or other people in the diaspora who don't
speak Croatian. And so that's kind of when I
got the idea for the podcast and I started it.
I got some cool interviews sort of right off
the bat who were some of the early ones. I had
like Dino Raja, who's, you know, great basketball,
Andrew Bogut. also which a lot of people yeah
i remember you yeah so you did that yeah but
good yeah yeah yeah oh yeah he's australian too
i'm sure australian yeah australian player yeah
he's like a really cool guy and i felt like a
lot of people didn't even know you know that
he was croatian because i mean he's born in australia
but you know he's also very proud croatian roots
his parents from there he's been back there i
think he was telling me he was did he have a
house or he was planning on buying a house somewhere
up by the coast so yeah so i wanted to just interview
both people who are you know in living in croatia
and everyone knows or people that maybe they
don't know you know have croatian roots and are
doing pretty cool things around the world and
that's sort of how i i got that idea and started
that and i mean yeah you also you also did i
think caitlyn clark no so that you're talking
about the instagram uh video yeah yeah yeah no
that one was on um Travis Kelsey and Jason Kelsey's
podcast the two you know football player American
football players and I someone messaged me like
the day that that came out saying hey like Caitlin
Clark was just talking about uh Croatia like
you got to check this out and so I found so she
was on their podcast and I found that and I clipped
it and I posted it and then I tagged her in it
and I said you know comment you know let's try
and get her on the all things croatia podcast
or whatever because uh it was actually the kelsey
brothers in that one talked about how they were
uh croatian that they found out that like great
grandparents or something so i was trying to
get them on by releasing that clip but you know
it's hard it's hard to reach out on instagram
to these famous people who get you know thousands
of messages and but yeah that was a cool and
that one blew up you know because kate mclark
and especially at that point she was like huge
and still is and so yeah everyone to see that
was like whoa that's awesome so what she's called
croatian roots as well she no she does not but
she was saying that her college team her senior
year went and played like a tournament in croatia
and italy and a couple other countries and there
she said that croatia was her favorite place
that they got to see as part of that and she
was you know, saying nothing but good things
about the food there and the people. And so,
yeah, people really love to see, you know, that
Croatia was in the spotlight with this famous
person who has no idea, you know, about Croatia
or anything and then goes there and just falls
in love with it. Yeah. You know, it's funny because
I think I saw your recent interview in America
where you interviewed people in America asking
them if they know Croatia. And a lot of people
didn't know, you know, what Croatia was. Yeah.
From America, especially to... go there and actually
love the country that must be a good feeling
for you guys definitely yeah yeah and i know
that's the the stereotype about americans but
it really if i mean from doing those interviews
it's true i mean i did i brought out a huge map
i don't know if you saw that video and i asked
people to like point as a point on this map or
draw with a little sharpie where's croatia and
they're looking at it and a lot of people just
have no idea most people would put it somewhere
around europe some people were thinking asian
you know croatia asia one girl just put it like
in south africa and she's like maybe right here
it's like not pretty far away from there but
you know it's just crazy that some people like
that probably never even have heard of croatia
yeah like if you just said the word croatia to
them they wouldn't automatically think like oh
a country like they would just say what maybe
that's it's like a country or something Our geography
knowledge over here is not the best. Even some
people back home in Japan, I've asked a few people
if they know where Croatia is or if they know
what Croatia is. A lot of people said they didn't
know. For me, if I can somehow get myself into
the Japanese market as well and promote Croatia
to the Japanese market, that would be a good
goal to have as well. That would be awesome.
I know we played them. what was this last world
cup yeah that was cool and now i remember there
was a big story that at the end even after the
loss like all the japanese fans were cleaning
up and they picked up all their trash and like
that was that was cool to see that you know how
just polite and respectful you know cleaning
up which is something you take for granted i
guess because i think that that happened on my
birthday or that happened on the day after my
birthday so all the croatians here were like
to me oh you know this is the best birthday gift
you're gonna get It was like, yeah, Croatia versus
Japan in the, you know, first round of the world
cup. So yeah. Oh man, that's awesome. Well, that's
all the time we have for today. This has been
a super fun episode. It's been awesome getting
to know you. I'm excited to see, you know, what's,
what's going to become of the account in the
probably short term next couple of weeks. I'm
sure it's going to just keep going. You're at
20 something thousand followers right now. It's
cool to see how people around the world are reacting
to you and they're excited. And I'm going to
give you a last question. which i give to everyone
but it's you know what's your what's your favorite
thing about croatia or croatian people or you
know anything croatian related oh that was good
i thought you were gonna ask me if i like a dinner
more split i have a feeling that uh i already
know the answer um well what i like about croatian
croatians um it's probably the Well, first of
all, with the Croatians is how they welcomed
me with open arms for an outsider like me. They
welcomed me with open arms. And after that, it's
probably just the family first culture. No matter
what it is, being around these people, they influenced
me to become a family first person. Now, this
might be weird to say, but in the Japanese culture,
we tend to look at work first and then family
comes second. But with the Croatian culture,
it was no matter what it is, what the situation
is, it's always family first and then everything
else comes second. So for these people, when
I was always around them and they were always
talking about their family, they were always
talking about introducing their brothers or cousins
to me, that influenced me a lot into becoming
a family first person. So that was probably the
biggest, yeah, biggest like inspiring thing for
me. the Croatian it's just the family first culture
and probably the singing culture as well how
everyone gets together in parties in Festa everyone
gets together and just sings that was probably
my favorite part awesome a great answer yeah
I would say those are probably my favorite things
too about you know Croatian culture and yeah
I was just telling someone I think yesterday
about like how when you ask like here in the
U .S. you'll ask someone if you meet someone
for the first time like probably the first one
of the first questions is like what do you do
and then you know they start talking about your
job but like croatians i feel like that doesn't
come up right away and when you ask about someone
it's not just here's what i do for work 100 yeah
yeah yeah definitely um i said on the radio last
time but you know i said my my best friend tommy
when he introduced me to the first couple of
people it was um i remember the names clearly
was auntie another auntie mark marco And then
that was the first four or five people maybe.
And then after that, I met a couple of maybe
10 more aunties, 10 more Yossips, 10 more Marcos,
10 more Lucas. And then they all come to me and
they want to introduce their cousins to me. And
then their cousins and brother's name is also
auntie, Luca or Yossip or Marcos. I had a big
trouble in the beginning trying to learn these
names. It was so difficult. Oh, man, I still
have that. I've got so much family that you say
the first name and it could be, you know. five
different people on both sides. Yeah. Croatians
are not very, you know, they're like, well, me,
my family, me, my mom, me, my dad, you know,
me, my brother, me, my cousin. And, uh, it was
just so welcoming and, uh, you know, warm warming
as well. So that was just something I've never
experienced before in my life. So hence why I
think it leached onto me quite early. I love
that. That's a great answer. Well, that's a gross
samurai. Thank you so much for coming out here.
All things Croatia podcast. It's been a great
episode to, you know, have you on and, see what
you know about Croatian culture and see how excited
you are to share that, you know, with everyone
else. So, you know, on behalf of everyone, I
want to say thank you. And it's really cool what
you're doing. Oh, thank you. Thank you from myself
as well, Stanko. It's actually a full circle
moment. I think I actually asked you three years
ago on my Mr. Hrubatsky account if I can come
on your podcast maybe in a couple of years once
I have a few more followers. No way, really?
Yeah, yeah. If you have a look on the messages,
I actually sent you a message a couple of years
ago when I had my Mr. Hrubatsky account in. I
think back then you were still climbing as well
and I was able to finally come on your podcast.
Wow. I'm going to have to scroll up and look
at that. Yeah, that's awesome. Full circle. Full
circle moment. Awesome. Well, thank you for coming
on the All Things Croatia podcast. Have a good
one.