I Have Croatian Feet - New Zealand and Australia Post #1

I thought that I would handle the flight from Auckland to Sydney a bit better and wasn’t too thrilled about being so foggy as I walked off the plane. I was still able to recognize Antonio on nothing more than the family resemblance though. Fifteen years since he had passed and it was as if I were looking at, walking up to and hugging my grandfather. Same smell too… aftershave and cigarettes. My cousin Sue was familiar to me right away. Even more so after looking at the photos she had at the ready from her visit to Chicago when I was eighteen and she had just finished university. As I was looking at these another cousin, Steve, was driving the lot of us to his parents house. I was snapped out of a nostalgic, and somewhat painful, look back at my senior year in high school when we arrived at Aunt Cecilia’s in Blacktown to the west of Sydney proper. In the door we go and it was intro after intro to the instant Australian family that would adopt me over the coming weeks.

We ate and drank the afternoon away swapping stories about family… those back home and in Europe and others that have passed. As I’ve thought for many years back home it became more and more clear that we are ethnically Croatian but culturally Italian. The food and language at home are always a combination of both cultures. The croat/italian side of my family emigrated in two waves. The first went to the US in the mid to late twenties and the next went to Australia after WWII escaping Tito’s communist regime and guided to the southern hemisphere by closed US borders. Antonio and his sister Cecilia left their home in the ‘50s and are my great grandmother’s niece and nephew. The rest of the clan there is made up of the four children they each had, their grand children and the extended family by marriage from their sons and daughters-in-law… about 50 people in all showed up to welcome me… a distant cousin at best. It became clear that afternoon and was reinforced over the next few weeks that the nature of our genealogy didn’t matter… all that mattered is that we are actually related and that was enough to be treated like a son or brother.

A slightly more trivial take away from my time in Australia… I’ve never met anyone with the same knobby, hairy, hobbit like feet… except for my Australo/Croat relatives :-)


The Famiglia at the uber fantastic blow-out sponsored by Daniella and Anthony.

A few other photos from the gala evening... me and Anth...

....John Surdich, wife Sophie and cousin Sue Zec...


The evening's photographer... he worked cheap... and all the shots had that fabulous low angle look... thanks Andrew! Cheeky Monkey!


Hanging out with some of the locals at Featherdale...

Doesn't everybody get a Koala shot when they visit Oz?

I really did take this shot myself ;-)


Mates... Zio Antonio and I on our way down the coast to the family cottage at Currarong where, among other things we...

... fished for Calamari...

... and yes... Antonio and #1 son Anthony made sure that I received the propper indoctrination in to the family calamari killing tradition... a full blast of ink to the face... Full On Mate!


Zio Antonio, Anth and I at the family cottage...

View out the front door... sort of ;-) I went on a boat dive not too far from here... those rock formations continue far, far down in to the water... tres cool.

The three amigoes on a hike to the Beacroft Head... one of, if not the only, places in the world where you can fish for marlin from the shore.

My cousin Matt and I tried to surf this spot out on the Beacroft Headland, Jarvis Bay after a great longboard day with his brother Anth (forgot the camera that day ;-( and were a bit skunked as the whole 1/4 kilomter length of the beach was closing out at a half meter overhead... better luck next time mate! We still had some good days though at other local beaches, me with me NZ funshape and Matt with his new mal... the Big Red Pushta!


Another family bash at a Lebanese restaurant in Paramata just prior to my taking off in a caravan for Queensland... Zio Antonio floored the crowd when he jumped to his feet to dance at the invitiation of the house belly dance... if any of you blokes or shelias send me a photo of this it WILL make it on to the blog ;-)


My cousin Rob "The Beast" Surdich and I at the coast north of Sydney where he lives with his family. We tried diving this spot two days in a row but were put off by the "minor" swell. So.. instead we headed off in Rob's fishing kayak to hand-line and skin dive. I caught a leather jacket and narrowly missed driving the frontal spike through my hand and found the only abalone of the day. We also survived paddling back in to the bay against a swift outgoing tide with an incoming swell at our backs... yeah baby! Robby... send me some pics muchacho... we swamped the camera but the pics survived... they MUST live on the net!


And finally... a couple of tourist photos!