If I see anything interesting there, I’ll take pictures, and upload them on my blog and on Facebook.

If someone is going to Europe as well, please email me and we might cross paths.

I have 15 books of ”Journey to the West”, and 10 of those I would like to sell. If anyone is interested I could sell a regular book for $120.00 and $300.00 for a deluxe. I could sign it if anyone wishes. Also, I only have two collectible plates made in 1996, and each will cost $70.00. If anyone purchases an original painting, one of my books will be included as a gift.

I would like to return to the past, and fine out if what I had written in my book 20 years ago really happened or if it was just a dream. But everything that had happened was false; with time it became a legend. I am referring to my suitcase full of paintings which I hid before I illegally crossed the border from Yugoslavia to Italy. Every year I wanted to return to that place, and find out what had happened to the suitcase. However, every time something happened, and the trip never became a reality. This year, my wife Valentina and I, decided to travel to Croatia. We rented a car in the city and drove. 20 years ago, I lived near the Opatija and the Rijeka .During that time, I walked a lot, and therefore I easily found it.  We arrived at around 9:00 in the evening; it was already dark and we decided to stop at the same camp where I had a conflict with the Germans. Unfortunately, everything unusual that happened had not been a dream; the camp, the mountain, the ocean, the café, and the shelter in which I had lived were real. Night passed. In the morning, I decided to go swimming. The water was phenomenal, clear as crystal. In the morning, when the first breeze arrived, people went windsurfing in the bay, just as they had in times past.  I was impatient to climb the mountain. We packed up the tent, and then we went to a café to drink coffee. Here I found that they cut the mountain, and were building a 3-story house in the place where the trail to the ascent began. The landscape changed in 20 years. Before, 1 pine grew in the middle of a thicket, and now there grew caprices and a few pines within those 20 years. After we drank coffee, I decided to climb the mountain on the other side, so that there wouldn’t be any more talk about the suitcase: whether it was still there or not. On the other side, the mountain was steep, but I had managed to reach the trail, and began to search among the trees. I understood that the suitcase couldn’t be there, but I had to be certain of it. I looked around all the trees, and then I descended, and told Valentina that the suitcase was gone. I don’t regret not finding it; it would’ve deteriorated in those 20 years anyway. I’d like to think that a good person found the suitcase, and the paintings are hanging in his home. It was nice to be in those places, to remember how things used to be, but I will never return there. There remains a feeling of melancholy, but I’d rather go forward, and focus on the future.