Summer with Hanichka

I have this little cousin Hannah. She's small and very funny. Well, not so small, really. She's actually two and a half years older than me. But she is still very funny!

Hanichka lives very far from us, in New York, which is a city that, according to dad, Jewish, Dutch, and Irish people set up on the East Coast of the United States so that they could spend their days looking for the best Italian restaurant. Makes no sense to me, really, but human ambitions rarely do. In any case - that's, like, far. So we don't see each other much. So my parents and her parents decided - hey, why not meet in ... Croatia? Why not in Germany where we live, or in the US where they live? I don't know. I think it has something to do with "meeting on a neutral territory", like Gorbachev and Reagan during the Cold War. So we met in Croatia, and it was a very fun week. Hanichka's parents, Valia and Tom, are wonderful people who love her very much.

Then, mom took us a couple of times to a mud beach where we could make figures out of mud.

Then we would put instructions written on pieces of paper in their mouths and they would serve us. (Only those who have recognized the Golem metaphore can continue reading :)). Then, of course, we would play on the beach. The beach in Croatia is like a handkerchief on which a large group of elephants are trying to lie down. Small and crowded - so we spent most of our time close to the sea, or right in the sea.

Now check this out - I speak more English than Hanichka speaks Bulgarian. Which is to say, we mostly understand each other by tickling each other and fighting for toys and laughing most of the time.

Of course, dad contributes to our laughing our lungs out by being the clown he likes to be when none of his bosses is around. How can you work in a bank, I asked him once? It's not a real bank, he said.

We also had our orchestra - but unlike Olivia the pig, there were four of us, and we made noise for four!

And so the days with Hanichka passed in bliss, but then she had to leave for New York, and we waved her goodbye and promised to visit her. And then we went for a farewell lunch. Did I tell you that dad is happiest when he can eat seafood? Disgusting! How can you eat something that comes from the sea? Children pee in the sea. Believe me, they do.

And of course, mommy was beautiful against the blue skies...

... and the liquor was hard...

Croatia with Hanichka - the best summer so far!