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Old February 19th, 2009 #196
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How an Englishman Made it in Zagreb During the 9 years Joe has been in Croatia he has done more things than most people do in their entire life.


In 1999, Joe Whitfield left the U.K. with his Croatian wife and daughter to set up home in Croatia.

With some help from his new family Joe had managed to find a full time job as a chef at the Sheraton within 48 hours of arriving! However, a terrible salary and 12 to 14 hour days put strain on his marriage and he moved on to the Inlingua Language School.

Pitted against qualified teachers, having little support, he managed to pick up the unusual teaching methods with ease and began teaching.

Bad Decisions and Divorce

Having been self reliant for so long, the cultural and family differences came as a massive shock, in his own words, “every family is the same; dictating what you can and can’t do”.

Taking the job was a turning point in Joe’s marriage but shortly after he divorced his wife. However Joe insists that he and his ex-wife are now very best friends.

While at the language school Joe managed to build a huge network of friends from across the entire spectrum of the business community in Croatia which has been invaluable in helping side projects.

Meeting with a New Zealander, who at the time was trying to import alcopops to Croatia, was one of Joseph’s biggest mistakes, not on his part however but Joe’s latest employer hadn’t done his homework on Croatian import laws, as a result lost his investment and was unable to pay Joe for seven months' worth of organising parties, marketing and promotion.

As well as teaching, Joe managed to get into real estate, in fact he founded the company, the partnership he had forged with another Brit turned sour and Joe moved on.

Losing a great deal of income and being the showpiece at parties, for being British, Joe was lonely and needed something to spur him on.

- Once the novelty of being the English man at the party wore off, the locals would drift back into Croatian, and I felt lonely. – He says.

Expat Beginnings

One day while Joe was sitting alone in an internet café he met a “loud American guy” who he became firm friends with and after getting to know each other came across the idea to start an ex-pats night at Iguana, a bar on Tkalciceva, one of Zagreb’s most well known streets.

The bar, run by an Australian-Croat couple, was already a meeting place for many expats. Joe organised a proper expats night on a Thursday evening. Joe was now the key figure in the expat community, again building a huge network of contacts.

The expat community was great for Joe. However, it didn’t pay the rent, so after the collapse of his relationship with the real estate firm’s boss he set up his own real estate and legal advice companies under JWR, faced with even more bad luck: when the JWR websites and database went offline and the designer disappeared, Joe moved on to writing a magazine.

Not just writing but advertising, editing, proofreading and producing were in Joe’s remit, after setting up his team he was let down by the publishers and the magazine folded after just 3 issues.

While all of these main projects in his life were going on Joe still found time to organise fund raisers, set up independent business deals which were quashed by the local authorities, a t-shirt design and sales website and even found time to write for Transparency International.

During the 9 years Joe has been in Croatia he has done more things than most people do in their entire life, he has met Terrence Howard, his music idols Sonic Youth, appeared on stage with Iggy Pop and even had a walk on part in a movie with Richard Gere.

Joe left Croatia for around a year and a half when the country had taken its toll on him and he had had enough. This period was filled with managing Microsoft training programs and a team of 8 as well as a stint in recruitment.

New Beginnings

In February, just a few days ago in fact, Joe, now 34, was offered a job which was to start later that week. But missing his daughter Amy too much, he decided against it and instead jumped on a plane back to Croatia. When he arrived he called his daughter, pretending to be in the U.K., just to ask how she was. His next move was to knock on the front door of the apartment and be smothered with kisses.

Thus began a new chapter in Joe’s life.

Thanks to Joe's adaptability he is close to fluent in Croatian so managing the Hop Devil Bar in Zagreb’s Branimir Centar is no problem, Joe has big plans for the future and he is getting back to what he loves, networking. In addition the bar will host expats nights and live music, things that have been missing from the beautifully gothic bar of 103 beers.

He describes himself as "a brain that doesn’t stop ticking" and with this in mind and his return to Croatia, he has high hopes for the future.

If you are new to Croatia and need some help or just want to meet up with expats head over to Hop Devil on a Thursday night and see for yourself.
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Tomislav (Tom) Sunic is a Croatian author, former diplomat, and political theorist of the New Right.

In name of Christ.......fight against communist