Up in smoke

You forget how lucky we are in Australia to have such tight smoking laws.

Each time I travel to Europe or Asia I am reminded how varied and lagging smoking laws can be in different countries.

So many young people smoked

I noticed so many young people smoking, a lot of young girls actually. Most of them creating the roll-your-own style cigarettes which I believe this is the cheaper way to smoke than buying a packet of cigarettes.

Good luck finding a seat with fresh air

The café culture is big in Croatia – it’s a beloved tradition to sit and take your time to have your coffee, whether it’s the morning coffee or catching up with someone during the day. In Zagreb particularly, it is considered normal to take a break for an hour or two to have a coffee and catch up with your friends. So it is not surprising to find locals in cafe’s all around town. My observations in all cafe’s I sat in (which was a lot), was that at least half of the people in each group were smokers. The non-smokers didn’t seem to mind the enormous amount of haze and smell around them for the hours they were sitting there.

However, this made it quite difficult when non-smoking people such as myself walked in and tried to find a spot where smoke was unlikely to flow. And when you thought you had found the golden seat – boom – the wind changed and the smell and haze wafted past.

I got massive puffs of cigar smoke in Zagreb one time and in Split I had to move from where I was sitting because literally every table around me was full of smokers which made for a rather uncomfortable meal. No offence to readers who are smokers – but in Australia you are not allowed to smoke in cafes or restaurants and can enjoy your meal and drinks with clean air. It’s just hard to get used to going back to the 90’s when this was allowed in public places. Sometimes you just have to pick your battles and this was certainly one of them. You just had to grin and bear it as ‘non-smoking’ sections don’t exist – not that it would make that much difference anyway.

There for all to see

I also stopped dead in my tracks in a supermarket when the ‘roll your own’ components were sold at the check outs. They were placed in the check out areas where we might typically have the magazines or display rows of chocolate. (Which is worse – the trashy mags, the sugary chocolate or tobacco?). Given this has not been the case for so long here in Oz, I was quite shocked to see it right in front of my face, not hidden in a vanilla locked box behind a counter. I stood staring at it for a while, then picked up all the bibs and bobs to have a look and I am sure people thought I was an alien who had never seen a cigarette. So I quickly took my picture and hurried along. It was just another reminder about how different country laws are around this topic and when you travel you have to respect the laws of the country – even if they do impact your enjoyment of certain leisure activities. C’est la vie.