I just finished a box of corn flakes, and I immediately went to my dining table to jot down on a piece of paper what I needed to buy in the grocery store. “Corn flakes,” I wrote. And in English. The same list contains a number of other things to buy in the same store: garbage bags, toilet paper, bananas, and so on. And all in English. Out of the blue, I realized that I communicate with myself exclusively in English. Every note I leave for myself in the calendar on my laptop is also in English. This is how I remind myself of quarterly cleaning sessions with my dentist, paying my monthly income tax, collecting monthly currency exchange rates to calculate my foreign pensions in Croatian currency, and so forth. As I was thinking about all this, my gaze locked onto the box that was still in my hand. “Corn flakes,” it said. Although they are made in Croatia, the largest lettering on the box is in English. “Hey,” I castigated myself at once, “you ain’t so special!” In terms of population, Croatia is the size of a largish city: Berlin, Melbourne, Phoenix, Casablanca, Naples…