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Years after visiting Croatia while studying abroad, I live there—teaching pickleball and pondering the power of saying ‘yes’

“Chime In” comprises brief first-person essays by Cornellians. Do you have a topic in mind? Email us at cornellians@cornell.edu!

By Penny Smith Eifrig ’90

There’s a question I find myself asking more often these days: are what seem like serendipities actually synchronicities awaiting action?

I’m not talking about luck. Luck arrives uninvited. Synchronicity requires awareness. It appears quietly—a conversation overheard, an unexpected invitation, a chance opportunity—and asks whether you’ll leave the comfortable path and maybe discover something great at the end.

Whenever the universe seems to call, I answer: “Yes!”

It has carried me farther than any carefully constructed five-year plan ever could.

I now live on the Croatian island of Brac, restoring a 250-year-old stone house while helping introduce pickleball to a country where most people had never heard of the sport just a few years ago.

Whenever the universe seems to call, I answer: 'Yes!' It has carried me farther than any carefully constructed five-year plan ever could.

None of this was on my résumé, or anywhere on my bucket list. It is simply where a lifetime of saying yes has led.

Looking back, I realize this pattern began long before Croatia.

One spontaneous comment at the Cornell boathouse about how fun it might be to be a nanny led, within hours, to a summer position in Germany. That experience led to studying abroad in Bonn, a major city in the western part of the country.

The sun sets over Milica, Croatia — The sun sets over Eifrig's adopted hometown in Croatia.

While watching a parade there, I struck up a conversation with another student, a Princeton rower who also was studying German and Russian during a semester abroad. We quickly became friends, and a week later she invited me to bicycle from Italy to Dubrovnik with her.

None of those moments felt life-changing at the time. But they were spontaneous interactions—followed by action.

Penny Smith Eifrig and a friend with an elderly woman in 1990, outside the house she currently owns in Croatia — Eifrig (right) and a friend in 1990, with the elderly owner of the house she'd buy decades later.

Two weeks into cycling down the then-Yugoslavian coast in 1990, we climbed up to the tiny stone village of Lozisca on Brac in search of drinking water.

When we did, we found Milica—an elderly woman in black who welcomed two neon-clad cyclists as though she’d been expecting us.

She hauled rainwater up from her cistern, poured homemade berry syrup into glasses, and invited us in. Our common language was kindness and curiosity.

Although we had cycled hundreds of kilometers through extraordinary landscapes, meeting Milica became the defining moment of our journey. I took a dozen photographs of her—a remarkable extravagance with my limited film supply. We ultimately decided to ditch the final stretch to Dubrovnik to enjoy more magic on Brac.

None of those moments felt life-changing at the time. But they were spontaneous interactions—followed by action.

More than 30 years later, this journey had become nothing but a faded memory. Then, following an especially difficult stretch of life, I decided I wanted to spend less time absorbing the world’s anxieties and more time pursuing joy, which I had begun to find in pickleball.

Around that time, a post popped up in my Facebook feed announcing Croatia’s first pickleball event.

Penny Smith Eifrig outside her house in Croatia — Eifrig now owns the home in Lozisca.

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One small decision—reaching out to offer a clinic in exchange for a place to stay—returned me to Dalmatia. My invite came from an enthusiastic pickleball-playing Croatian-Canadian woman whose husband grew up on Brac.

I fell in love with the small villages, returning two more times before I finally dug out my slides and journal so I could see where I had been decades prior. On the third trip in a year, I showed the photos to my host’s husband.

One small decision—reaching out to offer a pickleball clinic in exchange for a place to stay—returned me to Dalmatia.

“I know her,” he said. “That’s Milica. She was my neighbor.”

A few hours and a short hike later, I was standing inside the very house where she’d welcomed us decades earlier. Milica’s great-nephew had the key and offered to show me around.

As I was leaving, he stated casually, “It’s for sale. Do you want it?”

Penny Smith Eifrig and three other people on a pickleball court — The inaugural game on the new pickleball court in the village of Milna.

Some moments feel less like coincidence and more like an invitation—maybe even a demand.

People often ask whether I believe in fate. I don’t know—but when the universe presents this kind of synchronicity, I pay attention. I believe that extraordinary lives are often built from ordinary moments that we choose not to ignore.

I believe that extraordinary lives are often built from ordinary moments that we choose not to ignore.

We like to imagine that life’s biggest decisions arrive with flashing lights and absolute certainty. Mine usually come disguised as random coincidences, fraught with the unknown, that could just as easily have been ignored.

Buying Milica’s house wasn’t simply a real estate transaction. It was an acknowledgment that places can call us back, that kindness leaves echoes, and that sometimes the shortest distance between two points might be three decades.

Penny Smith Eifrig jumps in the ocean in Croatia — Leaping into the Adriatic Sea.

One year later, I’m restoring old stone walls while adding modern plumbing. I’m conversing in decent Croatian over kava and pivo with the neighbors in my village of 60.

I jump daily into the Adriatic, play pickleball with the locals, and welcome players from around the world to discover the island and country that has unexpectedly become my home.

People sometimes tell me how lucky I am. Maybe. But perhaps serendipity is more than luck. Perhaps it’s something we create every time we choose to say yes when the universe presents a synchronicity—and then take the leap.

Arts & Sciences alum Penny Smith Eifrig ’90 has worked for NBC in Moscow and Berlin, started her own children’s book publishing company, served as a translator, and run a literacy nonprofit. The mother of two German-American daughters, she holds a master’s degree in history from the Free University of Berlin. She chronicles her pickleball adventures in Croatia—which she calls her “happy place”—on Substack.

(All images provided.)

Published August 6, 2026