Zagreb

[May 25 - 28]

We arrived in Zagreb with no clue about where we were going to stay. This is not unusual for us anymore. As Dean put it, we label our lack of planning as being flexible for changes, but really, it is just an excuse for being lazy.

Our train pulled in and we expected to be bombarded all the little old ladies who had rooms for rent. After all, this was supposed to be standard practice in Croatia. But, the station was totally void of anyone remotely interested in offering us lodging. We were experiencing the downfalls of arriving during low season.



However, we decided to be productive and booked an incredibly cheap flight to Dubrovnik, leaving in three days. Then, after patting our backs about our great deal, we marched over to the room booking service named Evistas and lined up a room for Zagreb and Dubrovnik.

Sadly, it was one of the "last rooms" and we found ourselves having paid too much for a dingy room with a broken window shade, perched over the noisiest street ever. If the tram wasn't rolling by, the old cars were rumbling their engines and the newer ones blasting their stereos. We did not sleep to well in Zagreb.

However, the city itself was great. As the capital of Croatia, it is the largest yet retains a nice atmosphere. We went to a great museum here, the Zagreb City Museum, learned about the town's history, and walked around the hilly area.

Here, we saw a lovely tile church where some sort of long-term protest was taking place. Everyone was pretty quiet, but they were decked out in t-shirts and had signs that said something in Croatian about corruption, from what I could gather.

Our Servas host in Pecs, Mr. Peterfia, had told us about this statue in Zagreb that was once pointed aggressively toward Hungary, in reference to that Croatians fighting against the Austro-Hungarian empire. But after the break up of Yugoslavia, the Hungarians had helped Croatia, so the statue now faces away from Hungary. Or so we were told. But indeed, the statue does not face Hungary.



On May 26th, we unwittingly tried to see some sights, but it was Corpus Christi, a religious holiday. This meant that nearly everything was completely closed. At least the ice cream shop was open. Dean discovered the best flavor, After Eight. I tried to get it the next day and much to my disappointment, it was all out. We also spent time walking around in the parks, watching moms with baby strollers strut their stuff in nice outfits, and feeding some stray kittens. Rollerblades seemed to be an in thing here and every cool kid had them in the park.

When we weren't trying to sightsee, we had some very meat-heavy meals and tried to learn some Croatian food-related phrases. The numbers are very similar to Latvian, so that was okay. The rest was a little more difficult, but once again, English is widely spoken.