We arrived in Croatia in the evening this time. It was not far enough to take an over night train from Budapest so we spent the afternoon on the train. Six hours later, Poof! in Zagreb. I was reading a very gripping book so it did actually feel kinda like that. We just kinda rolled in.
I had uncharacteristically decided that I wanted to read more. I figured it was better for my health than watching myriads of movies, contrary to my life belief. I decided to better myself. Besides, books are still stories, they are just a lot longer, and require a longer commitment of time, and reading is harder than watching a movie. But I quickly got over myself when I found a super interesting book about a Danish spy in the second world war. Truly a gripping book. I made it through more than half of it on the train ride.
Our arrival into Zagreb was about as ceremonious as two guys getting off a six hour train ride. Convenient how that works out. We hopped on the first tram to our destination and arrived at a really cool, down to earth hostel. The guy who runs the place is really cool. His name is Igor. He is a fun Croatian who speaks nearly flawless English; German and Croatian are also perfectly comfortable languages for him. We talked for a while before we decided it was time to head to bed. The morning we were to explore this new and exciting city.
Morning halfheartedly dawned and mother nature took on the characteristics of a curmudgeonly old man. The nice weather we had the night before turned into low fog and rain. This inspires even the most earnest of travelers to create alternate plans. We decided to find as many indoor things to do as possible. As it turns out, Zagreb isn't the most interesting city in the world. It's not very big, and there just aren't that many fascinating things to do. Unless you like museums that is. Fortunately we do. After briefly visiting an incredibly normal giant cathedral we headed for the city's technical museum. This promised to be interesting. They even had a presentation on Nikolai Tesla, inventor of at least 7 different ways to zap people with lightening. The museum was quite interesting. For the presentation we followed a school group in as instructed by the man looking suspiciously like John Cusack. We were the only ones in the lecture room that weren't from this class. Also, the only ones to not speak Croatian. My basic knowledge of Tesla, and my new life ability to at least somewhat understand people of other languages helped me enjoy the lecture. I learned a few Croatian words but promptly forgot them as I will probably never need to use them again.
After the museum trip we found ourselves to be craving sustenance. We therefore headed towards the city center in search of vittles. Our search took a significant time longer than we planned, so our appetite was not lessened by the time we arrived upon a suitable eatery. I ate an entire giant pizza of mushrooms and cheese with a single green olive placed decoratively in the perfect center. Pleased with this arrangement we endeavored to further our entertainment by ways of museums. However our lack of knowledge of the region and my lack of cell phone at this point, yielded to the need for a tourist information center. Fortunately we found one, collected museum brochures and in a game of choosing the right hand decided upon the gallery of modern art. Our time to become farcical pretentious art critics was about to commence.
In addition to the attempt at betterment via reading more, I have also adopted a want for better posture. As exhausting as it is to retrain my body after years of horrific posture, this new effort came in perfect timing for the art museum. I postured about pretentiously through the halls of thickly splattered paints, and oddly sculpted plasters, collectively with Michael naming each work of art or describing the angst the artist had while creating their works. Each item spoke to the true nature of the essence of art in life and the needs to express their innermost smudge on an otherwise white sheet of paper. I was sure to stare at each item and cross my arms, lean in to examine closer, and occasionally stroke my beard in contemplative wonderment. Our titles and backgrounds became more fanciful until our absurd creativity and subsequent game waned with the daylight. Having previously planned to visit the Zagreb Eye, a viewpoint from high atop a local tall building, at night, we bid the art gallery farewell in a journey to the center of the city again.
We still had about a half hour of daylight left and we wanted a warm beverage. So we found a place ambiguously indoors (kind of indoors but secretly not because the "mall" had no doors and the shop had a roof that opened to the hall, therefore indirectly the outdoors, but still indoors) and ordered our drinks. I ordered simply "tea" and hoped that what returned was both inexpensive, and not terribly experimental. I sipped on this liquid that felt like it had recently visited the surface of the sun, and when I drank it too fast warmth struck my body like a sledgehammer. Boy was it delicious though. I'm not sure what it was, some kind of berry tea, but it tasted excellent with lemon.
The Zagreb Eye was a viewpoint with rails several inches apart from floor to ceiling. My hopes of a panoramic shot now gave way as fast as the inside wall of my esophagus after that tea. There was not really a way to jam my fat wide angle lens through the slats so I went with the telephoto. It was dark and the city looked nice all lit up. I was happy with our day in Zagreb. Frankly, we did things that you can do in almost any capitol city in the world, but what made it special was that we did it all in a country I had never been in.
Epilogue:
That night we decided to make our own meals for the next two so we went grocery shopping. After our obtainment of further nourishment we headed to our hostel. As I previously mentioned, the man there is very cordial, and we had another absorbing talk about movies and life. He had come from town and bought ice cream and offered to share it with us. Naturally I accepted. He will go down as one of my favorite hostel managers. You find awesome people wherever you go. All you have to do is be willing to give someone the chance.
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