Market Day in Zagreb, Then the Nasty Bus to Slovenia

We had a couple hours before our next train so we went to check out the market. We saw a lot more than that.

This European Space Expo bubble exhibit got me excited for our upcoming trip to see the Milan Expo. I can't wait! Inside was a lot of bragging about satellites.

We were poking around the market and I was like, "hey, there's that church I wanted to see". So we moseyed.

They were actively having mass inside. Many of these churches are interesting because they don't have any pews. It's just like a big standing jumble in there like a rock concert.

I don't usually drink tea but it was free in the room so I got involved. It wasn't quite white enough though so I added some of this coffee whitener. Mmm, whiteness.

Train station.

The graffiti has been improving the farther west we go, I must say.

Yet again our train stopped and "surprise!" we had to go the rest of the way on the bus. It was pretty awful because the bus then stops at every train station. Except here it was worse because it was a toll highway. So we had to stop and pay tolls like 8 times. A large group of boisterous idiots got on with matching bachelor party t-shirts with Zach Galifianakis' face on the front and "Wolf Pack" on the back a la The Hangover. Normally I would think this is awesome and maybe even get a picture with them but they were horrible people. They brought on portable speakers and were blasting horrible techno music and singing loudly. The back of the bus was wet from spilled drinks, and they harassed a girl onboard sufficiently that she went up and sat with the bus driver. We had two pretty rough looking older dudes sitting in front of us with a level of teeth that would make it really difficult to enjoy a sandwich. They just had to smoke during our stops and they smelled like a dumpster that had caught fire.

The ride was so bad that I'm concerned it will give me a bad impression of the entire nation of Slovenia.

What looks like a communist world war II memorial.

The grocery store in the small village of Divača did have wine on tap, so that was one thing it had going for it.

Lydia's steak wasn't cooked very much so we sent it back! I could tell we were close to Italy because several of the other restaurant patrons were speaking Italian with the server.

The Prekmurska gibanica layer cake contained poppy seeds, walnuts, apples, raisins and ricotta fillings and was finally something completely different. It was also really good. Hurray.

The Lovely Plitvice Lakes National Park in Croatia

Today our big mission was to visit Croatia's Plitvice Lakes National Park.

Tickets for the trolley thing aren't sold at the station and they aren't sold on the train so we just gave up and hoped we didn't get arrested.

Plitvice Lakes National Park is a UNESCO World Heritage Site which is cool. There are apparently 1007 of them on earth so I'm not really planning on visiting them all. It seems like we've seen several already on this trip though. The park's main attraction are multiple lakes side by side that have little waterfall cascades into the next lake.

We had a set number of hours until our return bus arrived so we made a little game plan with the information desk on what we should see.

At one point we got stuck behind this massive tour group of elderly Japanese people. Few things on this trip have been more annoying than large tour groups in small spaces.

This is a good example of one lake spilling over into the next.

We took these ferries across a large lake to see more world heritage.

I don't know if you can make it out but Europe seems to be confused with how periods and commas work. This beer says that it is "5,0%" alcohol. A couple times now I've been freaked out by restaurant menu prices because they are using commas instead of periods. I don't know what that's about.

There were a lot of people waiting for the bus back.

We saw this little mammal chowing on some plants while we were waiting. I guess it was a mouse but it had a really undefined body, like a mole or something.

We did some more Zagreb sightseeing once back in civilization. In my book you aren't a saint until you've slain at least one dragon. Sorry Mother Teresa.

There were some massive snails in the Zagreb Westin's gardens.

This cafe had cool lights made out of cassette tapes.

Croatian Twitter users have it pretty rough.

I took Lydia to yet another fantastic restaurant called Vinodol. She's so lucky.

I've developed a system. I order a liter of sparkling water and a liter of cheap red table wine. It's relatively cheap and it takes forever to drink. That way we can lounge around at our table long after the food is gone European style.

We popped into a bakery on the way home and Lydia made me order one of every flavor of macaron with her mind.

This thing looked like if a toasted marshmallow came to life and wanted revenge.

Back at hotel headquarters we had a fancy macaron party.

Making Ourselves at Home in Zagreb

We flew from Dubrovnik, Croatia to the capital city of Zagreb. It messed with my head a little because getting on a plane usually meant a new country on this trip. At any rate it was quite a different place.

I believe there was one last market that we wanted to see in the morning but there were just so many tourists that we gave up and left.

We left our last coastal city of the trip and headed inland.

When we landed in Zagreb the US Air Force was waiting to greet us. USA! USA!

Our first order of business was to go to the train station and buy our next set of tickets. It was pretty bad. This guy had to hand write them and it took forever. He even had a sheet of carbon paper he was using to make duplicates!

My first impression was how nice the city’s architecture was, especially compared to previous countries we’ve visited recently. It felt a lot more European. It was already pretty late though so we didn’t do much other than eat.

The train station was very nice.

The Croatian National Theatre

We hung out a bit at a bar called Kino Europa that doubles as Zagreb's oldest movie theatre. It was a good taste of the night life and a good people watching opportunity. Fun!