Turbo-Folk, Batman Tomatoes & Nun-o-Rama!

We finally have internet, and although the hostel website said it was free it is not! Grr!

Anywho, a catch up is needed...

The first train ride of our adventure was a long one and foolishly we had no music with us. The scenery was beautiful and dramatic, made even more so by the big lightning storm we encountered. We went o´er misty mountains, past lakes and huge forests, and were given cheese and gherkin sandwiches.

We got into Zagreb (where it was still raining) later than we had planned and headed to the nearest tram stop. The first tram didn´t come for 20 minutes, and after 40 minutes no #6 trams had appeared. We hopped onto a #13 that apparently went half way. There was a sign on the tram with a picture of what looked like a Michelin man with a big cross through it. I have no idea what it could have meant. While looking lost and wet on the tram, a young girl came up to us and asked if we were OK. We told her where we were headed and she said she lived near and would show us where to go. Bizarrely, she wouldn´t let John look at the map at the bus stop, which concerned us a little until we caught another tram with her and realised we were heading in the right direction. John went to buy our tickets from the driver but the girl blocked his way and told him, forcefully, that he must not buy a ticket because no one comes to check at this time of night. We got off at the same stop and she pointed us in the right direction. If it hadn´t been for her we would probably have missed our check-in, so we were thankful despite her weirdness.

The room was small and bright green with 4 beds. There was a lovely girl from Argentina in one of the beds and a girl from Copenhagen in the other. The common room is in the basement of the main building, and it sounded pretty lively so we made our beds and joined the fun. There were some Canadian girls who were all pretty cliquey, a North Londoner, a Welsh guy and the Argentinian girl. We were given free beer and sat and talked about drug trials, being locked for 7 days in a white room, Pontypridd and a whole bunch of other stuff. They headed to a bar later in the evening but we decided on an early night after our horrendous journey. The dorm was woken at 5am (for a change) by the Danish girl leaving for an early train to Sarajevo. We had breakfast in the common room, where two guys had fallen asleep on the sofas and were snoring loudly.

Zagreb seems to be a lot like other capital cities, there are pretty buildings, but they´re vastly outnumbered by more practical things. We went to St Francis´ church which was incredibly ornate, but had scaffolding on the outside of it like most of the churches in Zagreb. Inside we saw our first confession booths in use, with a very long queue of people waiting. Staying on the Catholic theme, I am pleased to report sightings of no fewer than 12 nuns, including two on a tram wearing sunglasses, one on a mobile phone, a grey nun in the rain and a jay-walking nun! We have also seen two men with poodles, another thing we have been collecting since Sicily. On our wanders we found only two touristy shops (though they were huge) but no snowstorms worth buying - they were tacky but in the wrong way, and said Hrvatska rather than being city-specific, and that is frankly not good enough! The disappointment was quickly replaced with joy when we continued our walk into town and found a duck with a thermos and lots of awesome grafitti, like little David Shrigley sketches, and depicted man, skeletons and trains, the most sinister things being faces made on jam-jar lids with gum eyes and a mouth made of chewing gum but with dozens of pins stuck vertically through the gum. It´s hard to describe, but I´m sure you´ll all see the photos. We´re surprisingly only on our 8th film. We didn´t really take many pictures in Zagreb though, other than the grafitti, as all the main pretty buildings were scaffolded. We went back into the centre of town, past a market selling `Batman´ tomatoes, just in time to see the final part of a strange street performance by a guy wearing knickerbockers, a black and red goth-style pin-striped jacket and a helmet. Other than the attire he reminded me of a Mr. P. Hatchard. I couldn´t tell you what his act actually was, there were too many people and I am too short a Vixie, but he received a big round of applause. Immediately after his show had finished, the heavens opened. It rained and rained and rained and rained, like I had only ever seen on news programmes on TV. Miniature streams formed down the middle of the streets and we took refuge outside a very expensive looking hotel. Silly us for forgetting to bring an umbrella! A nun walked past us just as I sneezed and I wished she had said "Bless you". I wonder if Catholics do that? Thunder boomed around us, we counted 9 seconds from the first lightning strike, and after another few strikes the lightning was directly overhead. The storm lasted for nearly an hour and we had to finally brave it and run back to our hostel. We were staying about 20 minutes walk out of town, slap bang in the middle of the Croatian equivalent of a council estate, we were told. The hostel was huge compared to others we had stayed at, there were 12 rooms each sleeping 4 people. There was no kitchen, annoyingly, so dinner had to be bread and cheese again. John had another cevapi on the last night, which is like a posh kebab, but being a capital city the majority of the food places seemed cheap and greasy. I have officially given up my search for burek, it doesn´t seem to exist in Croatia. We spent the evening in the common room, with it´s `eclectic´ mix of `decoration´. I checked my emails and was pleased to find one from Jay, the class teacher in my old school. She said that the class have put up a map of Europe and are following my travels! I have sent them a postcard from everywhere we have been so far, and she said that she has been teaching them about the places we´ve been and some history about the castles I´ve told them about!

We finally heard some turbo-folk on the radio in the common room, as John was being taught a high-speed card game by a drunk Australian girl. At least she seemed drunk, she may have just been really eccentric, either way she was also incredibly posh. The game turned out to be one I had attempted to teach him months ago, and he was no better at it this time around. Unfortunately we didn´t get to see the Londoner or Welshman before we left, but the Australian was more than entertaining enough.