Dobar Dan!

Erin and I left for Croatia on January 10, 2012.  We had been wanting, hoping, planning to do this for so long and we were finally making it happen.  Setting off to see the world.  Working abroad. Travelling.  First let me say that if you have the opportunity to take a British Airways international flight, absolutely do it.  The seats are really comfortable, the movie screens stay on for free (and play FRIENDS episodes!) and there is free wine.  Yes that's right, free wine.  All in coach!  It was a great introduction to overseas travelling.  We landed in London Heathrow and got to stay for a grand total of 4 hours, making a note to come back some time and see the real London because I have to say the view from the airport, not so wonderful.  But before long we were on to our destination, aboard Croatia Airlines, which I am pleased to say was also lovely, and had a full dinner meal on the short flight (complete with my first taste of traditional Croatian spice cookies)!  

When we got off our plane and made our way to the airport exit, we were greeted by a lady holding a sign with our names on it and proceeded out of the airport with her, going to what we assumed would be the car.  Nope.  Our hotel was close enough to walk.  How lucky!  Except that we each had luggage. A lot of luggage.  It was interesting making our way though the park by the airport, down a short street, through a gate, and down another street to our hotel, but we did manage it finally and we were so happy to see our cute little hotel room!  Seriously, so adorable :)  and the hosts couldn't have been nicer, even bringing us breakfast the next morning!  

Yummy pizza not far from our apartment in Zagreb

The tough part was finding dinner that next night.  We set out from the hotel leaving mental breadcrumbs so we could find our way back, and finally found a place with the lights on at least, so we ventured in only to find out that they were not, in fact, open. I guess there was a holiday so most of the small restaurants around us were closed.  But good news!  They had another restaurant about 5km away which was open, and the man's boss came to pick us up and take us there.  Kind of shady.  Looking back it was maybe not the safest situations, first night in a new country, getting into a car with a stranger, that's the way bad movies start, but we also didn't know where else to eat, as even the grocery store we found was closed, and we were not in what you would call a city center with hopping nightlife.

So we agreed, and I'm happy to say we made it to the restaurant safe and sound, had a yummy meal and even received a ride back to our hotel (this time with two additional people in the car also getting a ride so we figured it was normal by this point).  Our hotel host gave us a ride back to the airport the next day and helped us find a cab from there and we made our way to our apartment. Now let me mention that we had a hell of a time securing a place to live here in Zagreb from the US.  We searched a lot, finally found a place, and then about 4 days before we were leaving, found out that it was not going to be available.  Panic mode.  

Our apartment door and our street!

Eventually, we found the place we are in now, and despite the cliché I have to say everything happens for a reason.  This place is perfect, so cute, in a great location, and the owners of the apartment are some of the nicest people I've met in a long time  :) (a trend I'm beginning to notice here in Croatia, it's full of warm friendly people). They even gave us a city tour.  Our apartment on Medveščak (which I now know is pronounced Med-vesh-chok) is pretty perfect for us.  It's right by the tram stop, a short walk from the main square and just steps away from the cutest little café street you've ever seen.  

Here are some pics of our wonderful little temporary home :)  I especially love the ceiling light!

                                                                            

Here's pictures of Tkalčićeva street, where you can find café after café as well as other shops and restaurants, and it's only a 5 minute walk from our apartment!

Hansel and Gretel's

One of the Zagreb Cathedral towers

My favorite Fritule Shop!

Tkalčićeva street is known as a place to go and drink coffee, and be seen drinking coffee.  It's a street in between the two old towns that eventually merged to become Zagreb, Kaptol and Gradec, and is a popular place for locals and tourists alike.  It's a little snapshot of what I pictured Europe to be before we came here, a cobblestone pedestrian street, with lots of old houses all smashed up against each other that have cute little shops and cafés on the ground floor, a place where you can see the history all around you but at the same time relax and have a drink, go shopping, or enjoy the nightlife.  It's one of our favorite places to walk.  I also made an amazing discovery on Tkalčićeva street, a Croatian favorite, fritule.  They are like little doughnut holes and you can get them with sugar, cinnamon, or chocolate and they are oh so yummy, and especially satisfying when fresh and warm on a cold Zagreb night :)

Erin on Tkalčićeva street

Just one street East of Tkalčićeva is Kaptol, named for the old town here, and at the end of this street holds a truly amazing sight, the Zagreb Cathedral.  Towering above the rest of Zagreb and at an intersection of the most interesting parts of the city, it sits with two huge towers and has intricate carvings of flowers, gargoyle faces and scroll work.   

The towers from the park behind the Cathedral

The arch above the door of the Cathedral

Even with one of it's towers surrounded by scaffolding, as it is currently undergoing restoration, it is quite the sight to see.

Zagreb Cathedral

On the other side of Tkalčićeva street, and up the hill, is Gornji Grad, or the Upper Town.  Its the oldest part of Zagreb, and still the site of it's Parliment and Government buildings.  There is even a pharmacy that "has been open for business continuously since the 14th century." - direct quote from the Zagreb brochure/amazing free picture book at the tourist office that I'm pretty obsessed with reading :)  

At the center of the Upper Town sits another famous Church, the Church of St. Mark's. Though less imposing than the Zagreb Catherdral, there is a cool tile mosaic on the roof of the building that shows the coat of arms for the different regions of Croatia.   The upper town truly has a historic feel to it, with the old fancy buildings and the cobblestone streets. There's also a religious site called Stonegate there which is the only preserved gate of the four gates that led to the Upper town in Medieval times.  When a fire destroyed all but the Madonna and Jesus figure that were there it became a place for people to come, light candles for their lost loved ones, express their thanks to St. Mary of the Stonegate, and put up plaques with the word hvala (thank you) on the walls.  

                                          

St. Mark's Church

   

It's amazing to walk around the Upper town and know how old it is and realize that it's still in use for the same thing it has been for hundreds of years, that this place is not only preserved, but flourishing.

  

Erin, With St. Mark's in the background

The Fernicular

Lotrščak Tower

Connecting the Upper Town to the Lower Town is the Zagreb Fernicular.  Since normally we'd have to walk up a lot, and I really mean a lot, of stairs to get there we quite like it.  Just outside the fernicular in the Upper Town is Lotrščak Tower, which has a canon on the top floor that goes off at precisely noon everyday (and has for a very long time).  There's a legend our hosts told us about when giving us the tour about a battle that took place here.  Apparently the attackers could not penetrate past the tower so they were going to wait them out.  The soldiers inside fired a chicken through the canon to show they had plenty of food and supplies inside, and would be fine for a long time to come. 

Near Lotrščak Tower is Strossmayer Promenade, a charming tree-lined path that offers a wonderful view of Zagreb, a cute little park, and beautiful stained-glass looking street lamps.  

                                                                                                             

Mulled Wine, a winter favorite in Zagreb

Another thing the Upper Town has to offer is museums.  Erin and I took a break from exploring to have a drink in a little museum café and decided to have a look around the museum as well.  It is called the museum of broken relationships and houses donated artifacts along with people's stories of lost, failed, or ended loves.  It's an odd concept at first and some of the things in there were quite peculiar but the stories were really what the museum is about, some funny, some angry, and many sad ones.  As for the objects of the stories, there was everything from a stuffed lobster to a wedding album to a shaving kit, but my favorite thing was a container full of pieces of a broken mirror that had a love letter pasted on the back.  

Before we came to Zagreb I came across a review of a little pub here decorated in the style of Lord of the Rings, called Tolkein's House Pub.  With Erin being the LOTR fan that she is we decided it was a must see!  

The internet review where I read about it said it was in the Upper Town but after circling the block a few times it was nowhere to be found.  With a little bit of research online and directions from a nice bartender, we finally found it, just down the street from our apartment actually!  While the new location didn't quite have the charm we had seen in the pictures of the original one, we drank some extremely yummy hot chocolate there, and enjoyed being in the cozy little bar surrounded by artifacts from Middle Earth and even had some LOTR themed drinks!

     

While we are applying for jobs we have lots of time to explore Zagreb, and explore we have!  One of my favorite things to do is just walk around the city, walk down a new road, find some hidden stairs and see where they go, or wander through a park.  It's amazing the stuff you can see when you're not in a hurry to get somewhere else!  Zagreb has a series of parks that make a "green horseshoe" around the downtown part of the city.  The one leading to the main train station has this awesome gazebo in the center of it and this cool temperature, clock, misc. measurement thing at the other end.  We weren't exactly sure what each of the sides meant as they're in Croatian (it's got a panel like this one on each of it's four sides) but we had a fun time looking at it and guessing none the less!

We've also been exploring the city's many museums.  First off I read on a list of "Things to do in Zagreb" about an old tram dating from 1924 that you can ride for free on Sunday mornings at the Technical museum.  So we ventured down to the museum (masters of the tram system that we were by then) and managed to find our way to the tram stop outside the museum.  We were the only ones there.  I guess riding a 1924 tram isn't a big draw for the locals as a popular Sunday morning activity.  So Erin and I got a private ride through Zagreb on a vintage tram!  It was extremely squeaky, and a little bumpy but we enjoyed the ride :)
We also went through the Technical museum while we were there.  Here are some of my favorite things from the day:

They have a replica of a mine at the Technical museum.  It's huge and underground and very cool.  I would tell you some awesome facts I learned from the tour we took through it, but the tour was completely in Croatian, so your guess is as good as mine (he didn't use any of the 10 words that I know).

They also have a planetarium there.  It was beautiful and peaceful and our favorite part of the day!

Remember those hidden stairs I talked about? These are them.

When we were riding the 1924 tram through Zagreb we passed part of this graffiti wall and I was enthralled.  We enjoyed seeing the couple museums around the city so far but this was like a museum on the street! It's a huge stretch of wall that is completely covered in graffiti art for about 5 blocks!  We had to go down to the bus station one day so instead of taking the tram back we walked by it so I could take some pics :)

the Main Train Station

The Fernicular between Upper and Lower Town

Stonegate

While Erin and I have had a Fabulous time in Zagreb so far, it's not exactly the height of tourist season.  We were talking the other day about how it's kind of weird for us here because we don't stand out as much.  When we were in Costa Rica people could pretty much tell by looking at us that we weren't from there but here we sort of blend in, so people assume we're Croatian.  This means they speak to us in Croatian!  And despite my youtube video watching and trying to pick up as much as I can I definitely can't carry on a conversation in Croatian.  The good thing is so many people here speak English.  I definitely try to throw in the Croatian words I know whenever I can, A for Effort right?, but when people find out we speak English, they pretty much just change over.
Along with their language change over though we definitely get some surprised reactions to us being here this time of year.  Friendly reactions, but surprised none the less.  So getting back to my point, being the low season there's not too many events going on, so whenever we hear about one we make sure to go join the fun!  Croatia has a really awesome program that's been going on for several years now of an open museum night all over the country called Noc Muzeja, where all the museums are open late, some until 1am, and are completely free!  We jumped at this chance and spent the evening museum hopping around Zagreb.  Here are some highlights of the ones that we could take pics in:

We found another R.O.U.S., maybe we'll see one in every country we visit!

We got to climb up inside Lotrščak Tower!  We encountered another case of mistaken identity here when I was taking a picture out that window behind Erin.  The guy by me started talking in Croatian and gesturing at the window.  When I asked if he spoke English he was surprised to find we were Americans, and told us the pictures would be better if I opened the window lol.  I didn't even know that was an option.  The things you learn.  The picture still didn't turn out so well even with the window open but it was nice to know it opened all the same :)  

The Zagreb Mummy at the Archaeological Museum

Our walk home at 1:30 in the morning was a tad chilly but our night at the Zagreb museums was a success!

I know this was a long post (Good job if you actually read the whole thing!) but it was just the first 2 weeks here!  Stay tuned for our next post about our trip to the Croatian coast of Istria!