Still, it is a city of importance, and is very close to the town of Vukovar, which was the most destroyed town in all of the Yugoslav wars.
Transport depending I will head to Vukovar for the day tomorrow. But that's tomorrow, and a good time in Zagreb has to be reviewed. Before I get into that though, I have a confession to make. I like to think that I'm an intelligent man, but a few things have happened so far that may suggest otherwise. In fact, I think I can lay claim to being one of the dumbest intelligent people around.
A few days ago, I thought I might give my spare pair of shoes an outing. It is always wise to take a second pair of shoes with you when travelling, for the time when your first choice pair get wet or overly smelly or whatever. The substitutes, to use the football analogy.
So I cleared out my bag (sub shoes being kept at the very bottom of course) and dragged the two shoes out of the thing. To my utter dismay, disbelief, horror and side splittingly hilarious shock, I had somehow managed to do a very dumb thing indeed. It turns out my 2nd pair of shoes are no pair at all. Somehow I had contrived to pack 2 left feet, one a red shoe and one a grey shoe. Idiot. Oh such an idiot. So, out here with me I have 3 left shoes and 1 right shoe. Ridiculous. I'm capable of much idiocy.
It certainly has not dampened my spirits however, and my assimilation back into Former Yugo-life has been pretty good.
After a few days in Villach (Austria), me and Eric drove down to Zagreb last Wednesday. On the way we stopped off in Kranj, Slovenia. Kranj is a strange little town, sitting about 30 miles from the capital Ljubljana and also very close to the borders and airport.
The reason we stopped off was very simple, and can be summed up in a single word that is often the highlight of many a Balkan day. This word, is Cevapcici (pronounced Che-vap-chee-chee). I mentioned these beauties a little last year, but here's your refresher.
Cevapcici are little sort of mince-meat sausages, and you eat them with pita bread, onions and kajmak. Kajmak is similar to cream cheese, but don't call it cream cheese, because Kajmak is Kajmak.
There is a very good cevapcici chain in Slovenia called 'Das Ist Valter', and they simply do the best cevap I've ever had outside of Bosnia. These things are unbelievably good. Add to that the first Bosnian Coffee (and Drina) of the summer, and a happy John you do have.
The drive down to Zagreb was pretty painless and passed quickly. We stayed in an apartment near the city centre, and after a little trouble finding the place we did what every Yugoslav does when the sun is out. We bought a pivo (beer) and headed to the park. Nothing says Balkans like sitting in the park with a pivo.
We had to head to the airport though, as the fantastic Casey Gillespie was flying over. She'll be spending the next few months wherever Eric is, but in a way this was something of a reunion.
I met Eric and Casey on the same day when I first went to Mostar, and they can lay claim to being the best people I have ever met whilst travelling.
Casey arrived, all was grand, and we started the drive back to the apartment. Getting there in the day time was hard enough, but getting there at night proved damn near impossible.
What should have been a 30 minute drive ended up being well over an hour, and even I started to get a little stressed. Needless to say, the welcome back to the apartment pivo went down a treat.
We didn't do much in Zagreb, as we've been there before, but at the same time it was a really nice few days. We also went to the zoo, which was surprisingly good, the highlight being a particularly chatty Raven.
Add to this some home made Sljivovica (Sl-yee-vo-vits-ah), and Zagreb came to the plate once more.
To Osijek now, before I head to Belgrade in a day or two to begin working. Well, working for two weeks before Kate comes to visit. Good times ahead!