zagreb it is

alls well that ends well it seems in Vis,

lucy got her keycard back no problems - the nice lady behind the desk at the Vis 'Splitsbanka' branch found her card amongst a hefty pile of other lonely cards sorely missed by their owners (who, I am sure, aren't as lucky as us to be able to delay all travel plans and stay an extra night to wait for a bank to open...)

take two of leaving the island ran smoothly from thenceforth and we arrived in split with all intentions of following liam and vien up the coast to slovenia; but the big woman at the bus terminal said it was not to be as the only bus for the day was finito, finished, "full". we promptly cut our losses and booked the next bus to zagreb, which happened to be leaving that very minute, so ran accross to the bus and got in our seats with hungry stomachs, parched mouths and flustered hair and proceeded to be subject to terrible croatian radio which not only dirfted in and out of reception, but the radio stations' (plural!) cd players had the insessant tendancy to skip frequently. we were only just able to keep our road-house sambo's down when we were further assailed by Gerard Depardieu's best kept secret: "my father the hero".

stepped off the bus 7hrs later not much better than when we got on it but very much happy to be in a new destination. big thanks to liam for swapping us his "europe on a shoe/g-string" lonely planet for our utterly useless (for now), western european one. it came into form when we got off the bus at 10pm and needed to find accomodation. was bloody glad to pick the second hostel on the list because its name seemed to suggest "student" and we caught one of the very efficient trams thanks to some local help only to be greeteed by more friendly locals (also students) who live in the university dorm that we were to stay that evening. a fair few rooms are rented out over summer to backpackers but there is a healthy student population that remain and who we have befreinded a couple. usually they work somewhere on campus and we shared some late-night pancakes and local jam with the people behind the desk. the chef off the moment happened to be a very cool guy by the name of Josip who is now obsessed with my ipod, and is incidentally a fantastic guitar player and the 'croatian national classical guitar champion' from some years back "when he was a kid". I am as yet not quite up to whipping out the guitar with him but would be great to take some pointers....

spend a great day hitting up zagreb, tourist office was helpful as usual, and we followed the recommended route around the old part of town with slight (read: long, but worth it) detour to the local fruit and flower market: a massive square filled with red umbrellas shading all types of delicious produce. the best part about Croatia, we have decided, is that they have harmless bee's, rather than flies, buzzing around their market food. I'm sure this is much more hygenic and one feels a sense of comraderee with the animal that makes honey. managed to purchase a backpack full of cheap fruit&veg for tomorrow morning's train trip to Budapest. tore lucy away, to her dismay and we visited the ornate romantic (the period you geezers!)/renaissance/ gothic/ neo-gothic/baroque Zagreb Cathedral. it is simultaenously all of these styles because it has been damaged, burnt down, shattered by earthquake and repaired continually frm the 11th century.

also on todays list of "to-do's" was the strange, somewhat archaic but very interesting ethnographic museum. apparently they don't recieve too many visitors because the attendant had to turn on the lights for us, and it was 2:30 in the afternoon. the grinding whine of a cement cutter screaming through the windows from outside provided the soundtrack to our viewing of glass encassed artifacts from "primitive" cultures around the world; most facinating was the Australia exhibit, with alot of Aboriginal memorabilia neatly labelled in Croatian. the second floor was less disturbing with many examples of traditional Macedonian and Croatian dress (which looks more like costume but was definitely their normal clothing, the same could be said for us I'm sure). Lucy was particularly enthralled by the handiwork, which I also managed to appreciate - but there were moments when sitting on the marble floor was my the only option.

most definitely the saddest part of the day was lucy's utter disbelief and rage at the closure of the Zagreb botanic gardens at 2:30 (incidentally the time we were looking at old doylies in the ethnographic museum). i must say i don't quite understand why the hell botanic gardens need to close at all during the day... it seems just now that i also don't quite know why the hell botanic gardens are called "botanic". what else are they? anyway we purchased our tickets for the 7am train to budapest and made do with some lovely grass and street-corner boiled corn on the cob opposite the station in the public park.

the free internet at the university here has allowed me write this long post, and it has also allowed me to put a couple of photo's up at http://pg.photos.yahoo.com/ph/jonodoeswhistler/album?.dir=/c201 for your viewing pleasure. the are labelled loosely by city name, and I'll let the image do the talking for now. more accurate description and more photos later on.

for now I am hungry

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