Border Fun
We’re up at 6:00 this morning to get packed and be at
breakfast ready to go by 8:00. Host
Andrus is back on duty this morning. His
father-in-law, the cook/handyman actually greets us and we point at the
breakfast menu to get him on the coffee and eggs. When Andrus is in the house, so is Doody his
miniature dachshund. Doody is the
resident vacuum cleaner so takes an immediate interest in John, either snuggled
up next to him looking for a little treat, or hanging out under his seat
waiting for the inevitable food from heaven.
John gets the fried eggs with ham, toast, juice, coffee and other stuff
because we have a long ride ahead of us. Mary has a light breakfast because we
have a long ride ahead of us. Different
strokes. We grab a couple nectarines out of the basket for later.
Andrus has one of those personalities that would be valuable
in any relationship business. He is
outgoing, smart, interesting and very customer oriented. He goes through the same things every day
with lots of different guests but he makes it feel like he is designing a plan
just for you. We appreciate a good host.
We pay up, grab our bags and are on the street at 9:00 with
a half hour window before we worry about our ride to Croatia. It isn’t raining this morning but it feels
like it might. About 9:20 an 8-passenger
van pulls up and Aron the driver jumps out ready to get loaded up and on the
road. Andrus helps with Mary’s luggage
with goodbye’s all around. Inside the
van are two other couples about Mary’s age who are traveling together and
having a great time. One woman says,
“OK, who are you what are you doing and let’s all introduce ourselves.” As it turns out the two men members of the
group are old school pals and the four of them have traveled all over the world
together. One couple (Pierre and Joann)
is from Brooklyn and the other (Maureen and Ken) are from Minneapolis!!! Well, let’s get the party started and Aron
the driver is all in.
Joann and Ken are both attorneys, Maureen is the party leader
but we’re not sure what else she does, and as it turns out Pierre is a
writer/publicist. He is the writer of
all of Dr. Ruth’s books as well as some on his own. He also does some big company PR and is a
very pleasant guy. Pierre told us that he found out at a young age that he had
a knack for BS which made him a natural publicist. He says clients can give him a topic and he
can have 200 pages back to them in a month. He is in our row and the other
three are behind us so he is our primary chat partner. Aron stops at the Budapest airport to pick up
two Asian guys who share the front seat with him, effectively taking him out of
the party.
When we hit the Croatian border about 3 hours into the trip,
the three folks in the back seat are pleading with Pierre to behave
himself. Apparently they have had
occasions in the past where he has displayed his puckish sense of humor which
proved unamusing to border security. We
all keep our heads down, even Pierre (sort of) and while there is a lot of
discussion they move us along after about 15 serious minutes. Aron follows his GPS around all sorts of
loops and turns into Zagreb where he finds our B&B in the center. Strangely the two Asian guys get out with us
but we don’t have a clue where they are going and we think maybe they don’t
either. We wish our travel partners well
(they are on their way to Split yet today) pay up with Aron and our big worry
of the trip so far is behind us.
Our B&B is up some steps and after being bussed in we
meet Igor who is the desk attendant of the moment. We’re in an old Zagreb neighborhood, but the
interior of the building is recently redone.
The whole place seems like a marketing project and feels just a little
bit slick to us. We’ll know more
later. The room is polished and there
are a couple in-house publications on the desk.
The bathroom is new and we have a little balcony off the bedroom. John can’t get anything to work on the TV. On our way out for a get-acquainted walk we
meet Dubravko (call me Doobie) the owner and chief host and mention our TV
issue. He walks John back up, tries to
get a channel for several minutes and finally finds something in Arabic. He says the cable company keeps changing
network locations and he can’t keep up so just keep looking. Hmmm.
Anyway, our first walk around Zagreb is interesting for a
couple reasons. First there are virtually
no tourists except us. Second, the
streets are jammed with the after work Friday afternoon crowd and they’re all
shopping, drinking, eating and generally enjoying their city. This is the first time we have had a city of
a size that we could grasp immediately without being surrounded by tour groups
or drunk Brits. We’re not sure what
we’ll do here but it seems to be a nice change of pace.
We’re a little farther from the center than we would like,
about a mile, which makes the walk back for our late afternoon break and then
back for dinner seem like a bit of a chore.
After our long ride on the mini-bus today though we think we can pull it
off. For fortification we stop for a
local beer at an outdoor café in the middle of a pedestrian mall. Time to send Michelle a text so she knows
that we got out of Hungary and she shouldn’t pay the ransom. We have checked out our Doobie-suggested
restaurants for this evening and have a target in mind.
We fire up, get back on the street to the B&B, take a
break and get back on the street for dinner.
Tonight it is Tip-Top, a typical Croatian Café with only locals
present. There is a back dining room,
but we sit in the front bar area where the bartender is our server. He is attentive and always there when we need
him which is a huge change from the rest of our Eastern Europe
experiences. We order a liter of the
house red wine and an anchovy bread appetizer (a slice of French bread topped
with roasted tomatoes and anchovies).
John has the “Zagreb Schnitzel” a pork fillet pounded and stuffed with
ham and cheese served with an odd version of a French fry. It seems like they have cross-sliced boiled
potatoes and tossed them in the fryer—a new version of blanching before
frying. Mary had the Cuttlefish Pasta
that is loaded with ink and immediately turns her mouth a navy blue. It is a big flavor however so worth the
Elvira look. Everything is pretty good
and the service makes us believe we will like Zagreb.
It is starting to rain as we do the mile hike back but we
brought umbrellas and stay mostly dry.
We find the Ukraine Today network on the TV in English so we get the
latest news from Kiev. Good to know what
the crazy Russkis are up to.
What did we learn today?
It’s fun to pick up on the vibrancy of an ascending capital of a “new”
country.
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