Wednesday, September 22, 2010

Start of Zagreb trip

If you look on a map, it doesn't make a lot of sense to fly back from Austria to Germany, and then a day later to fly out to Croatia. That is what I did. The trip to Austria was a trip for work, and it gets complicated to combine with a long holiday.

The extra day in Wuppertal allowed me to wash my clothes and catch up with somethings I should have done before I left, but that I didn't do because I was writing a talk. I flew from Cologne/Bonn airport. So took the train from Wuppertal to Bonn and then the bus to the airport. The traveling to the airport went smoothely, but I was in a bad mood because I had to get up at 5:00. Also the day before I wanted to take a small netbook computer with me, but the browser wss so old it had stopped working. I tried to install a new OS, but that didn't work. (Alos drinking beer with wine probably gave me a worse hangover than one from just beer).

Zagreb airport is pretty small. There is a bus that takes you to the busstation. My hotel was close to the railway station. I was told to take a tram. When the bus stopped I went the wrong direction into a carpack, because I had seen two trains. After wandering around for a while I couldn't work out how to get to the trains. Also I was a bit depressed, because there were no shops around. It was hot and I needed a drink. I was thinking that Zagreb was one of those old socialist cities with nothing to do. After a while I went back to the bus station and found that I had gone the wrong way. Out on the street was the tram and shops to sell me juice.

Although I know what line to take. I didn't know what direction. It wasn't clear from the map which was the correct end station. Also I couldn't see how to buy a ticket. In Vienna I could just use a machine. In Zagreb I think you can buy the ticket from newsagents. This involves speaking Crotian, and I know no words at all (the shame of it).

I decided to walk to the train station, because I knew it wasn't to far. When I go to the railway stations, there were big elegant buildings, lots of green space, and signs for many museums. This holiday is going to be OK I thought.