the fashion tv

Dobar Dan from Zagreb!

We arrived yesterday noonish to the Zagreb airport. Conor's luggage, of course, as is his lot in life, got lost between Paris and Zagreb. It arrived this morning, but there were some definite harsh words and sighs in the meantime. Checked into our private room right off the main square and our wonderful host Tin (pronounced somewhere between Teen and Tin) immediately said, "Sit down, I tell you where to go in Zagreb" and proceeded to tell us the best ways to see the city. He pointed out the caffe bars (said in quick succession, caffebars) and the discos. Hence the fashion TV title of this post because he said "here, this disco is fun, in the park, half is outside, half is inside, but now it is cold so inside now, and this disco is also fun here, and this bar Hemingway is good and you need to dress up to go, for the fancy schmancy, the fashion tv," we think referring to how fashionable the people are who go there. Tin is the best kind of room-owner you can ask for - accommodating, helpful in getting conor's bags back (called the airport and gave them his number for delivery) and wise with the type of things two 23 year olds travelling in Europe want to know. He gave us the name of a great pizzeria (that serves everything) right around the corner from our room. We ate at Nokturno last night for 96 KUNAS (about 20 dollars) -----pause in the post ----hari krishna just walked by singing, I could be anywhere in the world and know that familiar bell sound ---back to it, For the equivalent of 20 bones, we got a large squid salad, mushroom risotto for c, gnochhi bolognese for me and 2 beers. my kinda meal. Went to bed at 830 and slept until 1030 this morning. Of course, found the closest cappucino to refuel and begin the day, as well as delicious fried bread called splitci (pronounced spleet-see). Got 2, went to the market, went back and got 2 more all for 12 kunas (about $2.50).

And now, my first impressions (we have been here approximately 24 hours, so these are initial)--
1) the z is where the y is on the keyboard, this makes it difficult to type things such as conor lany and tzpe.
2) smokers smoke - in the airport terminal, bars, restaurants - it reminds me how lucky we are in most U.S. cities to have the smoking be outside, at least.
3) english and non-english speakers: finding that Croatians either speak English well or not at all. For instance, at the ticket booth where we bought our bus ticket to Split for tomorrow, the older woman spoke very little english, but the younger gentleman next to her spoke it fluently.
4) it is cold here. Tin at our little apartment room said it was much warmer (80s) and has just dropped. Conor and I bought wool sweaters last night - it feels like a Kansas City early November here. Hoping that the coast is maintaining its warm weather for us. We will find out tomorrow.
5) language difficult for me to pick up. We are lucky tehre are English speakers because there aren't a lot of cognates, but this also means I will pick up less because we are not being forced to learn it. Hopefully I will pick up a few words - might ask Tin later to help us get a few words down for the rest of our trip. From the little I have been able to hear close up, it sounds like italian rolled rs, mixed with a lot of chs and shs and some vs and ys thrown in there.

Really liking the feel of Zagreb - just people hanging out, eating, marketing, shopping, enjoying life, and there is plenty of stuff to see, but not like Rome and Paris where you feel there is a checklist before you leave.

Signing out, more later - m