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Published: December 6th 2007
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We stayed in bed whilst people began getting up around us. In dorm rooms you have two strategies for mornings; firstly you can try and get up first and beat everyone else to the bathroom, however this may easily fail if someone has an early train etc. The second (and preferred) option is to lounge around in bed until the majority of people have left and then use the hostel facilities at leisure. We opted for the second option and attempted to stay in bed until the majority of the Aussies were up. Irritatingly the hostel owners had chosen a period in time when every bed in the hostel was occupied to renovate the only shared bathroom. All sixteen people had to use one bathroom that was situated inside a private four bed dormitory. Eventually we couldn't feign sleep anymore and woke to join the ranks of people with an ever increasing desperation for the toilet.
Rob and I were the last to get up and dressed and yet due to the typical early starts in hostels, we were out and about by half ten. Pretty impressive. We nipped to the local produce market and bought two apples, bananas and
oranges which was a cheap and yet tasty breakfast. It was extremely cold so the fruit was consumed rather hastily so our icy fingers could return to their warm gloves. Opposite the market was the cathedral of the assumption of the virgin Mary and St Stephen which is iconic within Zagreb. It is well known by its twin spires which you can see almost everywhere inside the city. We popped inside for a quick look and were pleased to find a beautiful but ordinary cathedral with stained glass windows etc. It made a pleasant change from the millions of orthodox churches we have visited recently.
We really needed somewhere Cheap for our evening meal as money is disappearing now that we have re-entered western europe. We scouted out a few cheap eateries so that we wouldn't have to look around in the much colder evening.
The city museum was in the upper town and therefore required a good old climb up some steps to the top. It was only after our climb that we discovered that the funicular was extremely cheap. The city museum is described by Lonely Planet as a fun and interactive museum detailing the history
of Zagreb. The museum was possibly the least interactive museum we have seen in a long time and large chunks of it were pretty dull. We spent over an hour inside and in honesty we learnt a good few things and there was an exhibit on modern history. (although we noticed that they left chunks of history out that did not favour them) The most interactive and the most interesting part of the museum were the two huge church bells that we rang, though we weren't entirely sure you were supposed to.
After the museum we had a look around the rest of upper town. It isn't too dissimilar from Tallinn in that the upper town had plenty of pretty and historic buildings but there isn't much up there to do and it lacked an atmosphere. St Marks church appears to be the highlight of the town with an unusual coloured tiled roof. Unfortunately it was being renovated so we had to satisfy ourselves by peering in the window. We looked down at the lower town and toyed with the idea of getting the funicular down, however the steps looked pretty and we opted for those instead.
Back
in the main city we consulted our tourist maps and concocted a list of must see sights which we had yet to visit. We then walked around the city looking at the beautifully maintained parks and the beautiful buildings that surrounded them. We only had the botanical gardens left to do but they were locked up and looked pretty overrun. We didn't mind in the slightest that it was closed until we saw a sign indicating that you couldn't pick up the tortoises which immediately made us want to go in to see them.
We need to warm up so we nipped back to the hostel in the hope that the computer or common room might be free. It wasn't so we accumulated some information on the best shopping locations and headed out in search of them. We found a cinema that was showing lots of English language movies so we noted the times and planned to return later in the evening. The shops didn't really amount to much because clothing and shoes etc are way too expensive here, I have no idea how anyone affords anything. With plans to visit the late showing at the cinema we returned
to one of the eateries we had found earllier in the day. It was nothing special, but I had a vegetarian lasagne and Rob had a plate of gnocchi with two drinks and it cost twelve euros.
We sat in our dorm room and read for a while until our eyelids got weary and then we dozed off only to be woken by another couple in the room. We chatted with them for a while, mainly about the fact that the girl was covered in bed bug bites and was pretty angry about it. Also whilst we were in our room a big group of middle aged German men arrived and completely took over the room. They didn't do much in particular but I took an instant dislike to them. We stayed chatting to them way longer than we should have done and therefore had to run to catch the begining of the film. We bought tickets to see The Kingdom which we had been told was a really good film. We sat through the first couple of minutes and realised that we would miss half of the film through a lack of English subtitles when the Saudi forces
were talking. After attempting to explain to the girl on the desk why we couldn't watch the film, we ended up in a cinema to see something that neither of us wanted to see. Lions for Lambs. The film was actually rather good and whilst it wasn't a major action movie and we couldn't see the point of the film it did spark a pretty decent conversation between the two of us.
We were too awake to return to a dormitory full of sleeping people so we nipped into a place called The Bulldog pub and had a pint of Croatias finest beer. (I can't spell it) We watched a little bit of English football whilst continuing our conversation pretty much up until the pub closed at one.
The dorm was deadly quiet other than a few snorers and so I went straight to bed whilst Rob attempted to shave his head with a rapidly dying shaver. It resulted in a few interesting stray hairs the next day.
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