I hate jet lag.

So, somewhere in the middle of the night, we finished crossing the Hotlantic and ended up at Charles de Gaulle Airport in Paris. I have always wanted to go to Paris and was even decent enough in French to win the French award in high school, but once I started taking Russian, it rudely shoved the French out the other side of my head. (Much like the Russians are doing in Georgia, but I digress.)

I craned my neck as much as I could during the landing and saw absolutely nothing recognizable as Paris. No Eiffel Tower, no Arc de Triomphe, nothing. Just lots of airport signs in French that hustled us through security all over again. (Later, as we were leaving Zagreb at the end of our trip and both set off multiple metal detectors that seemed to concern the Zagreb security screeners not one little bit, we understood why Paris just made everyone go through security again.)

Once through, we managed to buy chocolate croissants with the few Euros that we had found kicking around our house before we left. They were absolutely the best chocolate croissants I'd ever had, and that was airport food! I really, REALLY have to go to France one day.

I was fairly tired and slept at the gate while Myko kept watch for our flight. (I suspect he dozed off and didn't admit to it, though.) I was so exhausted that I contorted myself across three airport lounge seats with arm dividers between them, put on the face mask and earplugs that the nice bearded Air France flight attendant had provided on our flight from Dulles, and snored. And drooled. This would be according to the non-dozing Myko.

Finally, our flight started to board, which meant we had to get on an absolutely stifling bus with some fellow passengers who smelled a little ripe, if you know what I mean. (Then again, who am I to judge? I was covered in drool.) We had a short flight to Zagreb and had no problems at passport control.

We were met by a very friendly Croatian named Ksandro from "in Zagreb" apartments. He drove us into Zagreb to our gorgeous rental apartment that Myko found, called "Movie." (To see the official website pictures, click here.) The decorations included portraits of Audrey, Marilyn, and Sophia on the walls.

We crashed and burned. When I woke up from my nap, I apparently sounded like an "angry Sasquatch" when Myko tried to wake me at the agreed-upon time. Since I have zero recollection of this, it's his word against mine. I have never dealt well with jet lag... it would be a couple days before I felt like I was on my feet again.

I eventually stumbled out of bed, and we headed out to explore downtown Zagreb. It was hot and sticky. I felt absolutely winded with every few steps - stupid jet lag. We made our way to the main square, called Trg Josip Jelačića. (A little pronunciation help: r is a vowel in Croatian, and you have to roll it a lot to make it work. Trg means square, and you finish off your rolling r with a violent click, almost a k sound. A J is pronounced like a y, and a č is a ch sound, and a ć is a ts sound. So you get "Trrrrrrk Yosip Yelachitsa.") Josip Jelačić was a 19th century Croatian who unsuccessfully tried to beat up the Hungarians. No matter. He has a fantastic large statue of him on horseback in his square. The place is bustling with people and restaurants and trolleycars coming through.

We wandered up to Tkalčićeva Street (See! Now you know how to pronounce it!), which was all pedestrian and lined with sidewalk cafes. I had to collapse in a chair. Myko considerately joined me in the cushy wicker seats, and we downed a Fanta (me) and an Orangina (him) while people watching.

Croatia Discovery #1: Croatians are very stylishly dressed and would not look out of place in the US... except for the fanny pack. The fanny pack seems very popular with both sexes in Croatia - as are the capri pants. I cannot possibly count all the times that Myko claimed he was going to run home and buy capri pants and a fanny pack. He would have looked fantastic in Croatia. In fact, at one point, I took the camera bag so that I could take pictures, so Myko took my over-the-shoulder bag - and he fit in perfectly. So we've started referring to that particular bag as the "murse" (short for man-purse.)

Our next sightseeing stop, once we sent a quick "we're alive" email home from an internet cafe, was the Stone Gate. The Stone Gate has been there for many centuries in multiple forms. Back in 1731, it was wooden and caught fire. Everything was burned to a crisp, except for a painting of the Virgin and Child, which was untouched by the fire. Now the gate is made of stone, and the painting has center billing in what is now a shrine. It has been credited with many miracles, and people have put up paving stones with prayers along all the walls.

After leaving that, we came upon lots of people dressed up as red and black knights. Hmmm.

We wandered next to walk around the outside of St. Mark's Church (Crkva Svetog Marka), which has a fantastically tiled roof that represents the medieval coat of arms of Croatia, Dalmatia, Slavonia, and Zagreb. At this point I was pretty tired and cranky, we we walked back to our apartment south of downtown along a long row of gardens and park that have been laid out in a U shape in Zagreb.

Right below our apartment was a pizza place, where we made our:

Croatia Discovery #2: Croatian food is delicious! We didn't have a single bad meal the whole trip, whether it was at a white tablecloth place of the local greasy hangout. We also didn't eat a single meal indoors, including those ones with white tablecloths. Croatia has a fantastic cafe culture, and we made the most of it. I think we were expecting Eastern Europe, which to us, means bland, greasy food. But Croatia borrows a lot from Italy, with fantastic results. So we ate our ham pizza with gusto.

We returned to the apartment and tried to watch the forgettable film The Millionairess, which we found in the apartment. It stars Sophia Loren as the Millionairess and Peter Sellers in brownface as an Indian doctor, accent and all. Unlike every other Peter Sellers movie I've seen, it was not funny. So we went to bed and slept 15 hours.

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