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Published: December 6th 2007
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Last night was the worst nights sleep I have had since we began travelling. It was around two in the morning before I dropped off. Around quarter past five we were abruptly woken by a group of men arriving at the hostel. With it being such a minute place, our beds were right by the front door. Not only did they talk loudly for ages but they left the door wide open until it was freezing inside. At one point Rob Sshhed them and one man just laughed. Eventually things quietened down and we thought we would get a few hours sleep at the very least. A man got into the bunk at the end of mine; I call him a man but a wild boar may be a more accurate description.
Rob drifted back to sleep, however the combination of a bad cold and the fat man snorting made it impossible for me. I laid awake for ages trying to drop off, I even put my headphones in and the very best metal music couldn't drown him out. Around quarter to eight I was became too agitated and dragged Rob out of bed. We left pretty hastily as the
guy in the bed across from us was smoking because he couldn't sleep either.
To put Rob in a better mood about our early start we called in to a pekara and got pastries. Mine was pretty foul but Rob enjoyed mine as well. We found the correct bus stop easily but it took ages for the bus to arrive. We then endured a forty minute journey on seats that were pretty much wooden benches and rattled so loudly that we couldn't chat.
The museum was a large glass mushroom near the airport. Outside the building there were many aircraft of military and commercial persuasions. Round the back of the museum there were over 50 aircraft, mostly military attack jets. The museum itself was quite expensive to get in but turned out to be well worth it. the museum built in 1957 had a collection of aircraft from the origins of flight all the way through to aircraft shot down over Belgrade during the Kosovo crisis. Most of the planes were ones which the Yugoslavian airforce had purchased; a Red Camel biplane was amongst a German Messerschmidt, Japanese Yak, English Hurricane, English Spitfire, Russian plane and American thunderbolt.
The museum moved through the years with many other planes and gliders, parachutes and missiles. The pearl of the collection was the wing and canopy of a downed F-117 stealth Bomber. It was really interesting for me to see the cardboard like honeycomb structure inside the wing and the use of foam having studied the advantages of using such structures in engineering lectures. The view out of the glass windows would have been impressive with all the aircraft outside but due to its age the glass was barely transparent.
We just missed the bus back to the centre so we had a look around the airport and their feeble attempt at Christmas decorations.
We wanted some proper food for lunch seeing as though we haven't eaten well in a while. On our map there was a restaurant called "Sweedish Vegan Table" which we figured would have some decent food. Weirdly when we examined the menu there was only meat and fish dishes and not a single vegetarian dish, let alone vegan.
We were running out of time before we had to catch our train so we resorted to a soup and a sandwich at a café we
found during our lost period when we arrived. The sandwiches were nice however we had just bought some sandwiches for the train.
The train for Zagreb left just before four and made a pleasant change to the long bus journeys we have been taking. I dozed on and off and believe it or not Rob wrote a diary entry. We had some seats to ourselves until the last hour or so.
The hostel was about thirty minutes away from the train station which felt pretty far with our backpacks on. It was around eleven and we both just wanted to get to the hostel and sleep, however as we walked through the main square we saw all the christmas lights and a stage errected and we changed our minds. The Fulir Hostel seems nice if not rather small. It has fourteen beds of which we are occupying the last two. There was already a couple in bed so we had a quick chat before nipping out for a night time walk. The streets were pretty much empty but they were all lit up with Christmas lights and trees.
We have just had a shower and i'm now
writing this in my dorm room, everyone else is asleep. Night Night. Stob.
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kate
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The aeroplanes sounded interesting. Do you remember the messerschmit you got me last Christmas? I was surprised to hear there was a spitfire there. I don't think there are many around. Bye Love mum xxxxxxxxx