And then, I went to Zagreb!

Atila and I!
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As I boarded my train to go to Zagreb, I was the only person in my car.  So I spread out, and thought it would be a nice 3 hours to sleep and read and relax.  Wrong.  Some crazy bloke walks in and exclaims, "Hi! I'm Steven from England!"  Ok, so Steven proceeds to talk nearly the entire 3 hours.  Oh my god.  He wouldn't shut up.  He was one of those camcorder-wielding tourists that even got excited over the rock formations in the hills...What a goon...

After what seemed like 9 hours, (it was really about 3) we arrived in Zagreb.  Steven asked me if he could treat me to dinner, because "he just really enjoys the company".  Something inside my head was screaming run, but my stomach overtook any good judgement I had at that moment.  So with kind of an awkward hesitation, I said 'ummmm sure'.  He assured me that he would treat me just the way I would expect my father to treat me.  It was at that point that I realized I would have given anything to have Dad take me anywhere!  With an eye for any suspicious activities peeled, we headed into the city center for some food.  We ended up eating in an Italian restaurant, go figure.  But the food was good (and free :) And afterwards I kindly thanked him, and said I had to meet some friends now.  Such a great excuse - thanks Grandpa for that one!  Somehow, with all the people I meet, as we part, they always yell out, usually as I'm about 10 feet away, "Leah! Behave yourself now!"  Do I give off the aura of being some kind of criminal or rebellious child?  I have no idea.

Sorry it took so long to finish! :)

Atila and I again, he insisted on a second photo and that I 'wear' his hat.
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After I finally got rid of Steven, I met up with Atila, who is a friend of Spyro (the kid I stayed with in Ljubljana).  Atila was a great guy.  He had an entire separate room in his apartment I could sleep in and keep all my stuff, which was quite nice!  He had to work all day, he's the Corporate Accounts Manager at some corporation, how do I keep running into all these corporate hotshots?  But that was no problem because I was busy absorbing the city.  Atila was one of the nicest guys I think I met on my trip.  Just a genuine guy.  He grew up in Serbia, his Dad is Hungarian, and his Mom is Croatian.  So not only does he speak all of those languages fluently, but he also spoke impeccable English.  He actually wants to come to the US to get his MBA.  So being the Badger I am, I pulled up the Wisconsin website, and bragged how great WI was.  He was actually very interested, so now he and I are emailing ppl in wisconsin to try to work something out.

This great cathedral that overlooks the city on top of this little hill.
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The best part about Croatia is the exchange rate.  After being pummeled repeatedly by the dollar-euro rate, it was great to go somewhere where the dollar was actually stronger.  They use the Kuna in Croatia, which is about 7.7 to the Euro, and 6.4 to the dollar.  So it sometimes seems like you're paying a lot, but once you convert, things are dirt cheap.  It's great!

I noticed, Croatians really like their sweets.  I sat in a coffee shop and had a coffee and was just relaxing.  I was watching the people next to me, and one man walks up with 3 pastries on his plate, the lady on the other side is working on 2 big pieces of  custard cake, and they ate them all.  I thought maybe it's just these two, so I crane my head around to look at it, and everyone was eating multiple desserts.  I think there are just some things about Europe i will never fully understand.

Apparently they honor good ole FDR in Zagreb by giving him his own Trg (street).
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The 2nd night, Atila and I met up, and he said we were going shopping with two of his friends.  What a joke.  We met his 2 buddies, and they are all like brothers.  They cracked me up.  And his 2 friends, Marco and Jadeur, had just moved into a new apartment, and wanted my help to decorate it.  So we dinked aorund the store for along time, and mainly just laughed the entire time.  It was so much fun!

Zagreb was a fun city, but at that point in time, I was much looking forward to a smaller town and the coast!