East of Western Europe...

I was happy to be back in Zagreb. After being stuck there for a week last year after a missed flight, I'd become sort of attached to the city. It helped too that my friend Zvonka, who I haven't seen for a year, lives there as well.

The plan was to start planning our trip around southeastern Europe there, but of course we immediately started traveling instead. We walked around the city for the afternoon before heading up north couple days up north near the Hungarian/Slovenian border to visit friends, before heading east, into the unknown.

We'd planned to go east, then to the north, maybe Romania or even the Ukraine, but east was the only certainty at this point.

Zagreb is a beautiful, clean city with almost a small town feel, despite being the capital. We even ran into people we knew walking around downtown - I might come across someone I know at random about twice a year in San Diego... It's nice there in the summer, though hot - the city's nearly empty with most of the population apparently vacationing on the coast.

The layout is a well preserved ancient city at the foot of the mountains surrounded by the river, surrounded by communist era high-rise housing, surrounded by farms. The streets are tree-lined, and bright blue trams are everywhere carrying commuters across the city. There are plenty of squares and gardens to break up the downtown area. The city for the most part escaped major bombing in WWII or during the Balkan War, so much of the old city is intact and has been kept in good condition. Young people will generally know a little English or maybe some German, but expect to use some basic Croatian or sign language in a grocery store, buying bus tickets, etc. Prices are low, compared to the western European capitals, but would seem high on returning from the eastern European countries we'd visit on this trip.