My last day in Zagreb was fairly uneventful. I didn’t do much of anything, really. At least nothing touristy. I wandered around a bit, then found a nice place to sit and wrote my last entry and a bit on my novel and then headed to the train station for my 9 o’clock to Salzburg. I actually went a little early and ran into Annika and Cecelia, who were returning from a day trip so I was able to say a proper good-bye. Once they left, I headed for the platform and struck up a conversation with a girl from Bosnia. It was interesting since she spoke very little English and I spoke no German (even though she held a Bosnian passport, she hadn’t lived there since she was four, some twenty years earlier – She now lives in Hamburg. This will become important later). Just a side note, it’s fascinating when you’re in a different country with people who don’t speak your language. I was on the tram, heading to the train station to drop off my backpack earlier in the day and met a guy who spoke only German, except for his numbers, which he could do up to twenty or so in English. And which he proceeded to share with me. It was sweet and fun, but ultimately, I spent the tram ride listening to a 60 year old guy counting and being very proud of himself for doing it. Of course, what started this conversation was a broken wondow and our common sharing of the phrase “Kaput.”

Anyway, back to the platform… so when our train pulls in, I have a reserved seat and this girl does not. She decides to sit with me. Cool. We’d already discussed she had spent some time down in Bosnia to see her Uncle and Father and Brother and was now on her way to Munich to pick up her son (she kept saying ‘children’ in the plural and it took me a little while to realize she was only talking about one) before heading home. On the train, the two of us get comfortable in the compartment and she tells me she’s very nervous and wants me to help her. It seems her visa to enter the EU expired on the 30^th of June, and we were traveling on the 1^st of July. And she needs a visa since Bosnia is not yet a member. Neither is Croatia – yet. But Slovenia is. So sure enough, we get started (a half hour late, mind you) and the police come in to do a passport check and hers is a little beat up and they question her expired visa and I’m trying to interpret since she and I had been talking and I’m a friendly voice in all this. The police go and come back a few times, taking her passport with them. Finally they return and stamp her passport, saying they really don’t care, but the Slovenians might. They are EU after all and they take their job very seriously (as you’ll recall, they scared me coming down).

When we stopped in Slovenia, they asked her all the same questions. They wanted to know why she didn’t speak Bosnian or Croatian (similar languages). She kept turning to me for help. Finally, the Slovenian police asked if we were traveling together. I, of course, said ‘no’ at which point I was politely told to shut up and they would be dealing directly with her. I shut up. No fool I. A few seconds later, she was removed from the train, crying and pleading with them about her ‘kinder.’ It was an odd experience, that’s for sure. On the plus side, though, I did get the compartment all to myself and so was able to get some decent sleep.

Sleep was good since I pulled into Salzburg at 4:30 in the morning. Nothing was open and I didn’t have enough euros in change to pay for a locker. So I waited around in the train terminal and eventually was able to gather the 3.50 needed to store my bags for the day. It was barely 6:30 by this point so I just wandered around an empty town, taking in the sights. I found a place for breakfast and when that was finished I headed over to the tour place to see what kind of tours were available. There were two I wanted to take, the Ice Caves and the Salt Mines. Unfortunately, They overlapped time wise so I decided to go with the Ice Caves. But that meant I still had a lot of time to kill. I decided on taking a city tour as well. This was fun, but sitting in a 7 passenger van with a an old guy droning on about the city in both English and Spanish was too much for my tired brain to deal with… I promptly fell asleep and stayed that way for half the tour! I woke up in time to explore a summer palace of a 17^th century ruler. Fun stuff!

The tour ended near the funicular up to the fortress which overlooked the town (the fee for which was included in the price of the tour) so up I went, exploring the museums and exploiting the view for pictures. I didn’t have a lot of time, however, since the ice tour started at one. So I saw what I could then headed back down to catch the next bus.

Turned out, the tour was myself and a group of friends from India. It seems the three patriarchs of the families met in college at architecture school and every two years they all meet somewhere in the world so the families can all stay close. So it was me and them. Oh yeah, and our guides, Alex And Admir. Alex was just training so really, it was Admir’s show and he was quite funny. He was having a good time, making jokes and still being very informative. The bus ride to the cave site took about 45 minutes and it was beautiful countryside. We were at the foot of the Alps and they even stopped once so we could all get a good shot of a fortress on a the top of a hill. Then we got to the parking spot for the caves. It was going to require a little bit of walking at this point, about twenty minutes to get to the cable car which was going to take us a good chunk the rest of the way, but there was still another twenty minute walk AFTER the cable car, too. And it was hot. It’s been hot the entire trip, true. I’ve been losing in water weight any potential fat I’ve been putting on (my back, under my backpack, is almost always soaking – I know, gross, but there you have it). So we walked and walked and walked. As we got the tram station, we ran across a group of soldiers, all in uniform and getting ready to march down the way we had just come. I asked permission before snapping a few pictures and we all made some jokes. (One soldier, when questioned as to what kind of a unit they were responded simply, yet shrilly, “We’re in the army NOW!” We all laughed.) One of the soldiers then pointed at me, indicating my shoulder. I had no idea what he was talking about until I looked down and saw I had picked up a hitchhiker – a little butterfly had landed on me and decided it was tired of flying. It stayed with me for a good hundred meters or so before taking flight again. This goes along with my bee in Munich and the HUGE creepy crawly thing in Zagreb (did I mention the huge creepy crawly thing in Zagreb? If I didn’t, I’ll tell you that story and how Annika and Cecilia stole my bed in a future installment).

Anyway, we all climbed in to the cable car (as Admir nicely pointed out, “Oh good, it’s

Top of the Cable Car

the new car – the old one fell last week.”) and zipped upwards. Quickly. It was one of the fastest cable cars I’ve ever been in. So we get to the top and Neil (he’s the son of one of the three friends – going into 7^th

That’s Neil

The Elephant

But… getting back to the start of the tour, there’s a small door you must pass through to get inside. The air-pressure differential leads to (literally) ice cold winds of up to 120 kph. Remember all that heat I was talking about a few paragraphs back? Guess what? All gone now! We were freezing! I was just wearing my Grumpy jean jacket and a t-shirt underneath (I didn’t even bring my hat) AND I was elected to carry a lantern (In fact, I ended up with two lanterns because the young family in front of me ended up giving me theirs so mom and dad could each carry one their little girls up and down the 1400 steps). So my hands went numb fairly early on (but I was still a trooper and took pictures when I could). All told, we were in the cave a little more than an hour, maybe 75 minutes, and it was certainly worth it… but cold!

From the top...

Of course, as soon as we got out of the cave, the rain started. Huge electrical storm blew through, delaying the cable car down so we were stuck for about a half hour. I took the opportunity to eat. I don’t remember what I had (Alex, the trainee tour guide) recommended it. It was a traditional Austrian dish, like macaroni and cheese but not quite. It had ham bits in it (although you could get it without) and the cheese was thick and gooey (and some of it burned to the iron skillet it was served in). As a meal to eat while a storm raged outside, it was perfect! Eventually, the rain subsided and the cable car started running again.

On the bus ride back, Alex and I got into a discussion about history, politics and language. Again, this is me we’re talking about. I was having a great time! We finally made it back to town, I said goodbye and thought about doing some souvenir shopping. Unfortunately (for you, lucky for my bank account) the shops were all closed so I just headed to the train station and jumped an earlier ride than I was thinking and made it into Vienna, and to my hostel, just before midnight.

A quick word about my hostel in Vienna… I get off the elevator and there’s a sign saying “Remember to bring your rat to reception.” For some reason, they’ve tied all of the keys to the tails of these stuffed rats and if you’re the last person to leave the room, you take the rat to reception and leave it there for whoever gets back to your room first to pick up. This way, if someone is in the room, it’s unlocked. Odd concept for a room being shared by strangers, but it seems to be working okay.

One day in Salzburg…started slowly enough. Well, in actuality, it started in Munich. I got up, checked out of my room, hit the post office (yes, another box is heading home) then hopped a train bound for Salzburg, which is in Austria (great t-shirt spotted – “There are no Kangaroos in Austria”), birthplace of Mozart!

I only had about 12 hours in town since my train for Zagreb left at 1:36am and when I first got there, it was raining. So I hopped on a bus and headed for the city center. It seems like in all these old cities, if you can figure out where the city center is, you’ve pretty much nailed the “ye olde touriste” bits. So I went there, wandered around for a few minutes, saw the oldest bookstore in Austria and picked out my new mode of dress for teaching in the fall. Then I found a tour place. They had some interesting things on offer, but they were all a little pricy or, the really cool ones like the salt mine or ice cave, left earlier in the morning and I’d already missed it. So it was a choice between a walking tour or a bus tour. I’d been eating a lot of ice cream lately so the walking tour it was!

It was a fun tour, half in German and half in English. Of course, I immediately started conversations with my fellow English speakers. They included an older couple from Australia (where they DO have kangaroos) and a younger couple from Quebec who spoke French and English. We saw lots of interesting sites, including the cemetery where the Von Trapps escaped the Nazis in the movie (did I mention Salzburg was the home of those singing Von Trapps? This is important, it’ll come up later) and yes, Mozart’s birthplace (city ordinance states “every tourist MUST be made aware of the villa where W.A. Mozart first drew breath and then composed music). By the end of the tour, I was starving and Julien and Emilie (the Québécois) were also hungry. Okay, Julien is always hungry. But we decided to get some food together.

We had some sausage on the fly and they wanted to check out the modern art museum. I had yet to see any modern art on my travels, and Emilie is studying art history at University so I figured I was in safe hands. The museum wasn’t bad. There were some nice paintings in the permanent collection and then the current exhibit had some great kinetic sculptures (although I will freely admit I didn’t GET the abstract color things and forget the films all together).

Afterwards, Julien was hungry again (so was I, but it was more fun to tease him) so we found a place through their guidebook and had a very nice meal. Then Julien and I split a couple of desserts but we had to bolt out of there to catch our evening’s entertainment – a Marionette production of, you guessed it, The Sound of Music (told you it was coming back). I wanted to see it, Emilie did as well, and Julien was accommodating.

The show itself was wonderfully cheesy! The puppets were pretty good and, with the exception of the Mother Superior at the abbey, played all the parts. The MS was weird though. You got used to seeing the characters as puppet sized and then this full sized human shows up and throws your perspective right out the window!

The night was still young when the show let out, but for some reason, Salzburg kinda rolls up its sidewalks when the sun starts to go down, so there was not many options. Thankfully, Julien remembered a place our tour guide had told us about, a coffee shop on the 7^th floor of a hotel with great views of the old city. We hung out up there, drinking and talking until about midnight when I figured I should probably head back towards the train station. But it was one of those nights you don’t want to end. We kept finding things to talk about until I really had to go. So we said goodnight and I made my way to the station.

The train itself was ehh… I was in a cabin with these three guys who were all stretched out and I felt bad coming in and taking my seat. Then it wasn’t very comfortable for sleeping but I was doing okay, until we got stopped in Slovenia for a passport check. That’s right, I now have a Slovenia stamp AND a Croatia stamp (they stamped it after the next stop but before we got into Zagreb.

Once in Zagreb, I made my way to the hostel, which is very different from where I’ve been staying. Much more homey and much smaller. No school groups of kids running around, which is nice. I took a little rest then hit the town. I don’t know how far I walked today (where’s Jennica and her pedometer phone when you need it) but it was plenty. I did get to the “History of Zagreb” Museum and saw some very cool neighborhoods.

These are some shots from the museum… This one is self-portrait in mirror.

Leaning against flag…

And a two headed flag…

And then I had this frightening realization… all my experience with this part of Europe comes from old Universal monster films. Come on, you tell me this picture doesn’t look like a backlot!

Towards the end of my walk I stopped at a little coffee place to have a water break and finish my Stephen King book. The guy behind the counter was great. He spoke English, but only minimally. Everything I said was met with the response of “Seriously?” and then he asked me about American politics. Not bad for a bottle of water. But then he gave me directions to a little mall where they had a movie theatre (I just wanted to watch something) and a small bookstore (I picked up a cheap paperback thriller that I won’t mind leaving on a train when I’m done with it).

Don’t know what tomorrow will bring, but I’m hoping to find a place to watch the EuroCup final (Germany vs Spain – should be a good’un).