24 September

Zagreb, Croatia

The country where everyone is so attractive, the national pastime is sitting in outdoor cafes, drinking, and looking at one another.

I arrived in Zagreb four days ago, and its been a good weekend. Nothing too exciting happened the first day… just me walking around and seeing the sites and getting a feel for the city. The second day I was here, I moved into an apartment. The hotels in town are pretty crazy expensive (my first night was spent in a tiny little room in a mediocre hotel for about $90), but you can get private rooms and apartments pretty cheap, if you're staying for more than three or four days, so that is what I did. I got a good little place - not much in the way of windows, and no phone, but otherwise good, and in a good location, for around $60 a night.


(my street... complete with typical Croatian parking... )

After that, I called up new a friend named Jasmina, who works in advertising. Her company is representing T-Mobile, and they are in the process of launching some sort of digital video or TV service called T-Max, so she invited me to the party. I was a little tentative, not knowing her very well and not having any actual party clothes, but I figured what the hell, it would be interesting to see what kind of a party this would be, at the very least… I’d see how Croatian corporate events compare to their US counterparts.

Well, pretty much it was exactly the same. There was the older crowd there, the ones who had the money and ran the companies, obviously, and then there was the younger crowd, and they were the ones that made it a party. The food was really good, I have to say, and the wait staff was on it, going into Mission Impossible mode every time a glass was empty. I swear, I don’t know how many times I turned around with a glass of wine that had maybe one or two sips left to come face to face with a waiter carrying a bottle of red and a bottle of white. Before I could even say anything he would be filling my glass then moving on to find more souls in need of refills. So, food and drink, they get an A-. Minus only because it wasn’t a full bar, but just beer and wine.

The room was a really good one… an older building that had been renovated, it had great wood floors some nice chandeliers and was a good size. I wasn’t especially impressed with the design though. They had a stage with a massive video screen, of course, and a fair amount of lighting gear, that pretty much went under or completely unused. The weirdest thing about the entire event was that they did absolutely nothing to actually kick off their product. Seriously… we arrived at around 9 or 9:30, with the party officially starting at 8pm. The room was full, and there was a band playing on the stage, off to one side, with a podium and a couple other video screens on the other end. For the next hour we drank and Jasmina introduced me to a few people, though the music was too loud to really have any conversations, especially in English. The entire time, I kept waiting on the speeches and introductions and video presentation. When the band took a break at 10:30 or so, I knew it had to be time… but no, instead a DJ started in (important note for party planners – never let your DJ be better than your band, at least until after they are done. Its bad news to have more people dancing during the break than during the performance) and upped the energy but never turned it over to the other side of the stage. I decided that this must be planned to go late, but as the band picked up again around eleven, I noticed that the older crowd was starting to filter out. I also noticed that the video background was starting to repeat. Well, the band played for another hour or so, and then the DJ kicked in again,  but there never was any sort of announcement or presentation about T-Max, or anything else. I can only figure they must have done it early, but that’s really strange, considering that a lot of people probably didn’t arrive until around the time we did. All these important people there, and unless they were actually involved with the product, none of them saw anything about it.

Anyway, around the time the band stopped playing the second time, Jasmina decided to leave. It was still very early though, and since I didn’t have to be at work the next morning like she did, I stayed, and after walking her out to her car, went back and started dancing again. From that point on the DJ kept things going like a pro. The energy never flagged at all, and every time there was a moment that it seemed like people were wiping their brows and moving away from the improvised dance floor, another song would kick in that made them all cheer and run back out. And it was a good mix of music too… some older American music, (disco and eighties new wave), some house stuff, but with melodies, some European pop I didn’t recognize, but which made my teeth ache it was so sweet, and a variety of other stuff. There were a few American pop things that made me cringe a bit, but once again it was the idea that some of the worst American music is very big here, and if an entire room of attractive drunk people are cheering and clapping their hands, its very hard to hate a song, no matter how bad it may be when one is sober.

Gradually more and more people left, until the ones who remained were the hardcore dancers, the hardcore drinkers, or both. By that time I was spending most of my time dancing with two late-twenties looking women, one with a multicolored top and really great (bare) shoulders whose name I can’t remember and another named Antonia, who was also stunningly pretty (though not showing any shoulder) and who seemed to be working hard to ignore me the entire night until she suddenly turned friendly and began asking me questions about myself. Neither of them spoke a great deal of English (though it goes without saying that their English was a thousand times better than anything I could manage in Croatian), and with the music it was hard to talk anyway, but it was a good time dancing and flirting.

Finally around two or so, the music wound down, and the three of us stood at a table, the two of them grabbing a couple plates of food and me grabbing three glasses of water, and sharing all around. I tried to convince them that I needed a guide for my time in Zagreb, and gave them my email address, but they laughed at me a bit and insisted that if I wanted them to guide me, it would have to be Sunday, and I would have to go to Mass with them first. I said I was fine with that, though I didn’t have my Sunday clothes with me, but they just laughed again. We walked out as the crew was starting to tear down the gear, and the two of them pointed me in the general direction of my apartment (Once again I was turned around, having ridden to the party with Jasmina, but the compass on my watchband navigated me home without too much trouble) and walked off in the opposite direction. I haven’t heard from them, and so missed going to church this morning, but it’s probably for the best since I still don’t have any Sunday clothes. I got home around three am that night, and have to admit I was pretty well hung-over the next day, having drunk glass after glass (damn those efficient waiters!) of wine steadily for four or five hours while dancing (and sweating) madly.

Friday I spent walking around and nursing the hangover in the morning, then going to the Croatian Technical Museum in the afternoon. It was an interesting place, with some good displays, especially if you’re into fire fighting equipment (not particularly) and engines (worth a bit of looking) or want to see up close airplanes (some fun ones) submarines (just a small one, but still…), cars and train carriages (yawn).


(yes, these are all actual size... )

The real reason I went there, though, is that about a fourth of the museum is dedicated to Nicola Tesla. As many of you know, he’s been a long time favorite of mine…  I wrote a performance piece about his rivalry with Edison and the first electric chair when I lived in Cincinnati, and did the scenic design for the first incarnation of the Rude Mech’s “Requiem for Tesla” in Austin. I’ve read, or at least perused most of the books about him, and was interested in seeing what his home country had to say (Tesla was born in what is now Croatia, but was of Serbian descent, so both lay claim to him).


(every Croatian city seems to have a street named for Tesla... )


(and Zagreb has a really horrible statue of him as well... it doesn't even look like him... )

For those who don’t know, Tesla was something of a mad genius who did his major work around the turn of the last century. When he began working with electricity, Edison’s generators and lights used Direct Current (like you find in batteries today) and Alternating Current wasn’t really even big subject of research. Every city block, and sometimes every house required its own generator, and they had a nasty habit of exploding from time to time. Tesla almost single-handedly invented the motors, generators, and transmission system to make AC a more useful system, and pretty much all his inventions are still in use today, having not been improved on all that much. In other words, he pretty much invented everything that makes our modern electrical grid possible. On top of that, he invented radio (the US Supreme court ruled that his patents superseded Marconi’s), the Tesla coil (used in your TV and useful for making artificial lightening shows) and about three books worth of other things. He demonstrated a radio control submarine to the Navy in 1914 and was amazed when they could see no use for it. The interesting thing is, he did all that while still very young, and by around that time, had moved on. He spent the next thirty years or so working on a system to transmit free electricity through the earth itself, claimed to invent death rays and systems to control the weather, and even claimed he could create a weapon to destroy the entire earth. There are claims that he was the inspiration for the first ‘Mad Scientist’ character which appeared in Superman Comics, and later became cliché. When he died in the mid-forties, the US government confiscated all his files and notebooks, thereby ensuring that he would be the subject of massive conspiracy theories for the next hundred years or more. (That you haven’t heard of someone so integral to the shape of modern society is a testament to the power of Thomas Edison early in this century. After losing the battle against Tesla and Westinghouse Electric, which had purchased the rights to his patents, over whose system would be the one in general use, Edison mounted a campaign to have Tesla erased from the history and textbooks, which seems to have been largely successful).

Anyway, the Tesla exhibit at the Technical Museum has reproductions of many of his inventions, pictures, pages from his notebooks (not the ones confiscated by the US) and a huge variety of other odds and ends. On top of everything, this year is the 150th anniversary of his birth so everywhere you go in the city there are posters of him, bookstores have window displays,


(kids books about Tesla! Too bad they are in Croatian... )

and the city is celebrating one of its favorite sons. I figured my timing was perfect… Unfortunately, they thought otherwise, and the wing with the Tesla exhibit was closed for renovations.

Saturday was spent touring the Northern part of the city, and I stumbled on a really fantastic cemetery. After seeing it, I realized that it was mentioned in some of my guidebooks, so I think I’m going to go back in the early morning tomorrow and take some photos. In the evening I tried to get into a performance at the cinema, a theater performance, but it was taking place in one of the movie theaters. It was a Russian guy, as part of an international Theater Festival that is going on this week, but despite them telling me two days before that there were plenty of seats available and that they couldn’t sell me one ahead of time because they didn’t have any change, I arrived there to find that it was sold out. Very annoying. I ended up spending the evening at one of the multitude of outdoor cafes reading “The Picture of Dorian Gray” and watching the crowds. It ended up being a good evening, if not as exciting as I might have liked.

Near that cafe is the creepiest statue I've seen yet... It looks like a cross between Freddy Kruger and a dirty old man in an overcoat. There is nothing on the statue saying who it is supposed to be, or who the artist is, though the style looks a lot like the same artist who did the horrible sculpture of Tesla above. The style suits this one really well, in a frightening kind of way. Sadly, it didn't have the blue paint on it when I saw it the first time, a few days ago... that took away some of the creepiness.


(with cafe umbrellas in the background, of course... they're everywhere... )


(see? what did I say? )

Which brings me to the headline of this page. You may think that it is an exaggeration, but I’m here to say its strictly the Lord’s own truth. More than any other city I’ve been in so far, Zagreb is full of cafes and restaurants, all of which, no matter how far they are from the street, have at least a smattering of umbrella covered tables on a sidewalk somewhere, that are always full of young, hip people sipping coffee, chatting, laughing, and being charming. They’ve been there, doing that all day, every day. Even in the middle of the week when I arrived. At first I thought it was all tourists, but I’ve learned the sound of the language well enough to decide these are all young, hip Croatians. I can’t help wondering why these people don’t have jobs to go to, or laundry or any sort of real life things that need to be done, but they don’t seem to. It’s like walking through an episode of friends except that the annoying blonde isn’t here and none of the attractive women speak any English (or perhaps pretend not to?).


(yes, if you could see to the right, on the other side of the street, it is filled with cafes looking at the park... )

Okay, so you hear that and think, well, they may be young and hip and charming, but they’re shallow no doubt. Sorry. Zagreb has a fantastic arts scene, with galleries and theaters everywhere you look. As I sit here, that festival is still going on with performers from Russia, Denmark and half a dozen other countries. And the one I got locked out of wasn’t the only one that was popular…  all of the other shows are sold out too, unfortunately, despite being in half a dozen different languages. So, blast it, young, hip, charming, multilingual and strong supporters of the arts besides.

If you’re thinking that it sounds like a good place to live, you’re not alone. Add in the fact that Zagreb isn’t more than three or four hours from the coast, or the kayaking in Slovenia, or Italy, or some really great mountains… and you have several more tics in the positive column. Plus there are bike lanes everywhere. These people take their biking seriously. I’m trying to come up with some things I don’t like, but so far, it’s not working very well. Have I mentioned that the city is full of parks, and that the public transportation is a breeze?


(yet another park... this one just across from the Train station... )

Church is letting out and the sun is starting to rise above the buildings. I’ve spent a couple hours telling you about Zagreb this Sunday morning, but now my computer batteries are running low and I think I’m going to put it away, put on some shorts and head out to the lake to go for a swim.

Sunday, 24 September – that evening.

Yet more evidence this country rocks. One of the main squares has a giant video screen and killer sound system erected, and I was assuming it was for a  concert this weekend. True enough, but not what I imagined. The symphony is playing Mozart tonight and in addition to the concert hall, they are showing it on the video screen. It’s not a huge crowd (Sunday night, a little after 10pm) but there are a couple hundred people out here with me. I’m actually sitting just off to the side, in one of the café areas, drinking a beer and soon to be munching on some pizza. I don’t think the concert will go on  much longer, but have I mentioned that life is good?

25 September, again in the evening.

This is my last night in Zagreb, and its been a good day. I got up early – around 6am and caught the tram up to the cemetery again, taking my camera and hitting the main gate just as the sun was starting to rise. I spent nearly three hours there this morning taking a couple hundred photos of the sculptures, and the time flew by. I forget how much I really love just using a camera, making images. My only complaint is that once again this little camera is driving me completely mad. I feel sure I got some really great photos, but I also bet that at least a third of them are slightly out of focus (too little for me to see on the LCD screen) or not exposed properly. The decision not to buy and bring a real camera is the single biggest mistake I made planning this trip. I won’t do it again, and if I can fix it between now and when I come home, I will. I still have six weeks or so, and that’s a lot of opportunities for good picture taking.


(so at least some turned out well... but I still hate the camera... )

I’m wondering if it sounds morbid that I spent the morning walking around the cemetery. Hopefully when you see the pictures you won’t think so, but I’ve been made aware that some of my choices for this trip are less than – joyous. As James put it when I said what a great time I’d had with the group in Bovec, “I’m glad to know we could top Auschwitz and Chernobyl for good times!” True, true James, but you also topped the absinthe bar in Vilnius and all the other good stuff as well. I don’t think I’m seeing just the morbid stuff… its just that, especially starting in Eastern Europe, that stuff goes with the territory. The cemetery was interesting more for the very old sculpture there than anything else. I won’t deny that it was strange walking around there, especially when a man and then a woman arrived who I think probably visited there every day, bringing flowers and candles to the graves of loved ones. But I don’t think its morbid… am I wrong?


(I think I'm going to put up a separate page of these photos, but wanted to put a couple up here, at least... )

After leaving there, I walked down the hill, seeing the cathedral from up close (it’s being renovated and is much more interesting from a distance, though the inside is stunning. I didn’t take any pictures, as there were some sort of services going on, and it was probably too dark for this camera, besides, but one thing I will give the Catholics – they know how to build a church!), stopping at a little café for some lunch, and generally just letting myself get lost in the parks North of the city. A great moment happened when I was at a café, wondering exactly how far I’d drifted, so I asked the waiter if he could show me where I was. He looked at my map of the city center, then looked back at me and said very earnestly, “I’m sorry, but you are not on this map.” I laughed and once he saw my reaction he laughed too, but I think up to then he thought that I might be in trouble and severely lost.

By the afternoon I had figured out where I was and headed South, back to my apartment to start packing up for an early morning departure. This evening I found funky little café near the movie theater that has great atmosphere, playing trip-hop on the stereo and showing kickboxing on the television. Strangely, despite having whiskey and coke on the drink menu, I once again find myself served with a glass of Jack Daniels and a bottle of Coke. One of these days, someone is going to get the idea here… I find myself missing Zen at Opal Divine’s south. Pretty much all these countries could use a hot woman who knows how to serve a drink properly.

For dinner, I’ve generally been eating on the cheap here, but tonight I splurged a bit. A bit under thirty dollars got me a really great meal, but with pretty horrible service. That’s been a recurring theme… not a rule, but true more often than not. I was wondering if it was the places I was eating, but having gone to one of the good places now, I don’t think so. We’ll see what happens in the rest of the country before I make any more broad generalizations though. The one bad thing about most of the cafes here is that they tend to close early. It’s nearing midnight, and this place, one of the few that stays open past eleven, is clearly starting to pack up. Whatever happened to service until two am? Oh wait… that’s the US I’m thinking of… It’s just as well anyway as I should go home and get some sleep. I catch a bus early tomorrow and then hopefully jump into windsurfing first thing when I arrive in Pula. It’s going to be a week of swimming, (wind)surfing, biking and sun… now its starting to feel like a vacation!

Soon I'm going to try to do a page of more of the Cemetery photos, so till then...

Stephen

More of the Zagreb Cemetery...

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