Zagreb Wants and Women

So, I had planned to exit Zagreb early this morning to make the way to the Adriatic Coast and the warmer weather that entailed. But something strange happened last night to make me stay at least one more day. More on this later.

For the past two days I have been actually doing some shopping. Which is strange for me, cause I usually hate doing it. I've been going to the local farmer market here in Zagreb. This is no ordinary market. It is one of the largest open free markets Europe and it is sprawling. Your name it, it seems they got it. Want some fresh squid? Simple hop inside the fish facade and there awaits every ocean treasure you could think of. Fresh fruits and vegetables abound and a little further on down the street lies the clothing market. Underneath the Fruit and vegetable square lies more slaughter than I have ever seen. Whole pigs, lambs, sides of beef, and poultry lie on hooks and display cases waiting for you to take the whole carcass or just tell lady with the big ass meat cleaver to goto work. She does it with vigour. So much so I seen red morsels flying right into her hair.

Amazingly enough this is also where the breads and pastries are sold. For the past two days the first thing I do is head for this market, which is open everyday, and order up the best damn fruit strudels I've ever tasted. There so fresh there are still warm from the oven and they go down so easy. Plus, when you do the dollar conversion, they come out to be about a 50-60 cents. The ambience of fresh red meat everywhere does nothing for strudel eating, but still does not stop me. I only wish I had a kitchen to cook something using all this fresh food.

Being Zagreb just got a cold spell, I've had to do some long sleeve shirt shopping. Sweatshirts are too thick to pack and less versatile (coats even more so), so lately I've wore about 3-4 layers of shirts to keep warm. Shopping for these has been an experience--I've never had so much fun getting ripped off. I haggle and haggle then walk away, come back, make the purchase only to find myself paying more than the listed price (or it seems) and the merchants with a big happy grin. These guys are zen masters in the art and I need to study up. But for the most part, I got two warm long sleeve shirts for the price of 10 bucks each, so all is not bad. There is a huge selection of nuts and dried fruit that I load up on to and make my own custom trail mix.

Friday was free museum day and they have an exhibit of Leonardo deVinci. They showed his drawings and thoughts, and then showed the modern technology of it. For example, DeVinci did some research on bearings, and beside this they had a V12 Ferrrari engine and a video of how it was made--from the metal casting to the spec testing of all components. Pretty amazing actually.

Being what I thought was my last day here, I decided to treat myself and take my groovin self to one of the clubs here. I picked one called Aquarius (the one in Rochester is much nicer by the way). The music was OK as they played mostly hip-hop (99% american) but the women there were something else. But let me start from the beginning.

After getting lost twice on the trams, I finally showed up at the clubs around midnight, which as it turns out, is a little early to show up. The club is open until 4am, some til 6am. I walk into the club and nearly walk straight back out. It was all 16-18 year old kids and not my type of crowd. But the bouncer explained the older crowd came later so I took a seat in the back. After sitting for about five minutes I noticed the guys next to me were speaking english and ended up coming from Virginia. After meeting them I was surprised to find that three croation girls just come right up to us start and talking away. I've never had it so easy dancing or meeting girls in a club before. For most of the night I would just dance and if the three croat girls I initially met left for a drink, a couple of other girls would just come dancin right up to me. Its one of the best times dancing I ever had! Lovin' the attention I tell you. But for the most part I hung out with the initial three croation girls (they were a little crazy, but at least older than 21) and they gave me a ride back to the hotel too (at about 4:30) which was good cause I found out the trams dont run at night and a taxi would have been expensive.

So that brings me to why I stayed here for another night--one of the three croations, her name is Zerica, said she would love to show me some of the Zagreb sights (my translation anyway).
So thats the plan tonight, and tomorrow I am definetly out of here to the Zadar city and Adriattic coast.