Zagreb
Trip Start
Sep 14, 2007
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2
Trip End
Sep 28, 2007
Zagreb, Croatia
Saturday, September 15, 2007
Saturday, Sep. 15, 2007
8:15AM
The dark rain clouds hung low as the plane made its landing into Paris. The big difference flying into Europe from America this year was the ABSENCE of filling out any immigration form. Was there a new law enacted between the US and the EU, which dropped the requirement of filling out our passport information? And now we did not have to fill out anything to declare. This was such a major change bringing conveniences to travelers between the two economic superpowers.
Returning to reality and with only 45 minutes allotted for the connection, I literally had to rush from one terminal to the other (after speed shopping for some freshly published bestseller French books, of course)
01 Western Coast of France at Dawn
. With only five minutes to spare before the departure of the next flight, I successfully navigated through security and was packed into a crowded, standing-room-only bus. We were taken to a special area of the airfield where smaller twin-engine planes were parked on the tarmac. I took a close look at the plane, checked my ticket, and looked at the plane again. It could not have been larger than a regular school bus! Reluctantly, the other American passengers and I were herded onto this plane. In fact, almost 80% of the passengers spoke English with an American accent.Wait a minute, we looked around and saw few non-American tourists traveling with us. Was this plane assigned to people from a certain country for a particular reason? - such was the prevailing, unspoken suspicion...Pleso International Airport
Zagreb, HRVASTKA (Croatia in local language)
Saturday, Sep. 15, 2007
11:30AM
Due to high anxiety from almost everyone on board whenever the plane made a slight bump, hardly anyone requested any caffeinated drink from the flight attendant. The plane finally landed in Croatia
02 Landscape of Zagreb Surroundings
! Plesno International Airport itself was especially small, perhaps half the size of Hobby Airport in Houston. I couldn't believe I was finally in Croatia. Now I would have to consciously refrain from thinking in French and switch to Croatian as the language of communication. After passing through passport control, the first order of business was to exchange some money. Nowadays, travel is made so convenient with ATM's that I could ignore the long line at the airport bank counter. In fact, when I passed by the long line, I found out most of the people were from Russia who had exchanged their Roubles into US Dollars before coming to Croatia, and were now exchanging the dollars into Kunas since Roubles were not widely recognized in Croatia (as I was later told by a local here). In my travel experience with money, I have learned that there are very few universal currencies that are readily recognized everywhere without question, one of which is the US Dollar. Benjamin Franklin, especially, is universally honored from Mongolia to Tahiti.LINGUISTIC MAYHEM
I stepped outside the airport to find the Croatian Airlines shuttle to go downtown. A busdriver was throwing some luggage inside the lower compartments. "Oprostite, idete li u centar?" (Excuse me, do you go downtown?) He looked and smiled at me, "Idem (Yes)." I was able to ask for the duration and direction to get to my hotel from the Bus Terminal
03 Sava River and New Zagreb District
. Then, I froze. I forgot the word "fare." I paused and tried to find a way to ask how much, but my nervousness prevented me from recalling how. Realizing that Croatian and Russian belonged to the same Slavic linguistic family, there was a significant homology in the grammar and vocabulary, just like between Spanish and Portuguese. Desperately I asked, "Vy govorite po-russki" (Do you speak Russian?) He was quiet. I asked him in Russian how much. He looked at me, grumbled, and replied 30 Kunas. Then he told me in Russian that he would prefer to communicate IN ENGLISH! Had I known he knew English and was offended by Russian, that would have been our lingua franca immediately. I later learned that most Croatians can understand and converse very well in Russian, but they resent using that language for historical reasons. Many also speak English very well. An analogous error in my past travel was to use Spanish in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil. The people there could understand Spanish very well, but they would resent tourists conversing with them in Spanish rather than in English.IF YOU SPEAK CROATIAN, YOU WILL BE REWARDED
I asked a middle-aged female Croatian passenger on the bus which tram line to use in order to get to my hotel once we arrived to the bus terminal
04 Outdoor Cafe Right In Front of Hotel - Zagreb
. She was surprised I was speaking to her in Croatian. Immediately she was puzzled and asked how I knew Croatian. I told her of my very limited, basic Croatian after having studied it for one month. Upon entering the bus terminal, she immediately told me to follow her since she was heading in that direction. The tram finally came, and after getting on, I did not have any change for a 6 Kuna ticket. The tram driver obstinately refused to give me change for a 20 Kuna bill and remained motionless. The passengers were growing impatient. The pleasant middle-aged lady immediately intervened and paid for me, adding in Croatian that it was a welcome gift for someone who was learning Croatian. I tried to give her 20 Kunas, but she declined to accept it, reiterating it was a treat from her since she felt honored that a foreigner had enough interest to study her langauge. SHORT HISTORY OF CROATIA
Croatia, twice the size of Massachussetts but with two-thirds of that state's population, lies at the crossroads of Central Europe and the Mediterranean. Originally settled in the early seventh century A.D. by Croats arriving from present-day Poland, Croatia is a country ruled by various nations, tossed from the Hungarian Empire to Austria to Italy to the Ottoman Empire over a millennium
05 Coffee Break - Zagreb
. It has existed in a continual hand-me-down state, worn out by the caprice of one empire to another. After World War II, it was then annexed to the Yugoslavian Federation. However two years after the fall of the Iron Curtain, in 1991, Croatia declared its own independence, sparking a punitive war led by the Serbs and Yugoslav People's Army against the fledgling Croatian government. After many bitter and costly battles, the war finally came to an end with the Dayton Accords signed in Ohio in 1995. The dream of finally having the right to exist as an independent country among the world's community of more than 180 nations finally became a reality! Croatia, with a median annual income of US$13,200 in 2006 (source: CIA Worldfact), is now facing a bright future, becoming a viable candidate for membership in the European Union (EU) and NATO. 
