Today was sight seeing day!!! Cassidy and I started our day by going to check in at our hostel. We had booked through a site called hostelbookers.com. This is a site where you can type in a location you are traveling too, and then available hostels are shown that you can book. A hostel can look a lot of different ways, it can be like a dorm with lots of beds, or more of a single apartment. The thought behind them is they are a cheaper alternative than hotels for traveling. Ours was a bit more expensive, but it was an apartment all to ourselves and did have free wi-fi. Here is our hostel:
Following our check-in we began our journey around Zagreb. Our first stop was at the Croatian School Museum. This was a museum totally dedicated to education in Croatia. There were displays and artifacts from hundreds of years into the past. As a teacher, I was comparing in my head to the education system that I know and now work in. There were many similarities as far as the look of their classrooms and manipulatives. It was a great museum to start our day!
We then decided to start our walk towards the Upper Town of Zagreb. This is the area north of the actual city square, it is also the oldest part of Zagreb. We were coming from the southwest of the upper town... just walking knowing an end destination but not really having a plan for which way we were going to get there. Walking up a hill, Cassidy saw a walkway with a steep incline that we decided looked like it went towards upper town. I am so glad we took the walkway. We would have gotten there if we had continued walking up the street, but this was an absolutely beautiful walk way- once we were past the VERY steep incline. Here are pictures of where it lead us:
We found a souvenir shop at the end of our walk. Cassidy and I decided that we need to help Macedonia get more "tourist friendly"- we are going to start a list to provide to the tourist group when we leave. This list will include: souvenir shops, bus or shuttle travel from the airport since it is out of the city a ways, tourist center with maps, websites that are current and updated with information on transportation and activities in the city... and I am sure the list will grow :) But back to Zagreb- We of course found some items that we had to purchase... I found some hand drawn pictures of the city, I am going to start a collection of artwork from the cities I travel to! Christmas ornaments, magnets etc were also purchased! The view from this spot was beautiful, so we stopped to take some pictures as we were serinaded by a man with a guitar on the street corner... it was a really awesome atmosphere! It was then that it really hit me that I was a world traveler... I was in another European city! It really was all that I had dreamed it up to be- beautiful buildings, music, great cafes... I could get use to seeing new places!! (Just for the record though, I still think that home is home, and living in the states is where I want to live, but traveling is pretty great).
Photos of our Upper Town self-walking tour:
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| Government buildings |
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| Government buildings |
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The next stop was the Museum of Broken Relationships. I really enjoyed this museum. It was very different than the others we went to... all the exhibits in the museum were items that represented the end of relationships that people have had. Some were more humorus, like the guy who was deeply in love with his girlfriend, they had moved in together, but she was not ready for more of a commitment, she left town for a week or two, and he found out it was to visit her other boyfriend. He bought and ax, and to relieve his anger, he chopped up all of the furniture she had left at his apartment while she was away. When she came back for it it was in piles of wood... the item on display was the ax. But there were also tragic ones, wedding albums from relationships that were not what they seemed to be. Stuffed animals that were representations of the love two people shared. A love letter that a woman wrote for her boyfriend that was away, when she asked him in an email for his address to send it to him, he broke up with her...she glued the letter to glass and then shattered it, the exhibit was the shattered letter... These items have been donated from people all over the world. It was an amazing museum!
The next museum was Gallerija Klovicevi Dvori. This was more of a traditional art museum. Most of the works were classic and/or traditional. Many oil paintings on paper, canvas, cardboard... sculptures... it was really beautiful. I really appreciated the time that must have gone into many of these pieces of work.
Then it was to the Zagreb City Museum. This museum was the history of the town of Zagreb. I enjoy history, unfortunately most of the write ups for the exhibits were in Croatian, which meant un-readable for Cassidy and I. Although the words would have been interesting, we were able to get a lot of information from just looking! There were also write ups in English when the time periods switched so we were able to get some information in writing as we walked into each room. The name of Zagreb was first used in the 11th century!! As I was walking through the exhibits, it was amazing to me to think of the history that cities and countries have around Europe (not just Europe, all over, but for this purpose I was thinking about Europe). America has rich history but as a country it dates back only a few hundred years... the land has more of a story and history though. But looking at the thousands of years of history for the city of Zagreb put me into a state of reflection.... we continued on all the way to 1991 when Croatia fought for its independence as a country. I was literally speechless looking at the photos of this time period... it was war, in pictures that were of the same quality of pictures I am in back home. This was a war that I was alive for. This involved everyday people, children, families... I still don't really have words for the emotions that were stirred up inside of me....and these pictures were not unique to just Croatia, but to all of the countries of the Former Yugoslavia...
After all the walking and museums, we decided we needed a bit of something to eat, but not too much since we were going to dinner in not too many hours! We stopped at a little shop, Cassidy got a pastry and I got another type of Burek- Sarajevski style. We sat in the center and enjoyed our treats!
We then decided to walk towards the Zagrebačka katedrala. This is a catholic cathedral just next to the city square. The detail on the architecture was really indescribable! I have photos for you to see, but I am not sure it can really do justice to what it looks like from the ground up... I took lots of pictures trying to capture each angle that I saw... On the north side of the cathedral was an old fortress and on the south side a museum. At this point we decided that we were a bit tired for the museum.. we journeyed to the post office, by the train station- lesson learned here- post office lines are long no matter what country you are in :) Then back to the hostel to let our feet rest before they fell off!! We walked SO far this day- but it was wonderful all the sites we saw!
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For dinner we met Jessica and Elizabeth two other Fulbright ETAs for dinner. We went to an Indian Restaurant. Although it was not the Oven, The Peacock, Janpur, or Taj Mahal... it was Indian food!! I had chicken curry with garlic naan!
After that Cassidy and I made our way back to the hostel... we sat on the couch commiserating our sore feet... flipping through channels when low and behold... COLLEGE FOOTBALL!!! It was the perfect end to a wonderful day! I got to watch the Iowa vs Michigan game... along with updates from the Husker game... which was not a highlight!
This was a jam packed day- filled with images of architectural beauty, the realities of war, and the feeling of being a world traveler. Pretty amazing day!
Lesson: It only takes one image and moment to influence a persons perspective forever.
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