New York, Russia, Croatia - Zagreb

From Portland, Maine to New York, to the instant utilization of our rain gear on our walk to the hotel and check in.  It’s time for a U2 concert!   Taking the 5-minute walk to Madison Square Garden, I had never been there and had never seen U2 live either.   I was in store for a treat.   The venue was setup very intelligently and is arranged so that the stage stretches the full length of the arena, along the center, from front to rear.   U2 took full advantage of this and to a great level from the moment their first performance started at their initial location, to the center of the arena, to above that, to the opposite side of the stage, full band and all.   A song or two up in the huge structure-screen-see-through-partition in the middle of the arena, and they were basically rocking it out from all over.   Not only did they deliver the songs well musically, they brought people from the audience actually up on stage to interact.   They also used art between and during songs, and directed their energy around the room like experts by playing full songs facing different segments of the crowd.  This made everyone in those segments feel like they were in the “front row” for at least some of their experience at the concert.  John Kane’s recommendation of getting tickets on the floor was clutch.   Candace and I were able to walk back and forth as the band moved, keeping ourselves in the “front row”, and seeing the concert from a whole new interactive way never experienced before by us.

 After the concert we went to the highest rooftop lounge/bar in the City to view the night sky and buildings to wrap up the night.  In the morning, we took a jog over to the Nintendo Store, and then to John Hardy, NY where we found that they were moving their whole operation that day so didn’t get a chance to chat with anyone but a cool Tech dude.  He told us the inside scoop on Guy moving on from the company that very morning and the email that was sent…  Then we went to a Tesla store and played around with Tesla tech.   It was cool, because I had just finished the Elon book, like I mentioned in the previous post, so despite the fact that I had been to a Tesla store before, I was now looking at it in a new light after reading the book about him, SpaceX and Tesla.  New York is always fun to visit.  We only regret that we didn’t have more time for this go around.  It was now time to catch a train from Penn Station back to Jamacia station and then onto an Airplane to Moscow, our connection to Croatia.

Being able to sleep anywhere, anyplace is such a difference from my childhood when I used to have problems sleeping every night.  Now I’m grateful that I can pretty much pass out anywhere anytime.  Or stay up for a full day for that matter.   Timing it perfect, we were on our plane around 7pm, I slept on the plane 7 hours, woke up 10am in Moscow ready to go.  With our flight being not utill 7:30am next day, and not willing to spend $600 for visas for a few hours in the city, we roamed the entire terminal D, E, F and scoped out all the lounges to find the best, about 7 in all, while figuring out what restaurant that we would eat at along the way.   Determining that the Space Lounge would be the “winner” of the lounge competition, we first went back to a promising restaurant for lunch and grabbed some unique food, including russian meatballs while we watched some soccer.   After lunch, It’s in the Space Lounge that we spent the remaining 7 or 8 hours of our day, mostly doing research for the trip and organizing stuff while enjoying the amenities of the lounge.   After a movie, we headed to the In-Airport Space Capsule hotel we had reserved the night before and crashed out around 11pm,  making our plane the following morning to Zagreb, Croatia!

Landing in Zagreb around 10am, we were happy to finally be in Croatia!   We quickly found that almost any Croatian under 50 speaks english pretty darn well and that everyone was super friendly.   Getting our rental car and reading the “how to drive stick instructions” that I had my assistant google and print out for me before we left, plus recalling some tips from my Mentee Ian Conners, we soon arrived at the vehicle ready to give it a go.  Certainly not idea circumstances, I was not pulling out from a garage or a parking lot that I could practice in, but instead directly into busy traffic from a parking spot on the side of the road.  In fact, it was the only road exiting from the airport and was busy traffic zooming by.  Taking a deep breath I gave it a go.  After stalling the vehicle a few times, I realized that the parking break was still on - hah, an amateur mistake. Putting that down, and giving it a couple more tries, I was off on the road and into second and third gear no problem.  A few minutes later, as we figured out where we were going, following the GPS, we pulled up to a light at a major intersection, through, and to an immediate stop.  A police man and others were waving their arms.  What had looked like a construction zone and a one lane through, guided by cones, was actually an entirely closed road.  We’d have to find a different way.  Police and military guys immediately started yelling at me that I’m going the wrong way.  So I had been driving clutch all of 5 minutes and am suddenly trying to learn how to shift to reverse and into the big intersection without getting hit and, of course, stalling out like crazy while simultaneously trying to avoid cones…  Not only that but I had to time it right backing into this intersection correctly, figure the clutch, and remain level-headed while the police looks at me like I’m crazy and is yelling and getting more and more pissed.  I’m thinking to myself am I going to get arrested or what are these guys going to do, pull me out of the car speaking a million Croation words a minute and assume I’m a drunk driver, etc etc.  It was one of those moments we all have where you are like wholly s**t, you take a deep breath, stop focusing on what you don’t want, think about what you do want, focus, and just make it happen.  Boom, reverse, forward, 1st, second and third without stalling and we were out of there!  It was actually pretty entertaining because I love challenges and that was a cool scenario.  

The next “stick shift” challenge came 20 minutes later when we were driving in and around downtown Zagreb, with traffic, tons of one ways, and the GPS malfunctioning.   So we pulled right when the GPS said go right and then straight one kilometer.   Well we had pulled into the “street” and immediately went down one of the steepest inclines I’d been on and onto a bar across the road, leading into a parking garage.  Those that drive stick can probably guess what happened next.  Well I must say first that this GPS was crazy, as we later found out on the trip.   I would need more than two hands full of fingers to count out the number of times it was wrong or I had to ignore it to prevent going the wrong way.   Anyhow, I’m turned around to exit the parking garage at the small round-about and started trying to get the car into 1st gear, going up this hill to get out.  Of course we stall out.   And again, and again, falling backwards.   So apparently this hill required me to nearly pedal the gas to the floor to get the car into 1st gear and up the thing, it must have been a 20 or 30% grade.   The rest of the trip, driving the stick was easy!  The trials and tests came in the first 30 minutes - hah!

Our apartment in Zagreb was awesome.  It overlooked one of the main squares with a beautiful view from the 6th floor.  Modern and clean, with a location that really couldn’t be beat and a cost of less than $100 a night, we were glad to be there.  Once settled, Candace booked the next evenings lodging in Pitvice Falls area, while I narrowed down the best restaurant in Zagreb.  We got ready to go out and and soon walked happily out of the apartment to the main square where Zagreb's market takes place.  On the way to a dinner place I had researched, Konoba Didov San, we took Tkalciceva Street which was a VERY cool walk.  The old wide cobble road had absolutely zero cars passing through it.  Instead it was filled with people, and for about a kilometer, with restaurants, local shops, bars, music, some beautiful trees and walls.  Everyone was mostly passing through enjoying the surroundings, or finding a cafe or restaurant to stop at and grab a bite, people watch, relax, sip some coffee, beers, or enjoy cigarettes, etc.   

Just before arriving to dinner, we passed by a pretty interesting church, St Mark's Church, with an intense roof of colorful tile.   Dinner was great, but lacking any spectacular veggie options.  The atmosphere was excellent, service great, and interesting local food to give a try!  Afterwords we couldn’t resist just heading back to Tkalciceva Street to enjoy it rather than just pass through.  We did some shopping and found a comfortable spot to chill.   I met some locals who were in a band and chatted about the history of the area, their friends Hostel in Hvar, and their home-grown tobacco, which he gave me his pouch of at the end of the conversation!  I found myself amazed at the hospitality and great attitudes of the Croatians.   Everyone we came into contact with was so cool, it was almost like I was back in Ireland.  Stopping at a couple of other places, we ended the night, with our windows open to the square absorbing the sounds of Zagreb into a slumber.

In the morning we walked down and out to the square which had a market setup.  We grabbed a bunch of fresh local fruits and veggies including figs, apples, carrots, cucumbers, bananas, grapes, and tomatoes.   We stocked up for the Plitvice Falls area which we knew wouldn’t have much of any stores or restaurants near it.
After heading back to the apartment, grabbing our stuff and organizing the Day Pack, we dropped our bags off at the car, and set off on an epic walk down Trg Nikole Subica Zrinskog with huge trees and fountains all around.  Turning right we had some fun at a random exercise machine type park where they had structures set up for working out and then entered into a botanical gardens.  After exploring the gardins we headed north, passing Hrvatsko Narodno Kazaliste u Zagrebu, a famous theater.  For lunch we ate at a really great vegan place - Zrno bio Bistro, which had unique tasty beverages and food.  Walking back up into the center, we went to the Cathedral, which reminded me of a smaller Notre Dame.  So beautiful.   Passing through various squares and plazas, we picked up a pair of shoes for me because my Toms were falling apart.  We had also come to realize by now that the exchange is pretty good and in general things are cheap in Croatia.   Everything is about half or a third of what it would be in the States.  A great dish at a really nice restaurant meal might cost $30 or 50 in the USA and is only $15 or 20 here.   Same applies for some jewelry, clothing, etc.  Basically anything Croatian.

Back to car, we headed out to Splitvick Lake area, where we checked in, I worked on the Maine blog, Candace booked Airbnb for Zadar, and we ended the night with an important discussion as well as reading a bit in my Dirk Pit adventure by Clive Cussler called Inca Gold.