Ok not the exact quotation, but its what I've been saying when stumbling upon something particularly foreign to us. Today was one of those days.
It started at 5 am, waking to the sound of rain as we packed our final things, and eating some breakfast before leaving for the bus stop. Martin had asked us where we were going and gave us the best route to get the train station bless him.
So on the train to Zagreb. the rain, which had obligingly stopped for our journey to the train station, slowly got started again. It was a very bleak trip across the Hungarian landscape, with the rain, and a chill in the air. Four hours survived and we arrived at the Hungarian border. Thats where it got interesting. The train stopped. And waited. Then a man wandered through the carriage carrying a sledge hammer. Then the train moved up the tracks slowly, then back again. And we waited. Then one group of police came through, checking the bathroom, ceiling vents etc. Next was the 'Hungarian passport', he checked our passports in his portable machine, stamped them and moved on. After him another group of random officials wandered through the carriage. Then came more police, then 'Croatian passport' to stamp our passports again. Behind him was customs. Being in a four seat with just three girls we were basically ignored, the woman looked at my bag shoved between the backs of the seats and said 'luggage?' I claimed it and she moved on. The people across from us had their bags searched though. Finally they all disembarked and the ticket man came through. Cool we thought, intense for a train, and very different to the train from Vienna to Budapest (no one even looked at our passports, at any stage). Then the ticket man told us 'next station you get out, bus go 30 km, back on train'. Sure enough at the next station we all disembarked and were hurried on to a couple of waiting buses. They drove us through the Croatian country side, alternating between boiling hot and freezing cold with the air conditioning. Just when I was wondering if they were ever going to put us back on a train, we arrived at another small station where a train was waiting. We piled on, into a compartment style carriage (and the worst toilets I have ever had to use). Amazingly we did reach Zagreb, just half an hour late or so.
So Croatia didn't feel so friendly at that point. It was strange coming across that sort of border control on a train, particularly since we've been travelling between countries for a while now without any sort of notice being paid. Arriving in Zagreb was much simpler than arriving at Budapest. There was an ATM in the train station so we could get some local currency - without being ripped off by currency convertors. There was also a tisk (or something like that) the newstands from which you can buy tram tickets. The tram was then right outside the front, the one we wanted sitting there as we walked up.
When we got off we found the white business building that was our marker, and walked towards the pedestrian lights. We were standing waiting to cross looking at my notebook trying to ensure that the street we were looking at was the one that we wanted to go down. There was a grim looking woman standing a few metres away from us. She looked at us and walked straight up to help us, without speaking any English. I showed her the name of the street we wanted and she confirmed it was the one we were on. It was so lovely. The city suddenly felt much friendlier. It was just so out of the blue and so helpful.
Things got better once we reached the actual hostel. Its clean, and has nice bathrooms, and a nice kitchen. We have to change for our last night, but thats ok. Plus the girl at reception was unsmiling but very helpful. So two days. We'll have to figure out what to choose to fill them. We may meet up with an American girl we meet on the train, who is travelling alone in Zagreb. I guess we'll see.
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