Croatia: Part One

It's going to be hard to summarize my trip up in a few paragraphs ( or more than a few, I suppose). I think I could probably write a book about it. In fact, who is stopping me? Maybe I will. But not today ;). I realized though that part of my character hangs on the fact that I take a bit of time to make a decision. I like to hem and haw over things, but then once I finally make up my mind, I tend to see it through. Sometimes I'll try something out, before making the decision, and then decide it's not for me. I took some time making up my mind on going to Croatia or not. Part of it had to do with the unstable communications. Part of it was feeling unsure whether I would be welcome or not. Not so much welcome, but whether I would be able to be made time for. I didn't really want to intrude. I can't believe I worried over something so silly.
The first part of my week should not be excluded, even though it wasn't spent in Croatia. The few days I had just to relax were wonderful as well. I read, I slept, I paid attention the election, and I went for bike rides. Bike rides along the Donau have turned out to be one of my favourite things about Germany. But enough about Germany, I'm sure you are all very anxious to here about my trip.
Honestly, I was a bit nervous about the whole thing in general. Buying the ticket loomed in my mind like a big ordeal. But honestly, approaching a desk always tends to make me slightly nervous, and doing it in another language only makes it worse. That was actually pretty simple. It was a good start for the trip, I think.
I woke up on Thursday with plenty of time to get myself ready for the trip. But as always, I tend to find something to dawdle over. It usually tends to be the internet.. Big surprise. I wasn't late to the train station though, but I could have been a bit earlier. I found my platform to Munich, where I would make my only train change. The train from Munich arrived in Regensburg about 10 minutes. It wasn't a very encouraging beginning. The train arrived in Munich a little more than 10 minutes late as well, and surprise, surprise, I missed my connecting train. I had to go to the Munich trainstation desk and as about which train I could take to get to Zagreb. This of course was a bit of an ordeal as well, with the slight language barrier. I know my German has gotten ten times better than when I first got here, but I can't help but get nervous when I have to speak to someone official. This is my biggest downfall. I would probably be fine if it weren't for the nerves. We eventually understood each other and the lady at the desk gave me a print out of the next train I should take. She told me I should take a train from Munich to Salzburg, Austria, and then from there to Zagreb. I would have to wait about three hours though.
With that in mind, I went to grab myself a quick doner kebap, my favourite German fast food. It's actually Turkish though, as far as I have been told, and is very similar to the Gyro. Actually, I can't find the difference. But doner kebaps are always on hand in Germany, and for that I am very thankful. I also stopped by the Press & Bucher, a book store. Lucky for me, as the Munich trainstation is rather international, they also carry books in English. Of course, since it's a trainstation store, their selection is rather limited. I picked out the new best seller, Twilight, which is a series aimed for teen girls, about a vampire. I had heard that it was the next Harry Potter, and that the new Harry Potter movie had been delayed because of the fact that the film version of Twilight was scheduled to come out at the same time. So I thought, why not, and picked it up. It definitely kept me busy during the 8 hour train ride (one way..), for which I am very grateful. However, I was really not that impressed. I got pretty sick of hearing how achingly beautiful the vampire boy was, after, oh, about the twenty-second time, only five pages into the book. It still had it's marits.
The ride there was enjoyable enough. Lucky for me, I paid attention to the arrivals board, and realized that there was an earlier train to Salzburg than the lady had told me. Of course, instead of waiting three hours in Munich, I would have to wait two hours in Munich, and then one hour in Salzburg, but the break up seemed a little bit easier to consume. The ride to Salzburg was rather beautiful. It took several hours to actually see any of the alps, and then the gradually got higher and higher. I also just recently figured out what the "tiny houses" I have been seeing so often are. Because Germans tend to have such small yards, especially when they live in aparments, there are large plots of land divided up for Germans to have a small spot of land to grow a small garden. These small plots also have very small garden sheds. As I flew by the landscape, I saw many adorable old ladies puttering around in their little garden plots. Even their clothing looked like something that could only exist 40 or 50 years ago. I also saw plenty of livestock. Sheep, cows, horses, you name it. I was especially amused by the sheep, and I even saw a few sheep herders.
The later it got, the more I became disenchanted with the ride of course. By about 5 or so pm, it started to get dark, and I could no longer look out the window as a source of amusement. And I still had another 6 hours to go. I slept some, but I don't tend to sleep on the train that well. All in all, it was a relatively normal train ride. As we went through Slovenia and then into Croatia, the border patrol checked IDs and passports. Relatively simple.
Finally I got to the Zagreb train station. I believe I will put a lot more faith in my intuition from now on. As soon as I got of the train, I saw Marin. I had only seen a few pictures of him, but I immediately thought it was him. Then my logic decided to rule out and tell me that it couldn't be him, as we had agreed to meet on Saturday. I wandered around the station a bit, trying to find an ATM to withdraw from my bank account into the local currency. I couldn't find it at first, and tried to ask a lady at a newspaper stand. Of course, she didn't know any English. I pulled out my debit card and pointed to it and she said "Cash?". Ah. The universal language. I got some money, and walked outside to see if I could find the bus stop, which I was supposed to be taking to my youth hostel. As it was past midnight....the buses had stopped running. I noticed a taxi parked outside, but without a driver inside. I started to try and find the cab driver, but that nagging feeling I had expierenced earlier won out, and I curiously walked back to where I thought I had saw Marin. He was walking around near the platform, and it looked like he was waiting for someone. I thought for a minute, and eventually we neared each other, and I stopped and looked at him. Eventually it dawned on us, and we realized who the other was. I will probably never forget that moment, as he embraced me immediately as if we had known each other forever. Intuition is a much more powerful thing than I ever realized.