Crikey! We're in Croatia!: Zagreb

Egg hunt

We carpooled to Zagreb with our friend Iva on Saturday morning, so the kids could attend an Easter Egg Hunt at the ambassador's residence. They were very excited for the bouncy house, the face painting, the sack races, the egg hunt, and especially to get to play with some American children. Unfortunately, it was rainy and quite cold the entire morning. I made the kids dress up a notch from their normal attire, and Jonah complained bitterly, but when we got there, it was clear from the ambassador's hooded sweatshirt that this was not a churchy kind of egg hunt. I should have worn my bluejeans (which, by the way, were brilliantly rescued from their courtyard purgatory by my upstairs neighbor, so the torment is over).

Trg Bana Josipa Jelacica (Zagreb's main square)

We took a taxi from the leafy northern part of town back to the main square and warmed up with hot chocolate at the very fancy and jam-packed Gradska Kavana (City Cafe). We had been warned to stay away from the main square because the day before, in the International War Crimes Tribunal at the Hague, two Croatian war generals were convicted of atrocities against Serbs during a 1995 ethnic cleansing campaign. The protestors were out in full force. They're raging mad at the EU and the Croatian

Old town (Sabor around the corner)

government because their government agreed to cooperate with the trial so they could move forward with their EU application. All the roads and alleys leading up to old town, where the government buildings are located, were occupied by police officers with riot helmets, so we felt that the Croatian government was taking the anger of the protestors quite seriously.

Most every museum was closed after 1PM on Saturday, so we decided to just walk around a bit. We passed a sign on a building commemorating a synagogue that is now a parking lot. We took a funicular up to the old town and saw the Croatian Sapor (the Croatian Parliament), which looks strikingly modest after seeing the Budapest version a couple weeks ago. And then, at a statue of St. George and the slayed dragon in the old town, we completely LOST the entire three bags of Easter hunt goodies which were supposed to entertain the kids on the 2 1/2 hour bus ride home. The girls didn't mind a bit but Jonah... There was a very serious gelato shop. Jonah cheered up a little when he got to have a Kinder Chocolate gelato.

We were on the 4:00 bus back (everyone slept), and then we went out to eat at our favorite Rijeka pizzeria, Pizzeria Bracere, which has a nautical theme and a wooden boat hanging from the rafters. In the back, while looking at a painting on the wall, Georgie said "that's our building!" Sure enough, it was our very own Casa Nave.