Musical seats

Day 14

14 June 2012

Ah, to sleep in on the day you have to leave. I think of all the poor souls who had to get up at 4 am for their 6 am transfer. After my experience in Moscow (tour ending at 11:30 pm and awake for my transfer at 2 am), 

I`ll never have an early departure if it can be helped.

I was up at 6:30 and took the time to do some computer stuff and pack some more. Then one of my tourmates came to my door and asked if I wanted another tour of the buffet. I said absolutely.

Some of the 10:30 transfer crowd decided to do the buffet around 8:30. So, she showed me the smoked salmon, the nuts, the pancakes with maple syrup and all the other selections in what was, without a doubt, the best breakfast selection on this tour.

The pancakes with maple syrup were delicious. Not a strong syrup which I like.

By 9:30, it was time to retrieve my luggage. The cats were already gone. Their transfer was at 9 for their charter A380 directly home. They`ll be home a full day before me.

I hope I left enough litter out.

We all meet up at 10 am for the transfer and the bus driver comes in and says he`s been waiting an hour. No problem. The sooner we get to the airport, the better. I`ll have about 2 hours before I my flight leaves.

So I haul my luggage out to the bus and throw it aboard and I stand there thinking that I suddenly feel a bit light.

OMG. I had left my knapsack on the coffee table in the lobby.

Well, you want to see a Newfie with bad knees run.

Turns out two people were surfing the web at the couches, so no one touched the bag (thinking it might be theirs). You want to talk about the heart doing a flip. Everything was in there including my passport.

So, I haul it on and get aboard the bus. It`s 10:15. Perfect. We should get there with more than 2 hours to spare. We leave the hotel and drive for about 20 or so minutes when I realize we seem to be going in the opposite direction to what we were 10 minutes earlier. Then Gasper notes that we have to drop one of the solos off at the train station as she`s getting a train to Slovenia. And as we approach the train station, the buildings looked awfully familiar, including the opera house which was just around the corner from the hotel.

We`re not sure what happened. I know in Athens, the bus used to have to drive for 20 minutes to find the one-way streets to the hotel and Gasper said that we had to go out of our way for that, but we`re a curious bunch. Did someone forget her? LOL We drop off the solo and get back on the highway we were on earlier and drive the half hour to the airport. It`s 11:15 by the time we get there, but mercifully, the airport hasn`t changed much since I was there in 94. It`s still tiny. Only 12 gates and no ramps. All buses and stairs.

I get through the check in pretty quickly and go straight to my gate. There`s no one in line at security or immigration. I get my passport stamped and walk down into the international departures area. It has barely changed in 20 years. I think the chairs are the same. The only difference is there a bar with snacks and a duty free store. In 94, I sat for 9 hours in this same room and there wasn`t a store, a shop or even a vending machine to be had. 

The flight is Lufthansa and leaves on time. There was something about an A380 getting delayed over a lack of gushy food but apparently it was sorted out.

We take off at 1:10 and get into Munich on time. Again, it`s stairs and buses to the terminal in Munich. By the time I quickly get through security and get up to H area, I have less than a half hour before my flight leaves. Not enough time to figure out how to log on to their 30 minute free internet. I get my Kuna changed to Euro since I can`t get the Kuna changed in Canada and I pick up a fridge magnet and a cat figurine (it`s one of those specialty Goebel ones…cost 20 Euro for a little one).

The gate starts to board and there`s no call for row number, so that means only one thing. We`re busing it out to our A330.

I take my seat in my favorite inside left aisle seat. I always pre-select a D seat since my old shoulder injury prefers the aisle armrest (because if there’s someone sitting to my left and I can’t support the arm on the armrest, it can put strain on the arthritic joints there).

So, I get settled in and this young woman crosses the other seats and stands in the seat next to me facing backwards. I glance back and see her husband pointing at me. I know immediately that he wants her to ask me for my seat, but there’s something about the way he does it that bugs me. It feels like he’s ordering her to do something she doesn’t want to do.

She eventually, and shyly, asks me for my seat.

If it had been a parent looking for my pre-selected comfy seat to sit next to a child, no problem. I’ve done that twice in the past even though the replacement seats weren’t better. But an obviously intimidated young wife and an overbearing husband. No way. The seat they want me to take is farther back and next to the window seat and the overheads are full. No thanks. I’m not stuffing my carryon under my feet for a guy that won’t even say please. I told her if it’s a D seat nearby, no problem, but that I had pre-selected the seat for a reason.

I’ve never seen a husband go through so much trouble to get his wife to sit next to him. I’ve seen spouses separated on flights all the time – including longer flights than this. I’ll see them look and ask and if they can’t get two together, they just shrug and visit each other during the flight. Even the woman in front of me was separated from her husband and he was in the next compartment. He came back to chat from time to time.

It’s a day time flight and only 8 hours yet this poor young woman’s husband went to the stewardesses, had them ask me and the man in the window seat to move and both of us said no. He was pacing the aisles as everyone got aboard looking for seats. I really got the sense that he was a bit of a bully.

The flight was overbooked and there’s only one seat left on the plane. It’s behind him, across the aisle and one seat in and he makes her move there after we take off even though she’s actually closer in this seat (but on the other side of the compartment). I really feel sorry for her and even though it sounds mean that I didn’t give up my seat, his attitude made didn’t make me feel the least bit guilty for keeping them separate.

As they say. You can get more with honey than vinegar. This guy was vinegar.

And I have to wonder if the flight attendant is peeved that I wouldn’t move. I now had the only empty seat in the plane next to me and the woman in the next seat spreads out on the seat and I put my bag from the overhead to under the seat. We’re both pretty comfy. Then about 3 hours into the flight, the same flight attendant says she has a passenger whose video screen doesn’t work and wants to move him to the empty seat.

I don’t care but the other woman has to go through a lot of trouble to move back to her own seat. Then the man sits in the seats, turns on the maps and goes to sleep listening to his own Walkman.

A little strange given that the maps are up on the screen on the wall.

The man gets up just after the last meal and goes back to his seat. I look at the woman next to me and we both shrug at the same time. She leans over and says “What was all that about?”

No idea.

The funniest part was that after he sat down and turned on the maps, he tried to adjust the volume (remember, he is listening to a Walkman) and the woman and I look around for his controls. Mine are at my right and hers are at her left and we know they are our controls. We look back and forth. The three internal arms have controls, the aisle ones don’t. We look at each other and say “what’s up with this?”

Then she looks back and pulls down another armrest. There are two in the middle of the four seat section and his armrest was up.

Well, did we laugh? Even the women across the aisle were in stitches.

Dinner on the flight was chicken and rice with a nice raspberry cheesecake dessert. The end flight meal was a burrito. Not too bad. The movie selection wasn’t as good as Air Canada’s. I watched Haywire and John Carter, but spent the four hours in between typing up the last couple days and sorting through the photos.

We land ahead of schedule and the customs process is really swift in Montreal. Canadians go to the automated passport terminals and non-Canadians go to the human officers. (Though, the woman in front of me got selected for screening. A randomized thing). I find the hotel shuttles and it’s only a ten minute wait for my Crowne Plaza shuttle. By the time I’m in my room, it’s almost 2 am in Zagreb.

Oh, I’m so happy I choose to stop here for the night. 

Otherwise, the next flight to Newfoundland would have been about a four hour wait plus the flight time and time getting home. I would have been up till after dawn in Zagreb with only a short time on the flight to nap.

Now, after sleeping fairly soundly for 8 hours, I feel caught up on jet lag. A couple more early bedtimes and I should be good to go.

The flights home the next day were about the most uneventful legs home from Montreal to Halifax to St. John’s. Two different flights but the same plane and the same staff.

Walking outside into 7 degrees was an eye-opener.

And in short sleeves, you could say I got chicken skin.

I took a taxi home where I had left my car only to realize that I had left the keys with the cats at my sister’s place. She picked me up and I got the cats home.

That night, one of them left me a nice present. A hairball next to my pillow.

Could have been worse. They left my sister a mouse by her door.

Cats and Tito

Day 13

13 June 2012

Weather: Sunny, rain, 23

T-shirt count: 3

Cat count: 6+

Yes. It is the best bed in Europe. I managed to squeeze myself in among the masses and sleep for 9 solid hours. I needed that.

I get up. The cats decide to spend the day on the bed.

So, I put the Do Not Disturb (or rather “Enter at Own Risk”) sign on my doorknob and go down to breakfast to find such a nice buffet, one of my tourmates offers to give me a tour of the selections. Freshly squeezed orange juice, smoked salmon, pancakes with maple syrup, a variety of nuts and jams, danishes….and some stuff we simply could not recognize. That’s outside of the usual eggs, bacon, croissants etc.

What a feed.

A sight better than the breakfast I had the last time I was in Zagreb in 94 (which consisted of a bun harder than limestone with a piece of processed meat in it and an imitation orange juice.)

Yeah. Some breakfasts are memorable.

After breakfast, we board the bus for our included tour of Zagreb. Our guide is an elderly gentleman whose English is near perfect and his voice over the Whispers carries wonderfully for those of us who are slightly hearing impaired. (Oh, did I mention we use Whispers earlier? I don’t think so. They are smaller than the ones I used in Greece. Smaller than an iphone, lighter and they use a single ear bud instead of a headset. The headset was a pain to use in Greece. Prefer the ear bud immensely).

We drive off and first pass the opera house. The guide tells us that Zagreb used to be divided into two towns. One ruled by the church and one ruled by civilians. In 1850, the two sides united and the city had a population of 40,000 at the time. It now has 800,000.

Yup.

It’s growth was due more to the fact that a rail line from Vienna was constructed in 1862.

And in 1880, the city had a major earthquake which meant much of it had to be rebuilt. Little remains from the Middle Ages and everything wooden was burned down numerous times.

We soon pull up to St. Stephen’s Cathedral – a tall twin towered church with scaffolding on one tower. The guide said it seems to always be there. Much like the one in Vienna. They finish one side and go on to the other. 

The guide says there are services on now so he opts to show us the centre of the town first. We walk through a huge market full of stalls selling fresh fruit and vegetables of every description. The smells are wonderful. Cherries, strawberries, lemons, onions, peppers. They looked so beautiful in the sun, I was going around taking pictures of them.

Much to the curious glances from the vendors.

We turn up from the market and walk up a cobblestone street until we come across the statue of a man on a horse. It’s St. George and the dragon.

But the dragon looks more like a snake.

Then we go through a short tunnel where there’s a painting of Mary which apparently survived the fires of Zagreb while the homes around it burned to the ground. There’s a few pews in there and a place to light candles.

I chased after a cat instead.

Just up from the painting is the oldest operating pharmacy in Zagreb from the 14^th Century. The one in Dubrovnik is the oldest.

Being shown the oldest and second oldest pharmacies in Europe (world?) is definitely something unique. Can’t say any other tour I’ve taken has pointed to a pharmacy and told us it was 700 years old.

The drugs are not out of date, we are assured.

Then we walk up to St. Michael's Square to the prettiest church I’ve ever seen. I’ll let the pictures tell this story. Very nice.

They symbols in one coat of arms include the Kuna which is a symbol for Slovenia, the squares which represent Croatia and the three crowns which represent Venice and Dalmatia. The other coat of arms is the castle which represents Zagreb.

The Parliament buildings are located around this square and just below it is the City Hall which still uses gas lamps outside its main entrance. They apparently are lit every night.

Oddly, or rather ironically, enough, there’s a tribute to Tesla on the side of the building only a few feet away.

Then our guide leads us down to the look out where we can get a look at Zagreb. It’s a flat city with few high rises, but it’s not hard to find our hotel. It’s one of the highest buildings around.

Then we walk along what appears to be part of the original wall and come out to a large square called Jelacic Square after the governor who abolished the feudal system in 1848. We walk through the square and head back to the Cathedral, but coax the guide into letting us go to the washroom first.

Well, I thought I’d seen it all. I go into what appears to be a normal washroom and after it flushes itself, I hear this whining noise. I look around and catch something moving out of the corner of my eye and down.

Visions of an old X-Files episode where the rats come out of the toilet come to mind for an instant. My heart does a flip before I realize the toilet seat is rotating and being cleaned automatically.

Yes, folks. Here, you can use the washroom and go for a spin.

(I went back later to try and get it on video, but after three flushes, I couldn’t get it to spin. Then I heard the one next to me spinning. Though I don’t think the occupant would have appreciated it if I held the camera over the top of the stall to get it on video).

So, you’ll have to use a little imagination.

Or a lot.

Apparently, the men didn’t get rotating urinals. They feel short-changed.

We proceed up to the Cathedral for what is really the one and only tour of a major church on this tour (all the others were like one room schoolhouses, so those tours took all of 2 minutes and the scenery was usually an attraction).

This one is much like the other large churches of Europe. The guide showed us the major features and we did a circle of the church. When we got outside, the guide finished his tour and we met up with Gasper. He said that those of us going on the after optional had an hour of free time and that those who were not going had a choice to either take the bus back or go back to the hotel on their own. It’s probably a half hour walk.

So, I head back to the fruit market and take more pictures of fruit and cats. 

No cats eating fruit, though.

I pick up my Zagreb t-shirts and fridge magnet and walk around the Jalacic Square (and do my re-visit to the Wonderful World of Spinning Toilet Seats). At 11:30, we’re all back on the bus.

Well, almost all. There was some mix up on how many were going on the optional and because some pulled out at the last minute, it was a bit confusing. We thought two more were to show up but they didn’t. We waited 15 minutes and left. After all, if you’re that late, you’re singing and dancing in an empty parking lot.

Turns out the couple were sipping beer in a café.

So, off we went. We dropped off a few to the hotel, including one who wants to go to the spa. She’s lucky the cats really like the bed or she’d never get a spot.

About half the tour chose to take this optional. I wasn’t sure about it. A visit to Tito’s home doesn’t sound exciting.

But that isn’t the highlight. This optional includes lunch.

By far, one of the best meals we’ve had on this tour and that’s saying something. It was a selection of local foods including cheeses, meats, baked beans, bread and more. Including a delicious bowl of cubed beef in pumpkin seed oil.

And that was the appetizer.

The main meal consisted of veal and duck with baked potato and a pasta that reminded me of boiled hard tack.

The veal was delicious.

Dessert was an apple strudel done differently. You know how German strudel can be more bun than burger? 

This one was more burger than bun.

Okay. Apple.

The apple was rolled among the thin crust. Delicious. Everyone was raving about it.

The location was much like our Be My Guest area – up on a hill with a view of the castle above and some animals around including what the Australians called Guinea Fowl. They said they were not native to the area. 

The location is also at the top of a very steep hill about 50 metres long. You definitely feel the ‘burn’ as you climb. Gasper had said he could call for a pick-up if any of us thought we’d prefer the ride up. No one accepted and we all make it in one piece. Then we look behind us to see others from another bus accepting the offer of a ride.

Except it isn’t in a pick-up. It’s in a Mercedes.

We all ask if we can take the ‘pick-up’ down the hill. 

No go. But Gasper does warn us not to run down the hill. He had one guy do it and once he got going down the steep incline, he couldn’t stop. He later said that as he got near the bottom, he had two choices…run to Greece or use the bus to stop him.

Apparently, the driver was sitting peacefully in his seat when suddenly he heard a “BANG” at the back of the bus. Scared the crap outta him.

We opt to walk. Slowly.

The sun slowly gives way to very dark blue skies on the horizon as we drive to Kumrovec and the home town of Tito. It’s actually a nice location. Very well kept and some great photo ops. 

Gasper gives us some history on Tito and tells us that “Tito” in Croatian means “you do that.”

Heh.

He said most loved Tito and it wasn’t until after he died in 1980 that they learned of the political prisoners and mistresses etc. Most still love him.

We take a look inside Tito’s house...

...then Gasper tells us we can take 20 minutes to wander the rest of the town. (How nice! On other tours to similar villages, we’d have to go from house to house to barn to house with the guide. I so much prefer to visit them on my own).

So, as we walk away from Gasper, it starts to rain. Everyone gets a few feet down the road and turns around.

That makes up for the 15 minutes we lost at the start of the optional.

I manage to make it the length of the short town to take pics in the rain, visit the WC and take some cat pics before I pack it in and head to the gift shop for the obligatory fridge magnet. 

As the bus pulls away from the town, the rain stops.

LOL

It’s an hour’s drive back to Zagreb through the same beautiful countryside of rolling hills and homes and farms. The sun even peeks out but that dark blue, almost black mass, on the horizon is following us. We get back to the hotel by 5 pm and that gives us two hours to get ready for the farewell dinner.

I get up to my room and find the bed still happily occupied.

Then it starts to pour rain. And I mean pour. The noise was deafening.

And then it started to roll with thunder and lighting.

Well, you want to see 315 cats move?

Yeah. You should see how they fit under the bed, too.

I manage to get caught up on my computer stuff and get changed for the farewell dinner. I choose my All Roads Lead to Zagreb t-shirt and tell people that I had looked for one that said all roads lead away from Zagreb but no luck.

One woman said the road on the t-shirt was much too straight to be the road leading to Zagreb.

Touche!

The farewell dinner is at a local restaurant and Gasper hands out our free photos. Then we have the usual toasts and go crazy taking photos of each other while we wait for the appetizer.

The choice as always is fish, meat or vegetarian. I had opted for the meat and while everyone around me loved theirs, I got the piece that had a huge chunk of fat running through it. Luck of the draw but I didn`t care. I had eaten so much at lunch, I didn`t need it. I did enjoy the risotto appetizer. Some were saying it was undercooked. It probably could have used like 30 seconds more, so you weren`t crunching on it.

Dessert was a three layer chocolate cake. I liked the top two layers.

By 9:30, we were full and photo-ed out. With two airport transfers and a group of 8 going back to Vienna, we`re constantly asking each other who is going where and when so we know when to make our farewells. The 6 am transfer will leave before most of us get up. When we get back to the hotel, we must have spent a half hour doing our bye-byes.

I ask Gasper for an address to send him a copy of my book. I think he`ll find it interesting.

I give him a tip in Euros and make it a bit generous because he was such a good TD. Interacted well with everyone, never got impatient and thought of everything. One of the best TDs I`ve had.

I get back to the room and I`m wasted. All I want to do is spread out on the best bed in Europe.

Oh. Wait.

Driving towards the best bed in Europe

Day 12

12 June 2012

Weather: Sunny, 27

T-shirt count: 0

Cat count: 0

Thanks to the cats taking turns kneading my back all night, I wake to some stiffness but no real pain. Spot on. I know how easy it is for a simple fall to do a back in for life. Maybe TT can remind its TDs to remind us that the floor can get very wet when you shower in the baths that have a half door and that the floor can be very slippery.

I pack up and head down for breakfast and watch the Queen Victoria II sail by. It’s quite windy too but the wind is hot. Love that.

We pile aboard the bus at 8:30. Yeah. We’re anxious to hit the road. The seats are assigned in the front half of the bus and the people who like the back get to auction off their seats to those that want to move farther forward.

We are all aboard and ready to go at 8:55. Yup. Anxious we are.

It’s 400 km to Zagreb and we expect to arrive around 5:30. Most of the trip will be on the main highway but the first bit is on the slow and winding road where the divided highway doesn`t go yet. The cats plan to do the trip without stopping. They just need some gushy food and a really big litter box.

And they left at 8:54, so I won’t see them speed by like the space shuttle. They’re gone ahead to check out the bidet in the bathroom. They have enough sense to wipe up the floor when they’re done.

The cloud over Dubrovnik clears as we leave the city and the seats on the right hand side become the preferred seats with the sun in the right spot. 

We cross the Bosnian border. It’s about ten minutes to get through the lineup and then we get to Neum and stop at the same spot for a quick break. I pick up some snacks and a Coke and hit the washroom.

As we leave Bosnia, Gasper puts on a comedian who was really good. He said that the word “yup” in English means yes. In Russia, it means sex.

Yup. I’m going to have to edit this entire tale now.

When the comedian is done, Gasper hands around the group photo sample. We’ll be getting it for free. It’s too bad it was done on the one rainy day we had. The sun makes such a difference to photos.

Then Gasper announces that he has gifts for the returning Trafalgar clients. They are prints from an artist that he knows in Dubrovnik. Without a doubt, the nicest returning-client gift I’ve ever gotten. He said he didn’t want to give us something that we could have picked up ourselves or something that is imported from China. A bit of thought went into it and it was appreciated. Everyone got a different print too. (A couple actually complained that they didn`t like the print they got compared to others!)

We drove along a different route towards Split so that we got different scenery and half the left side moved to the right side of the bus to see the coast but as soon as we moved inland, they moved back to the right. Not long after that we move onto the new divided highway and our speed goes up considerably. 

Gasper then gives us a rundown of the tour and tells us we have had a tour with Gasper the friendly ghost. He passes out our evaluation. Tens across the board no problem for me. I noted how much I liked the extra free time and late starts. One gave our driver a slightly lower score on courteous because they said he didn’t interact a lot with us. I told them that he didn’t speak English and they were surprised. Wasn’t hard to figure out after the first day when I realized he didn’t understand the word water. Not a lot of my European drivers have been able to speak English so they don’t interact with the passengers that much. I`m surprised they didn`t notice.

Lunch is just north of Split off the highway in a very very clean restaurant. It’s next to a river that flows out to the Adriatic and we can get a nice pic of the town below. Another hidden treasure. This tour has been full of them.

It starts to rain as we approach the long tunnel that connects Adriatic Croatia to Continental Croatia, so we figure if it’s raining here then it must be sunny on the other side. Sure enough, we enter in fog and exit into broken cloud. Within the hour, the sun is out.

Then Gasper breaks out the schnapps.

Woohoo!

One of the tour members had purchased a bottle of blueberry schnapps at Mt. Vogol and was waiting for an opportunity to share it with everyone on tour. Gasper was having a hard time finding glasses for everyone but he manage to acquire some at our last stop and as we finished off the last part of the long drive, he served everyone a glass of schnapps. 

I made the mistake of telling him that I didn’t drink but liked to sample. He came back and insisted I try the berries at the bottom.

LOL

A little more potent than the liquid, but interesting.

The last of the drive into Zagreb is of rolling green hills (or is that my head rolling…hmmm), farmhouses and forests. Gorgeous scenery in the sunshine.

We arrive in Zagreb close to six pm, just as the evening traffic is dying off. We arrive at the Westin and check-in is swift. For some reason, we’re all more tired than usual. Probably a down day after so many busy days has hit us harder than I expected. The Westin has a spa, but it’s full this evening.

Don’t ask.

We’re all on the 3^rd floor which makes the elevator run easy. I go to my room and put the key card in, see the green light and turn the knob. Nothing happens, so I try again. Then I hear a tour mate a couple doors down go “Ohhhhhhhhh….it turns the other way.”

I heard a chorus of “Ahhhhhhhhs`` from the other half dozen trying to get into their rooms.

I have a huge bed – king at least – and Gasper has told us that they are special beds. The best in Europe. 

The room has the half glass door bathtub, shampoo and stuff, safe, iron and board, flat screen (only news channels), internet and a robe! Finally, a robe!

I go straight to check out the internet but can only access the wired, so I don’t even get a chance to sit in the best bed in Europe while I check my emails and that. Dinner is at 7 pm, so I have barely an hour or so to get through my emails before I have to change for dinner.

When I get down to dinner, everyone is raving about the bed and I realized I hadn’t even sat on it. One woman decided to forgo dinner after lying on the bed.

And what a dinner. Gasper told us the hotel served good meals and while a lot of TDs would say this to us about every meal, Gasper is a little more selective and he’s been right every time. Overall the food on this tour has ranged from good to outstanding. I think the only complaint you’d hear from everyone is that none of the restaurants seem to put condiments on the tables anywhere so if you want salt, pepper, ketchup etc, you have to ask. Sometimes, they don’t have it, but it seems to be a Croatian thing more than anything.

Dinner was an absolutely delicious mushroom soup appetizer then chicken with potatoes and dessert was that big square cream dessert. After having nibbled all day on stuff, everyone’s mouth dropped. They lay the first one on our table and I think we agreed that that would have been enough for the entire table. We each get one and just stare at it and sigh.

We all ate about half and the waitress though we didn’t like it. We laughed. Nope. If we ate the rest, they’d be rolling us all up to the 3^rd floor.

I go back to the room to find the cats have heard about the best bed in Europe.

Guess I might be sleeping in the bathtub tonight.