No need to panic...

Well not written for awhile but been a bit busy here. I heard there was an earthquake in the Balkans here, but guess I must have missed out! I am still alive.

Not much in Budapest going on when I left. Though I found out, that November 1st is a HUGE day off! Halloween "more or less", folks, is a holiday... What an amazing nation! So other than sitting around there I found some food and got a lovely meal cooked up. Just basically was sausages over potatoes and onions and it was really tasty! After that, since it was my last day in Budapest I did a decent walk over to Buda, on the west side and found it was very nice! Pest is the working class place. More real, but not terribly nice. The catle area and old town of Budawas really amazing, but partly lacking in great age. Relaxing though, since Budapest is a big city.

So after almost a week in Hungary I got on the train and headed to Croatia, Zagreb the capital to be exact. Of course, an interesting thing happened as I got on.

A man came into the compartment dressed in usual clothing, well not a cop outfit. He starts going on about something in Hungarian, but I say English. He is "Ahh ok English". Then starts saying the few English words he knows, which is VERY little. Forits "Hungarian dollar", Minimum, pointing to me then him. I give him a blank stare.
He says it again and I think... Okay, he has some papers that look officialish.... Ummm perhaps he is saying keep little money on you so thieves don't get it. Ahh Gotcha. Then I give him a thumbs up. He says the same limited broken English and now looks frustrated, and he now sits next to me. Then I think Ahhh oh yes!.... "Oh no, I just have CROATIAN Kuna sir! No Hungarian forits!" Still he looks at me even more exhausted..... I still have no clue as to what hewants, then I think, okay, umm IF he is a cop is he asking for a bribe?

Ahh well, he could be a con, yeah most likely is that seeing as this was NOT ended in the first 1 or 2 go arounds, and nothing official. So I still play dumb trying to figure him out and he gives up.
Soooo, half the time I had no idea what he wanted and the other half it dawned on me that he was most likely up to no good. He most likely thought "Gosh, clever guy, keeping me going like that. So onto me from the start." When in fact I had a total Homer Simpson moment!

Anyhow, the trip to Zagreb was very uneventful, but the countryside was lovely. At the border had my passport checked in the train by a very serious Hungarian border officer, and quickly stamped. Then when the Croatian looked at my passport for entry into Croatia, something happened that I have never seen, she laughed at my terrible photo in my passport!!! She thought it was rather funny and I was like! Ahhh man! But I went along with it and it has by far been the nicest border patrol person I have met.

So got to Zagreb and found the hostel in alright time in the evening.
Big plans of the night was going to be eating and sleeping, but I decided to go out to dinner with people from the hostel, and thought, "Why not!?"
Ended up having a lovely meal, good Italian pasta, and then people throughout the night bought me drinks since my budget couldn't handle the extra charges. The night was winding down and after talking to most everyone that was free I decided to start talking to a girl. Well we got along lets say, so I met a friend of hers who is a journalist too and been enjoying company of Croatians the past couple of days, which had me stay an extra day... Soooo, welllll, mostly the girl is who I've been hanging out with, so, anyway, yeah. Nough said!

But today since she had school I've been catching up on stuff and seeing Zagreb. I love going to the markets, even more so in Central and Eastern Europe since it is the heart of an area and is so much more important to the place. So much food gets sold, that people get it there and not so much at the super market. Lots of fun energy too and the interesting faces. Hungary and Croatia here have such a mix of faces and people that it is fun to see the wonderful mix.

The weather and food are really wonderful here in Zagreb too! Woo! Still pretty cheap, but not "Oh my god cheap!" Just Walmart price cheap, which is really good anyways! Ethnic food, at rock bottom prices. Life is good! Also Zagreb here, least in old town is VERY walkable and has a nice cafe street right where the hostel is. Plus Croatians are SOOO super friendly too! Never seen so many friendly people!

Sadly I must now leave to Split, since I've booked a place there and don't want to hassle with canceling again, plus bought a train ticket already. Hard to say how long you want to stay in a city EVEN if you've been there, harder still if you've not been there. Always about the crowd you run into as well. So, oh well! I am here to travel and lots more to see yet!

Anyway, got to SPLIT in the morning! Another fun 6 or 7 hour train ride to get there. Wooo.
So excited....