Today's lesson in Eastern European transportation protocol: Never buy a roundtrip ticket. To anywhere. Those things are practically unheard of. Ask for one and you will be laughed at. Buy one and you will save money--but your bus will never show up and you'll just have to get on the first bus you see headed for your destination of origin, pay full price to get on it anyway, and understand why things just don't work in roundtrips.
And so concluded our day visiting the Plitvice Lakes National Park. Not to worry, though, the experience certainly didn't undo today's gorgeous hikes and waterfalls. Going through Plitvice might have been one of the most rewarding travel days yet. The park was so different from Vintgar in Slovenia because of all the space the lakes take up. They are huge and pure blue, reflecting only the sky and the natural habitats beneath the surface. Aurite and I took a partially-uncharted path around the biggest lake. This ended up being a challenging trek through old fallen leaves and beaten paths that took us literally through the middle of the tree trunks that had snapped during storms. The weather was cool and windy--only in the mid-60s and I couldn't help feeling a natural bit of paranoia and wonder what a storm in these parts would do to us innocent hikers. Of course, there was no storm, and we made it up and out of the valley unscathed, our only almost-serious mistake being nearly walking into a waterfall and thinking the path might have ended. Really, we just had to walk up a steep hill instead, which we did successfully.
Zagreb has otherwise provided us with few experiences of note. As a result, we are now well-rested, detoxed, and ready to move tomorrow to Split and Hvar to go to the beach. The pressure of our flight from Montenegro to Istanbul next Friday is really starting to kick in, and I wish we had at least another week to explore the coast. As soon as we hit Budapest, we started to hear all different accounts about Croatian islands and how much fun they were. But we don't have enough time to do even half of what we've heard about.
The one thing I can credit Zagreb with is our first formal Shabbat dinner in four weeks. Of all places, the community has been most hospitable here. We found the synagogue on the second floor of an apartment building in a lovely, random square in the Lower Town, as usual, protected by guards. We met a total of four Jewish Croatians. I learned three of their names : Leah, Sacha, and Breyza. After praying, they invited us and two other travellers present--a 50-something Australian and his Israeli nephew, who will be entering the Israeli air force this fall--to join them, to sit down for kiddush and hamotzi and a light meal of berries, pickles, tuna and olives. We talked around the table for over an hour about what had brought us to the synagogue and how improvised our past 3 Shabbats have been, buying only the necessities beforehand and just having a private meal. It was nice to know that a welcoming, earnest and curious community exists in Zagreb. I'm very thankful to them for inviting us. Being Jewish and seeking out Shabbat experiences has been an excellent way to meet local residents of cities, but I must say the people we met in Zagreb were the nicest and funniest so far.
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