driving down the road

Zagreb, Croatia

So we've rented a silver fiat "economy" station wagon for our travels. I'm not sure what would happen to me if I went a summer without a driving trip in a station wagon with my family. This one isn't red, but it's still a station wagon. It has a sun roof but we have yet to figure out how to make it open, so I don't suppose that really counts.

Saturday in Zagreb is market day and they have a huge market in one of the main squares with lots of fruits and vegetables, flowers, cheese, nuts, baskets, clothing, and probobly more things that we didn't see. I haven't seen so many people out in a city just walking around since maybe Istanbul. It seems much more alive than most of the places I've been to recently. It makes me happy. They also have lots of cafes which makes William happy. Coffee places do not serve food here. For breakfast they have coffee in the coffee bar and then go across the street to the bakery to get a pastry. Or you get the pastry first and bring it to eat with your coffee. But they have a very high per capita bakery number I think.

They have a church here called St. Catherine's Church. They spell it differently though, but it was still exciting being a Katherine and all. It's a very baroque church with pink walls with fancy white raised plaster designs over the pink and lots of paintings and decoration everywhere. There is also no crucifix in the church.

Speaking of decoration the Hungarians have taken ceiling decoration to a new level. Instead of just decorating the inside they decorate the outside too! There are lots of buildings in Budapest with designs in the tile and some of them are very impressive. They also have lots of animals or faces on the sides of their buildings.