July 28, 2022: Home is Where the Suitcase Gets Unpacked
Back view of the National Theater in the city center.
Well, it’s official: I now live in Zagreb, Croatia. For 85 days or so, anyway. It was such a relief to settle in, unpack, put the suitcases away. After lugging it halfway around the world, in and out of the trunks of half a dozen cars, on and off just as many trains, wedging it into narrow aisles and hauling it up and down numerous flights of stairs, the most use my suitcase is going to get for the next 3 months is as a footrest, and that feels great.
Settling in also means getting familiar with the neighborhood. Finding the best pizza within a 5 minute walk, figuring out where to get groceries (and how), getting the cell phone set up with a local carrier, exploring to find the best routes into the city center and back home, reorganizing the apartment to feel homey and functional. Some of those things we figured out on day one… and realized, a few days later, that there was a better route, an easier method, or a bigger store two blocks further in the opposite direction. I get the feeling that we’re going to keep making new discoveries, and keep figuring out better and easier ways to do things, right up until the day we leave.
The first week we got out and explored, walked all over the city, signed up for a rock climbing class, and visited the Museum of Naive Art, among other things. In week two, a massive heat wave hit Zagreb (well, the world, really), and we hit a wall. After the chaos of the first couple weeks, moving every few days, whirlwind sightseeing, navigating foreign languages and transportation systems, and then finally having a moment to take a breath, we suddenly found ourselves totally out of whack. It probably didn’t help that we celebrated our arrival in Zagreb by buying a couple bottles of wine and staying up way too late the first night. It set a precedent, and with the heat and the sun not going down until well after 8 pm, we were usually having dinner closer to 9 pm, and not getting to bed until past midnight, which led to late mornings, waking up sweating and dreading going out into the peak heat of the day. We tried to get out some, and managed to visit a few more restaurants and cafes in the area, as well as learning more about navigating the tram system in our journeys across the river to rock climbing class, but otherwise we laid low for the last couple weeks.
A cafe outside Stone Gate in the Capitol district of Zagreb
On Thursday we met up with a group of expats in the city. Humans are social creatures, and I was reminded how vital meeting people is to fully understanding a location. When we share information, it enables everyone to see and experience more. A couple friends we made showed us a cool karaoke bar that we never would have found on our own. Other friends in the group gave us tips for museums to visit, restaurants we should try, how to navigate the city, resources for learning Croatian, what to expect from summer in Zagreb, and more. Especially in a city where we’ve already found that the information on the internet can be really unreliable, word of mouth is an excellent resource.
A couple things of note so far:
The Museum of Naive Art
This is one of the more famous museums in Zagreb, and nears the top of every list of things to do in Zagreb. For me, it was a lesson in what to expect from Zagrebs plethora of museums. Most of the museums I’ve been to in capital cities in Europe are big institutions with hundreds of exhibits. And while I’m sure there are museums like that in Zagreb (the Mimara comes to mind, though it’s been closed for some time and will be closed until an undetermined point in the future, and there’s some controversy around whether all the works housed there are authentic), the famed Museum of Naive Art is quite small. It’s only five rooms, each only about 400 square feet, and it has around 75 pieces on display. The museum is certainly intriguing; the concept of self-taught artists opens the door for truly unique pieces that tap into techniques and styles that are typically incongruous or contradictory. The art here is at times precise and bold, and at times intricate and impressionist to the point of being incomprehensible. It’s deeply emotional, and while some of the pieces express immense joy, others are chaotic and effective representations of deepest sorrow or unfathomable fear. It’s worth a visit, and definitely earns its reputation, but be aware that it’s small, and it’s likely that many of the pieces won’t resonate with everyone.
Botanical Garden
Zagreb’s botanical garden has been a part of the city for two centuries, and it’s a delightful oasis in the midst of the city center, where you most notice the hustle and bustle of a capital city. The winding pathways create numerous routes to reach any point in the garden, and encourage you to let both your feet and your mind wander. There’s a cool little art exhibit housed on the grounds, and various areas where the garden is organized in different ways. In some places there are neat, square beds, in others there are wide open stretches of lawn lined by neat rows of plants, some areas feel like a private wood, and others have high mounds of wild-looking understory. There’s a pretty pond with a bright red bridge and a bale of turtles, which is probably my favorite place in the garden. Again, this garden is smaller than I expected it to be, but well worth it!
