Take a walk with me - Upper town - Katarina's square

Even though your whole attention while on this square will be on the St. Cathrine's church, I urge you to look around and enjoy random details of renovated facades, lamps and flowers:

Zagreb's folklore clothing

Waiting for numerous tourists with a smile on her face, this patient lady depicts the typical old Zagreb folklore clothing. Notice her umbrella, these are everywhere in Zagreb, our largest open market, Dolac, has dozens of those (e.g. one of my older posts - Time machine - I'm seeing red):

Storm?

Yeah, I think we can call this a storm (btw, there's a mountain in the background):

Take a walk with me - Upper town - Strossmartre

Looking a bit back towards the creepy sailor and the mermaid, we can also enjoy local artists' paintings:

Take a walk with me - Upper town - Finally!

It was worth taking a stroll towards the Lotrscak tower as the best views of Zagreb are here (I'd also recommend climbing up to the tower's top for 360 view):

Take a walk with me - Upper town - Mermaid

Just a few steps ahead, lost sailor might find a mermaid. To be perfectly honest, this one creeps me out....

Take a walk with me - Upper town - Lost sailor & monkeys

Continuing the walk along Strossmartre, or Strossmayer's promenade, we come upon an improv cafe, waiting for summer/fall/spring festivals. For whatever reason, the lost sailor found his way to Zagreb's improv cafe:

Take a walk with me - Upper town - Strossmartre

This little guy hides on one of the facades when approaching the famous Lotrscak tower:

Take a walk with me - Upper town - Mesnicka/Strossmartre

Take a walk with me series will contain random photos of things you would probably miss on your first visit to Zagreb. It's a walk you could easily recreate on your visit to Zagreb...

So c'mon, take a walk with me, we're going to climb to the Upper town from Mesnicka street using the famous Strossmayer's promenade:

Peek-a-boo

Nearby mountain Plesivica has been playing peek-a-boo the whole afternoon:

An unexpected discovery

Just a random business trip to Slovenia, company's car, and in one of the door compartments, there it was. I just can't figure out what one might use it for in a car... Btw, if you're wondering, it's Bonnie Tyler's "It's a heartache"/Got so used to lovin' you" 7'' vinyl. :)

Slow approach

I love apring/summer storms, as long a s I'm not outside, but I get to enjoy them from my home. This one's approaching slowly....

Feeding

Beauty

Almost a mirror

Lake rush hour

A rowing competition created a huge rush hour on the lake... I can't figure out how they manage to do anything with so many rowers in each lane.

Dandelion with a view

Watching over all rowers, this dandelion has a true "house" with a view.

In bloom

The flowers (just as the people) couldn't wait for the real spring to show up. Every grassy patch is full of tiny blue, purple and yellow flowers.

Leave me alone

Local swans have become quite spoiled, once they realize you don't have any food in your hands, they immediately turn their backs and swim away:

Blueness

Sunshine!

Yay! Finally, my yesterday's run was filled with sunshine. Risking cell phone's camera CCD by taking the photo of the Sun directly, I took a photo of these few rowers just about to start a short race:

Hopeful

Yesterday evening brought everyone a tiny glimpse of blueish sky between the clouds.

Rowing

Does anyone know what this type of rowing is called - one leg in front, the body weight is on another knee, and they're not sitting? I don't even know the name for it in my own language...

Runner's POV

I went for a run yesterday. It took 5 layers of clothing to make me feel comfy. This morning's snow didn't stay on the ground and I decided that was good enough for me to get out of the house. Apparently, everyone thought the same and the paths around the Jarun lake were packed, even though it was freezing and misty. 

It paid off, I FEEEEEL GOOD:

Easter tradition

Easter days, besides the religious parts, are days to meet with your family and overeat - especially on Easter - starting with breakfast, continuing to lunch and then desert. This whole food craziness usually starts around 9-10AM and lasts until 6-7PM (with maybe 2hrs in total that don't include food). Traditional breakfast includes cooked ham, hard boiled eggs, radishes, horse radish, cottage cheese, spring onions, and pinca. Before breakfast, rakija is offered to the guests. Rakija (the bottle in the bottom of the photo) is a very strong alcoholic beverage (>40% alcohol) made out of any type of fruit or vine. Of course, the best rakija is usually the home made one - the one we managed to get is 14yo rakija made out of plums, aged in a mulberry barrel. At the very start of the breakfast, each person picks one egg and hits the egg pf the person closest to you. Whoever's egg shell stays whole after the hitting process, they go on to another person's egg. The "winner egg" is put aside for the next round. Here's my parents' dining room table all ready for my cousin and her family to arrive:

Happy Easter!

All of you who celebrate - happy Easter! I've been creative this year and used marble colors for eggs. I followed all the instructions, and the eggs turned into a marbled glue that stuck to everything leaving bits and pieces of gluey colors everywhere. But they looked fantastic! :) Next year, I'm going back to classic boring colors.

Spring Will Be A Little Late This Year*

"The first day of spring is one thing, and the first spring day is another.  The difference between them is sometimes as great as a month."
-  Henry Van Dyke

Today's rainy run gave me a little bit of faith that spring might come a little late, but it's on its way:






























*Ella Fitzgerald

Sidewalk snow art

You gotta love his sidewalk snow cleaning method:

Spring... is not here...

Just in case you were wondering why I was so dormant with my photo blog - these are the bleak photos I could take day after day after day - btw, the "fog" is not fog, but yesterday's snow storm (the view is from one of the offices where I work on the outskirts):

Have I mentioned Croatia is Mediterranean country? Although Zagreb is on the continent and has continental climate, snow storms this strength and at this time of year are highly unusual.

Happy St. Patrick's day!

As all proper Irish-wannabes, we start celebrating St. Patrick's day at least a week before the 17th March. I went out to a party last night, filled with ceili dance, Irish music and happy people with  funny hats. St. Patrick also decided to show up, though I failed to take his photo. I managed to snap this photo of a Croatian group of people dancing ceili:

May you always have...

Walls for the winds

A roof for the rain

Tea beside the fire

Laughter to cheer you

Those you love near you

And all your heart might desire.

Stormy

Run!

Finally, I can bring out the gadgets, running sneakers, and enjoy the run in fresh air and the feeling of sunshine on my face. YAY! :)

The Sun is back!

As someone who studied astronomy, I realize my knowledge of the existence of the Sun shouldn't falter, however I was seriously beginning to lose faith it's still up there after weeks of snow, rain and fog. But now it's here! It's back! And I can finally enjoy runs around/near the lake Jarun...

Snow? Again? Really?!

The future is here

I'm usually up-to-date with the newest cool gadgets, tiny computers etc, but I have never seen a desktop PC in this size - it's just a little bit bulkier than a standard mouse and a blackberry (we got a few of these tiny thingies to test at work):

Another one...

Yes, I'm a sucker for sunsets, but I don't think you can blame me... ;-)

Red glow

Sky Office towers bathing in the reddish glow just a few minutes ago:

Foggy disposition

A week ago, the fog has reached its peak one day - going from the suburbs back to Zagreb was almost like playing a game find that car and stop light. This was one stop light with a slightly better visibility:

Zagreb's Ice fever!

In the past couple of years hockey got a new boost in popularity in Zagreb. The usual stadium is always packed, cheering is amazing, probably the best in the whole EBEL league. Our team - Medveščak, or as we call them "medvjedi" (en. bears) is now second in the league and has been giving us heart-attack finishes this year. Each January, the whole show and cheering moves to a 15000-20000 seat arena, for louder, bigger, better show and cheering - called Ice fever. Yesterday, we had another heart-attack-finish, where Medvjedi won in overtime, while austrian KAC was in lead for most of the match. The whole show starts off with a typical US themed player introduction with flames, music etc (other sports in Croatia haven't adopted the scheme yet). In the first photo you can see the Nesquik rabbit waving at us, and the second shows the player intro:

Got mail?

Seriously, have you got my snail-mail by any chance? Out of maybe 20-30 letters/bills I get in my mail per year, about 4-5 never find their way to my mailbox... I never quite understood why, until today. Who knows where my mail flies off if this is normal:

Elīna Garanča concert

Elīna Garanča is one of the most famous opera singers of today. Absolutely amazing performance of different pieces, and hopefully I will get a chance to see her perform in Bizet's Carmen one day. It's been a long time I've heard such a voice control, range and strength... just WOW!

Ho-yoon Chung, the tenor accompanied Elina:

Concert hall Vatroslav Lisinski

Inside view of the concert hall Vatroslav Lisinski, just before the concert:

Barely hanging on

The big thaw has started and falling snow off the buildings has created walking in the residential areas into a Russian roulette. Hopefully house owners of this house are aware of the snow:

Heavy load

The trees in front of my office have quite a difficulty holding their branches with the heavy load of snow on them:

Hungry

Little chickadees got lucky this year - I brought a few bags of sunflower seeds and as soon as the snow covered the ground I put them out in front of the office window. They're getting used to me sitting just a meter away on the other side of the window and are more and more occupied by unwanted intruders (other chickadees stealing their food, magpies trying to kill and eat them,...) and less occupied by my presence. Too bad they're too fast for my cell camera to focus:

Beer, anyone?

Just another evening at the local pub:

Got snow?

A lil' bit of snow covered Zagreb last night, 15-20in, which caused MAJOR traffic collapse, as our 200+ winter plows were surprised... again... after several days of prior warnings by our meteorologists. They even closed Zagreb's ski center since there was too much snow :-). Go figure...

Anyhow, as usual, terrible winter conditions provide great photo-ops. Here's one (the woman walking in front is tall - I'm guessing around 5ft 8''):