15 hours in Zagreb

I have this tricky little two-step I feel obliged to do every three months. Since I'm an "illegal" immigrant, I can feasibly skirt by using just the good ole US of A passport. This document allows me 90 days of uninterrupted visitation to any EU country. Although I seriously doubt the likelihood of being deported, I like to keep things on the safe-ish side. Three months ago I was in Amsterdam. And yesterday I took a little trip to Zagreb. I climbed the historical tower where the cannon that still claxons noon each day is located. I ate a mediocre pizza and too many champignons in gorgonzola cream near Sv. Marko. Later I saw a women get fatally (I'm assuming here) hit by a speeding car full of football fans. Then I trekked out to the middle of nowhere around midnight in search of lodging. Once, I got there, I discovered I didn't have enough Kuna to pay for the room, so I had to walk around in a residential area looking for a bank machine. NB: The person on the 50 Kuna note bears a striking resemblance to Jennifer Lopez. I am now back in Ljubljana working on the next issue of the Slo Times. I'm sitting here at my desk, listening to a bluegrass album and copy-editing a piece about a contest we sponsor (Guest Star) to determine the biggest expat contributions to Slovenian diplomacy, sports and business. And sports is such a hard one, because Slovenians hold such a taciturn antipathy toward group sports. They sit in bars and casually take in a loss or a close victory over an indescribably lousy team. Zagreb was more like German or English cities, with the fight songs and chants echoing through those Baroque squares. (When I first started this line of thought, I wrote "Croatians are much more into football than Slovenians;" on a second read that statement sounded as stupidly obvious as "Women are much more into buying make-up than men.") Still, Zagreb was patently pleasant; it begged comparisons to Weimar, Barcelona, Maribor, and a place where pedestrians are hit with such force that a human female form can kick itself in the back of the head before falling two meters into an unmoving heap. Zagreb has numerous obligatory statues of famous men on horses...obliging bartenders who offer aid with directions, tram maps and Sunday nightlife... Sadly, there's not much to do with just 15 hours in Zagreb, especially since I had to rush back to Ljubljana to write a story on seeing The Hives at an MTV Adria launch party and clean up a PR piece on Podčetrtek; our intern has gone back to London. I would have liked to have seen the alternative music and theatre performances at the old Badel factory. I also would have liked to have taken the cable car up to Gornji Grad. I would have liked to have sat in Sax and listened to a bit of jazz or gotten a drink at BP lounge. But it was Sunday, and one can't do everything in a new city. Nor can four police details present at Kvaternikov Trg at midnight do anything to prevent the screech of tires, the shatter of passenger's side headlights or the blue sweat-shirted body lying face down, but crotch up. My friend Julia has a rather sardonic sense of humor for a German. She was making fun of the German tabloid "Bild," with its headlines which follow the formula: "With the fall comes the luck," or "With the pig comes the luck," or "With the what fuckin' ever comes the luck." She was eating a veggie kebab under a lampost with a number of pigeons perched on top. I told her she was going to get crapped on. She says, "I don't care. It's good luck." I answered "Yeah, like the way, rain on your wedding day is good luck, or stepping in dogshit is good luck, or getting hit by a car is good luck." Yup, I actually said that. A lot of people hold onto good luck charms. For the timebeing, I consider mine to be my body and mind--both of which do what I tell them and show signs of continuing this trend in the future. Once they're gone, I think I'll be pretty down on my luck.