It's three days into my time in Croatia. Here are some typically random thoughts so far:
- Qatar Airways has my business for as long as i'm able to maintain at least my silver privilege card status. The lounges may not be the best (they are the botton-end ones after all), and the obnoxious types still make it in, but at least they're not so crowded and they do offer some kind of free food, which already is aces as far as i'm concerned.
- I know it seems as though i've some kind of Europe obsession - i was just thinking back and realised that this is my sixth time in Europe within the past four years (i tried to make that sound as un-show-offy as possible - but really each place i go to is different, and Croatia is no exception.
- They obviously don't have or get much Asians here, which on the one hand is refreshing (simply because i travel to places with the aim of not being reminded of home), but one the other somewhat discomforting. This is particularly so when so many people give you strange looks, almost as though you're in a zoo. And cultural ignorance/stereotyping comes into play too - so far i've heard some guys mumbling something about karate when i overtook them on a pathway, and also had some guy check his girlfriend's bag to see that all the zippers were tightly shut after she pointed out that i was behind her.
- I've not been couchsurfing yet as in the places i've been to so far, there aren't many couchsurfers to begin with, and i've also not had timd to send out requests. Will try to couchsurf when i'm back in Zagreb, the capital. This means that i've been in hostels, which so far have been pretty good (well, there've only been two so far actually). You can't choose your hostel dorm room mates though. There was a bunch of young Brits who came in at around 3:30am last night after a pub crawl, switched on the lights and made lots of noise zipping and unzipping stuff and the like, and after five minutes of that, they started talking rather softly and said "hey, don't talk so loud, we might wake them up." I was tempted to sit up and say "too late!" but i controlled myself :p
