Persuade or obey
There's some confusion over Socrates's view on how to deal with authority, but his more accepted view is the one that I felt I should abide by at the train station. Plato (his student) famously recounts Socrates's view that one must either 'persuade or obey' the laws as dictated by the state. Basically, Socrates was the very first guy to come up with the principal, 'if you can't beat 'em, join 'em'. The situation was as follows; the trains were all messed up and so they recommended a bus service to Zagreb, Croatia's capital, as it would be far quicker, but the bus obviously has far less seats available. The time now was about 10am and the bus would be at 12:45pm so I asked to buy my ticket now to guarantee a seat when I came back. Not so fast skipper. You can only buy tickets once the bus arrives and it's first come first served. This made no sense to me as the bus was coming from Munich, was not stopping and had left already. I suggested just calling Munich and seeing how many seats there were - nope, she said that's not how it works. Persuasion attempted and failed; I had to obey. Socrates would have done the same thing.
With an indefinite amount of time before needing to be back (I was going to see how much fun I was having walking around and then decide how early to be), I headed for the Museum of Contemporary Art close by. I'm told reliably that you're more likely to be hit by lightening then you are to become a lottery winner, but I wonder what the chances are you can plan a trip hitting the wettest day of the Summer for each European Countries you visit over a 2 week period. Pretty effing high. It was incredible, out of the 11 days I'd been away it had been raining hard on every single one of them except one. Miraculously, too, I would note how much better the weather became almost as my train left each respective station. I tried to warm myself and my now soaking Adidas shoes up by viewing this as a life balance for all the wonderful things I have in my life at the moment with so much to be thankful for: my friends, my new girl, my family and my health. Nope, it didn't even come close, I was still really pissed off it was raining.
MSUM's answer to why they so often repeat their exhibitions in the museum. I rather liked it.
The MSUM is absolutely worth a visit and sits in the more bohemian part of the city with walls and buildings that used to function as several 19th century barracks serving the Austro-Hungarian and Yugoslav armies, but now sit covered in graffiti and anti-regime cartoons. One part of the exhibition that stuck in my mind was that of Serbian artist Tanja Ostojic. One entire area is dedicated to her project entitled looking for a husband with an EU passport complete with the actual ad and naked picture she posted in magazines and the respective replies she got leading to marriage. A fairly shocking reminder of how things used to be, and very maybe still are.
Old army barracks now turned into the creepiest place to live on the planet.
I returned at 12:15pm deeming that enough time to bite my wet lip and queue for a first come first served ticket. I needn't have worried and I boarded the bus. Mirko was my bus companion and we chatted a little about his life in Zagreb; he is a civil engineer and is sent to Munich a lot for work so he does that route all the time and, in true misery loves company style, eased each other's pain by complaining about the transport situation. We laughed about my ticket story, and he sympathized. There's something to said for that, I remember thinking afterwards; complaining gets an awful reputation naturally, but venting in the right company is enjoyable and allows you to reset. When I worked as a fund manager, so often things would go against you and just talking about them with someone in the office, even if they had no idea about the company you were talking about, helped a great deal. Venting, it might even be good for you. The only other point of interest on the trip was the entire bus was made to get off with their passports and physically walk across the boarder into Croatia to be checked. It occurred to me that not once had I used my passport since landing 11 days ago in Warsaw - just another reason trains are better, I guess.
Mirko kindly offered to take me to my new place in the city centre and we said our goodbyes. After a decent amount of admin and rest, I headed into town for some local nosh. Elizabeta, my new host, recommended a small restaurant near the main square called La Struk, which translates into something like 'home cooking'. It's both an excellent name and representation as you are brought this cheese bake still in its small lasagne style dish bubbling hot straight out of the oven. There's basically no menu and it's as authentic a Croatian meal as you can get. I was keen to get a full day out of the nations capital tomorrow so I called it a day after dinner. As the saying goes, 'Home James, and don't spare the horses'.