Monday, April 16th. Zagreb. We were only staying here for 3 nights and the plan was to go around the city on Sunday and head to Plitvice Lakes on Monday. We did what we had planned to do for Sunday, but today, we stayed home.
Arthur got his first runny nose yesterday. Perhaps from Sean who had been feeling under the weather for the past week, or maybe from the lack of sleep from the Budapest-Zagreb complicated travel. Nevertheless, we monitored his condition and last night, he cried inconsolably and he did not get a lot of sleep due to his stuffy nose. This morning, we decided to stay home so that we could get him more sleep.
Yesterday, we explored Zagreb’s Upper Town and downtown. We also heard that every Sunday, there was an antique market in Britanski Trg. So we decided to check that out first before we went up to Upper Town.
Arthur was asleep in his car seat as we walked to the square. It was 10am, but the city looked so empty. We passed by a small outdoor market with 7 booths selling different things such as cheese, meat, olives, etc, but there were not many people walking around.
Interestingly, we kept getting weird looks from people, as if we were aliens. When we got to Britanski Trg via Ilica street, the looks intensified. We felt out of place. However, when Arthur woke up and we opened up his car seat/stroller cocoon, the looks softened. They would look at Arthur and then us, and they would smile. Either they like babies or they think we’re no longer threatening? We’re such nice-looking people, though. I wonder how many tourists they would get generally, and their general view of foreigners.
As we walked around the market, Sean noticed a group of four older men and women pointing at us. He conjectured they were discussing where we were from. Sure enough, one of them asked us where we came from. We replied, “Singapore.” There were lots of oohs and aahs that followed.
As it turned out, the man and his wife had been to Singapore. They were there 20 years ago. They told us they had stayed in Bugis area, and they asked us about the current bus fares and the number of terminals in the airport, and other questions that I would not necessarily expect people would ask about Singapore. It was nice to make such a connection in this very local market.
As we were about to leave the square, Arthur started to squirm. We decided to go inside a cafe nearby so that we could feed Arthur and eventually change him. It turned out to be a pretty cool place.
It had regular tables but also an airplane-like room. A kid and her grandmother sat in one of the rows later on to have their meal.
I got me some chocolate with coconut pancakes while Sean got an ice coffee.
Sooo good.
After the meal, we changed Arthur and Sean put him to sleep with the car seat.
Then we left and made our way to Upper Town.
I realized we didn’t really take a lot of pictures.
As we made our way back down, Arthur woke up crying. We stopped on the side under an archway to a courtyard. I took him out of the car seat and tried to soothe him. Then I placed him down again to change his diaper. He started crying, which was unusual for him. He usually liked diaper change. When we finished changing him, he continued to cry. Louder and louder. Sometimes he’d stop for three seconds and he’d start crying again. We took turns to soothe him.
This was the first indication that he wasn’t feeling well. Even when I offered to feed him, he refused and continued to cry.
When he finally calmed down after what seemed to be forever, he was receptive to feeding. Afterwards, he was in a playful mood again.
So we continued our walk towards downtown.
Along the way, we passed by a lovely quartet.
We continued walking past Jelacic Square.
Past the restaurant-lined pedestrian-only streets. To a monument to Nikola Tesla.
Then we spent some time at the super cool park that just looked so dreamy with its wise-looking trees, well-manicured grass, and colorful flower beds.
Then we saw Arthur’s runny nose.
We decided we should go and then head home to give him some rest.
We had brunch at Zinfandel Restaurant in Esplanade Zagreb Hotel.
I didn’t know it was going to be so fancy. Food was great. The waiter even educated us about the Zinfandel grapes. We knew Zinfandel is a California grape but we didn’t know it shared the same DNA structure as a Croatian grape.
Anyway, Arthur fell asleep through second course but he woke up not long afterwards.
We went home after the meal and begun a long night of crying. Arthur was easily irritable and he couldn’t sleep for more than 1.5 hours each time.
So today, we didn’t do anything much other than catching up on sleep and cooking at home. We had booked a car rental to go to Plitvice but Arthur’s health is more important, especially since we still have 7 more weeks to go. Luckily, the car rental was not prepaid.
It is unfortunate that we didn’t really do anything much here, especially after the complicated journey. That’s all right, though. As long as Arthur gets better. It’s better this way rather than he gets worse and we have to go to the doctor.
Thankfully, we don’t have to.
two backpacks and a diaper bag 