2018.09.25\/26 \u2013 Ottawa (CA) – Zagreb (Croatia) \u2013 The weekend prior to our departure was rather unusual as a series of tornadoes hit the Ottawa\/Gatineau region late Friday afternoon. The tornadoes left a large number of households without electrical power. Although we had been bracing ourselves for a few days of power outage, in the end, our home was without power for only 24 hours. On Sunday, we drove to Kingston to visit Victoria who started her second year at Queens University. The unfortunate aftermath of the power outage was that our home server had not been shutdown properly. After spending most of Monday trying to fix the server, to allow it to start-up other virtual servers, we had resigned ourselves to the fact that we would unlikely be posting any of our travel journal entries for this trip.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
A good friend drove us to the bus terminal where we took a bus for the Montreal airport. The bus ride was slower than expected as it serviced local communities along the way. Upon our arrival at the airport, we printed our luggage tags and dropped our bags at the Air Transat counter. After our security screening, we had one last coffee for the road. Our flight to Zagreb was not a direct one as we flew first to Toronto with a short stop over long enough for a quick evening meal. After boarding and the airplane doors finally closed, Jenny and I were relieved that we had a vacant seat beside us. We were surprised when we got served a complimentary meal well after 9:30pm. The night flight passed quickly for me as I managed to get more sleep than usual possibly due to my trial use of an eye mask. Jenny might be considering its use on the return flight.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
The processing by the Croatian immigration was efficient and quick as our flight appeared to be the only one at the time. We visited a bank machine before exiting the airport. We easily located the shuttle bus meant to bring us to the downtown bus terminal some 19kms away. Once at the bus terminal, we opted to walk to the train station with our backpacks. It was a much longer walk that we had expected (~20 mins). We easily secured train tickets for our next travel segment to the capital city of Slovenia, Ljubljana. We introduced ourselves to Zagreb\u2019s tram service and boarded one which brought us to our accommodation where we would be staying for next two nights. After walking up two floors, we discovered that our apartment reception was only open from 2pm to 8pm. We opted to wait 30 mins at a nearby cafe. We managed to check-in on time. We had a delicious evening meal at a nearby grill restaurant that had been recommended to us. Our first impressions of Zagreb were very positive. We seemed to notice on the streets a lot of younger folks everywhere. We guessed by now, given our retirement status, that most people look younger than us! Smoking seemed to be very popular and even trendy \u2013 ash trays were everywhere and patios were overflowing with smokers.<\/p>\n\n\n
![\"\"](\"https:\/\/www.sunflowerit.ca\/travel\/wp-content\/uploads\/2018\/09\/2018-09-25_11-55-27.avif\" "\\"2018-09-25_11-55-27\\"")
<\/a><\/div><\/div>