‘’Famous five’’ EVSers from Opatovina ulica 23

Hello , my name is Andris and I am one of the ‘’Famous five’’ EVSers  from Opatovina ulica 23, what is opatovina ulica I will explain a bit later. Todays post will be about my first impressions about Zagreb city.

My first meeting with Zagreb happened about six month ago in Latvia I was still considering to go or not to go to EVS in Zagreb, so I decided to go on a virtual tour around Zagreb through google streetview. What I saw was a dull city with block houses and that wasn't what I wanted to see, but one thing I like was that Zagreb was very close to mountains what is something very special for a ‘’flatlander’’ like me so,  I was tempted, but not completely sure if I want to go there.

But as you are reading this blog you may sense that I made a descision to do a reality check  for the google streetview. My real life meeting with Zagreb started after I exit bus station and it was quite shocking to be honest, because all I saw around were nice houses and fancy gardens. What’s wrong with google I thought to myself, how it turns out later, while I was sleeping in the bus we were passing all the block house districts what I saw previously on google streetview and now I was in the center of Zagreb which was quite different from what I expected to see.

Besides beautiful architecture and nice garden  Zagreb is also environmentaly friendly city with a lot of bike roads and nonpoluting electric public transport in city center which shows that it is sustainable and modern city. In the end it turned out that Opatovina Ulica 23 is adress of our flat which is situated in center of Zagreb oldtown only few steps away from ‘’Zagreb’s Cathedral’’ and  ‘’Ban Jelačić ‘’ square which is the central gathering place for Zagrebs inhabitants in national celebrations. One of this gathering I had a chance to experience on the second night of my stay. It was a calm monday evening and I decided to go for a late night walk around 23, I went out of our flat and hear a loud noise comming from main square, when I went that direction I saw many people listening some local concert.

Suprised and curious I went to ask why do they have a concert on late Monday evening, on what I got answer that it is just a concert before Cilic(who is a famous croatian teniss player)game in US open finals. Game itself wasn’t much of fun for me, but it was a while intresting to watch the event itself, after a while I went back home to sleep, around one o clock I heard a big cheering noise outside, it was clear that Cilic won.

As for me I understood that sometimes google can disapoint you in a good way and that that the city of Zagreb is full of suprises.