I came around the corner of this grey looking Zagreb city block and the next minute these two huge towering cathedral spires hit me in the face from behind the buildings. It was my first day in Zagreb and such a lovely cool summers day that I took a long walk after work in the city centre. Was heading for the main square, Trg Jelacic, so I followed the spires up the hill behind the square. My first impression of Zagreb was that of a grey Eastern European city but my sighting of the spires changed that in an instant. En route I walked past a lovely green square with huge trees, flowers and old stately buildings. The main square, Trg Jelacic, has a buzz of its' own, like it's the heartbeat of the old city. Most of what was built here in the last 50 years is pretty miserable stuff but everything preceding that has a central European old charm to it. The cathedral itself is on a bit of a hill, part of the the high town. Zagreb is split between Upper Town (Gornji Grad) and Donji Grad (Lower Town), the higher town being the nicer, older part although the Lower Town has lovely spots too. Check the Zagreb Tourist Board website. I'm here for 10 days of work, then back in November for a few months perhaps.

The Croatian people are very friendly and most of them seem to speak quite good English. Their Croatian language has lovely sounds and tones though, re the upper and lower town references above. Reminds me of John Cleese in A Fish Called Wanda trying to impress Jamie Curtis with his fake Russian.

In between I spent about 10 months in London then moved back home to South Africa, still working for Oracle on their retail software. Since then I have spent ten days in Dubai visiting various large retail clients, a week in Birmingham at a work conference and another week in London at Gap.

Since I had to use a plane to get here I thought I would get two pet plane hates off my back.Whenever I go into a plane toilet I curse under my breath and promise to comment on these little cubicles from hell on me blog so here goes. I am 6 foot 5, not too big a handicap except in planes. I'm sure they must have sent the first plane designers to a public place to measure a 1000 souls to get the average measurements for human beings. To decide where to go they spun a globe map around and stuck their finger on a spot with their eyes closed and it ended up being Tokyo where the average hight is 3 foot 6. So that's how they built the toilets and seats. Brushing teeth in the loo is the worst, trying to squeeze ones head in-between the gap between the tap and basin induces pressure on the brain and subsequent damage, getting the the stuff out of your mouth back into the basin is even worse, enough said. My second pet hate is eating meals on a plane, again there is only enough space for a 3 foot 6 body so I end up eating my food looking like a praying mantis, arms tucked in so that I don't bump my neighbours food out of their mouths. I cut my food up and pick the doggy tray up and feed myself baby style with a fork. I love it when they just dish out a nice roll instead of the whole meal thing. I open the breakfast tray with trepidation each time as fake egg powder that is over-cooked becomes radioactive and my built-in geiger counter goes through the roof when it senses it.

Anyway, have to go hunting for more spires.........