Zagreb Day 1

The Sarajevo chamber orchestra and chorus departed bright and early on Thursday morning for Zagreb. We travelled by Centrotrans bus, and I'm happy to say that the trip was relatively uneventful. I always expect the worst for bus trips, since we've been seriously delayed every other time I've travelled by bus in Bosnia. This time, some small piece of the bus apparently fell off, but the driver said it “wasn't important” and we continued without delay. We were also fortunate to have quick and easy border crossings.

After arriving in Zagreb, I was assigned to a four-bed hotel room with three other women from the orchestra. The bathroom door didn't close and later the toilet broke... ugh. However, after complaining, we were able to upgrade the next morning to two separate, very nice rooms with huge bathrooms, so all in all I felt quite spoiled being in a fancy hotel room. Being the oboe nerd that I am, I was delighted that our room had a nice big desk with a lamp, perfect for adjusting my reeds. We also were provided with a decent breakfast and lunch buffet each day, and I enjoyed eating well throughout the trip.

Initially, I was only somewhat impressed with Zagreb. There are a lot of grey, ugly, buildings outside of the city center. But there are also a ton of parks, full of colorful flowerbeds, and a lovely city center filled with Austro-Hungarian architecture. Each day that I was in Zagreb, I liked it better and better, even with constant gray, rainy weather.

Thursday was a pretty tiring day, as we had a seven hour bus ride, followed by our first rehearsal in the Lisinski Theater. It's not very attractive, but the acoustics were wonderful and the hall is quite large. Despite being a bit nervous, the chamber orchestra got through our rehearsal without any major problems and were dismissed early.

Lisinski Theater

Everyone from our orchestra went out for coffee and/or beer at the theater to celebrate, but I was dying to check out the city center. Fortunately, my roommate for the trip, Azra, agreed to go with me, and we wandered past the train station, through several parks, and over to Jelačić sqaure, with it's famous horseman statue. We also made it over to the cathedral, which was gorgeous, especially lit up at night. My friend Ivana knows Zagreb quite well, and recommended a restaurant called Nokturno, just about a block away from the Cathedral. I thought it was quite good (I had pizza and a Croatian beer) and very reasonably priced.

Cathedral at night

On Friday morning, we had our first full rehearsal with everyone from both orchestras and the several choirs on stage. I had a great time hearing Britten's War Requiem fit together, and meeting some of the friendly younger musicians from the Zagreb Philharmonic. After the rehearsal, I had just enough time to eat lunch and take a short nap before stopping back over at the Lisinski to check out the Vienna Philharmonic. More on that later!