Well, that was disapointing...

So, I went to the square yesterday to see how many people would show up. Danka warned me that it probably wouldn't be that many, since at 1pm everyone but pensioners and students are at work. I got there about 12:45 and hung around until about 10 after 1. When I left there were maybe 3000 people total (that includes all the people at the cafes, which were packed and all the people waiting for trams). But I looked at the paper today, and they say 50,000 people showed up, and they have pictures to back it up. So, I guess I am a victim of my American mentality. I figured people might show up late, and when I left there were people still arriving. But I forgot about Balkan attitudes about time, which means that most people probably didn't get there until about an hour after the thing started.

Such is life.

I wanted to be done today, but I'm not. I have to go back to the City Museum tomorrow to finish up some more stuff. Almost done packing, and I think everything will actually fit. Not completely sure yet, but I will know by the end of tonight. I had to go buy a box for about half of the books. Looks like it will cost me $50 in excess baggage fees to ship it with my luggage.

One full day left in town. Kind of glad and sad at the same time. I am ready to be done, and I clearly need an artificial deadline like this because I have discovered that I could research this topic for the rest of my life and still find things.

Turns out that my research is trendy. Harvard had a two semester seminar this year on Zagreb. Of course, their conclusion's are the opposite of mine.

"Practicing in conditions of continuous instability, architects and planners in 20th century Zagreb developed new strategies of urbanism and architecture for creatively engaging the transitional, conditional, mutable, and open-ended -- for absorbing, accommodating, anticipating and instrumentalizing the condition of irresolution... In this way the city itself becomes an actor in the transformation of architectural and urban practices. Transition thus emerges as a condition that not only foregrounds practice and privileges design over planning, but that also enables architecture to play an active, performative role in the formation of the city itself."

I half agree with that. The city itself does become an actor in the transformation. But the population still determines where the city center is. The planners have been trying to move the city center since 1930, and it hasn't budged. Zagreb is a city that was successfully transformed once, from 1850 to 1895, and the population has fought against very determined elites to keep it the pedestrian city centered around the square that its original designers imagined it as. In fact, despite the claims of the authors of Project Zagreb (at least in the blurb on Amazon) the 20th Century architects really haven't accomplished much of what they wanted to (unless they are going to argue that the architects were actually deliberately trying to frustrate the city planners). But, what do you expect from a university that doesn't have a Geography department. It's hard to understand space without geographers. And Harvard is a school of the elite, for the elite, so I am sure they would like to see the elite of Zagreb successful in their efforts.

This may be my last post from Zagreb. Tomorrow will be a busy day and the computer will be packed up at some point because I leave way, way too early on Friday.

Hopefully I will have the time and energy to continue this when I get back because there are some reflections on my time time I would like to share:

The more things change the more they stay the same: reflections on young people, housing, and Yugo-Cro society.

What I'll miss about Zagreb and what I won't.

Some thought about my brief ride though the town of Jesenovac, or, It's been 15 years, you think they would have cleaned the place up by now...

And others.

So, pester me with e-mails if those posts don't show up in the future.

Busy days.

So, getting finished up here. Sunday was a long day. My landlords invited me to go look at storks in Cigoc, which is a small (really small, like 300 people small) town southeast of Sisak (the city of Croatian Victory, at least that is what the sign says on the way into town) close to the Sava. The storks fly in to nest (on top of the houses).

On the way there I found out that it was a very important day for Croatia. Not Palm Sunday, that happens every year, but Croatia was playing Hungary in the finals of the world championship of water polo. So, when we got to Cigoc we parked at the little gostionica where we were going to have some lunch before heading back, and of course, they had the match on TV. We got to see the last 20 seconds or so of the game. Croatia won. One of the Cigoc residents watching the game actually jumped up out of his seat when the last second counted off.

So, an interesting contrast. I can't imagine if the USA was in the finals for the world championship of water polo that anyone would actually watch the game. Part of it I am sure was that they were playing Hungary, which used to technically own Croatia. But part of it is just that Croats know their country is pretty small. They don't get to be best in the world at a lot of things, so this really makes the feel good.

Tomorrow I get to see the square in action. The team will be formally welcomed home at 1pm local time on the square. I imagine there will be somewhere between 50 and 100 thousand people there to great them (depends on weather I am sure). Unfortunately I think that means I won't be able to get much done tomorrow afternoon, but that's life.

Oh, and the picture is of my dinner tonight (and one of the things I will miss about Zagreb), pizza with an egg on it.