My first ever trip to Zagreb. As ever there was no direct routing from Athens so I had to fly west to Vienna and a connecting flight back to Zagreb. I landed about 6pm and changed some money. I caught a cab to my hotel, the journey taking about 40 minutes.

The hotel seemed a little isolated in the dark so I decided not to go out to eat. I unpacked and went down to the restaurant.

Although not cheap there was a good selection of food and I enjoyed my meal, followed by an early night.

Next morning I took a cab to the office. The driver spoke very halting English, so on a whim I tried him in German. To my surprise he spoke it quite well and we had a great conversation, prolonged by very heavy traffic.

A day at the office and back to the hotel. We agreed to meet in the bar for a drink prior to the bus to take us to dinner.

We sat with our drinks when a colleague said, “ok guys , this is where we get our Blackberries out, type and ignore each other.

So that’s what we did.

The bus arrived to take us to the restaurant. We had an average meal (with way above average prices) accompanied by musical entertainment by a guitarist who played US soft rock songs. Although his playing was good, he had obviously not seen the written lyrics of some of the songs. Many of the original US writers would not have recognised the words of the songs he was singing.

The next day we finished around 4 and I caught a cab in weak winter sunshine with my Italian colleague Laura to the airport. We checked in on the same flight to Frankfurt where we both had connecting flights. Our flight was delayed by 30 minutes which had Laura in a highly nervous state.

We landed at Frankfurt and I urged Laura to forget goodbyes and charge for her plane (I later learned she just made it).

Frankfurt airport was a mess. For some reason even though we remained air side, we have to go through security again. The lines were backed up and it took me more than an hour to get through, with a very long walk to the other end of the terminal

It’s amazing. According to my schedule I should have had a 2 and half hour gap between landing and my connecting flight. Thanks to the flight delay and Frankfurt airport’s skilful management, I arrived at the gate only 5 minutes before official boarding.

This is the downside of constant travel. These constant delays and inconveniences are very wearing.
I landed back in Athens in the small hours, glad to be back in 17 degrees Celsius.

This trip is good example of another frustrating aspect of business travel. I have technically been to Zagreb, but apart from forming a positive impression from the layout of the streets, I haven’t really seen anything of the place. It’s one of many places I have been to, but not really been to.

I’d like to visit for real one day.

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