No Straight Roads In Croatia
One knows that the first joy can never be recovered, and the wise traveler learns not to repeat successes but tries new places all the time. —Paul Fussell I was at the Budapest train station last Friday when I decided to come to Croatia, which is strange because I woke up with the vague determination to go to Transylvania, Dracula's Carpathian home. "How much for a ticket to Braşov?" I asked the stocky ticketress. "Boorrla?" she asked, rolling R's and crushing vowels in a way impossible to transcribe. Everyone I asked pronounced Braşov, Transylvania's biggest city, with a different enunciation. I still don't know how to say it. "Yeah," I said. She tabulated the price of my trip, including variables for age, class, and further destinations on a solar powered calculator. "15,209 Forints." That's about $70 dollars. "How much for Zagreb?" Calculating. "880." "Then I guess I'm going to Zagreb." She...