An Interim Conclusion

* Waffle?*

I'm going to have to draw a conclusion, lets call it interim for the benefit of the doubt, but all the same: "Going round the world on my own" isn't going to work.

The days are pretty good, but the evenings are a bit shit. As always, I sat on my own to eat, although yesterday reading my book before and between courses rather than tapping on my PDA. Technically, bad manners but...

Then I went down the street I mentioned earlier and it was, indeed, jumping. I found one place where the customers weren't arranged around small tables, and fruitlessly listened for English being spoken.

I did try to spark up a conversation with one guy, but he looked blank (unable or unwilling, doesn't really matter). Admittedly he was wearing a Judas Priest T-shirt and his equal probably wouldn't have given me the time of day in the UK, but he was who was there.

It would probably work if I was like Dennis (Welsh, Australian or extremely un-self-conscious) but I'm not. I don't want to intrude, or make someone deal with me when they'd rather not've.

It isn't a problem for a short holiday like this - I have a lot of good books and TV in English - but an extended period would be another matter.

I can see that staying in hostels might be different. You have to share rooms and interacting with people is (to some extent) built-in. I probably would have been intending to make hostels the exception rather than the rule.

I think I'll have to have another think.

*Travel*

I'm now writing on the train from Zagreb to Belgrade, which will take six and a quarter hours. An outbreak of sense told me that, if I got up a bit earlier and caught the 9am train, then I could have an extra half day in Belgrade instead of frittering it away waiting for the 1:10/13:20/who-knows train.

The weather today is a heavy overcast. Yesterday started dull, but brightened a lot in the afternoon. Split was unbroken sunshine, as appropriate for a coastal resort. I'm wondering what today looks like in Split.

At the end of my walk yesterday I passed a chocolate shop window, where there was a display of novelty chocolate boxes. They each had a plastic embossed relief map of Croatia that helped me to understand the geography.

Split is on a narrow strip of land with a bank of cliffs a mile or so inland. Going North, these move inland and become a range of high hills or low mountains, and it was these that the Split-Zagreb train wove between, giving some attractive and occasionally spectacular views.


From the train, I couldn't tell whether we were going over a range of hills and down again, or up onto a central massif, like Kenya or maybe France.

Speaking of France, today's train mostly goes to Vinkovci but a single carriage goes on to Belgrade (after a bit of shunting). I'm sat in there, in a compartment for six, with two garrulous French women (maybe about 30) to whom I introduced myself, and two men who are silent, but one is reading a Croat newspaper.

I'm tapping away on my laptop, which I was afraid yesterday had caught a virus from a wi-fi hotspot, buy a full Norton scan when booted in safe mode revealed nothing and it looks OK today. I'll do scans with a few more tools before I use it again for Internet banking or credit cards.

There is a power supply in the compartment so, as the landscape seems resolutely flat and pretty well populated (i.e. not a lot to see) I may watch a DVD later if I don't fancy my book. Now that's "Band of Eagles" by Frank Barnard which is, as I guessed, about Hurricane fighters over Malta.

*Waffle (I suppose)*

As I've read memoirs by two real WW2 Malta fighter pilots, it's interesting to note the differences between (apparent) fact and fiction. So far, some characters have been less well introduced before their sudden deaths and incudents of combat are more condensed. The main feel of one of the memoirs was "we went up and saw nothing, maybe bumped into some enemy by accident, had an inconclusive scrap and suddenly found myself alone in an empty sky."

I'm reminded of the two theories of (what's behind) history - the conspiracy theory (it's all an impenetrable deliberate plan) and the cock-up theory (It's mostly due to mistakes and plain luck). I think any reasonable person has to be a "cock-up theory" believer, but maybe the Illuminati will reveal themselves and prove me wrong ;-)

On the other hand, I do think that "fortune favours the brave".

Does that bring us back to Dennis, I wonder?