Labour Day in Zagreb

This week was again a four-day working week as Thursday was a public holiday due to Labour Day. The celebrations were in Park Maksimir, which is on the other side of the city - according to Google Maps some 6km from my home. The weather has not been very nice lately but fortunately on Thursday morning the sun was shining so I packed my backpack with some fruits and cookies for a picnic, took my bike and went to the park. On my way I also bought my first strawberries this spring. 

Rather unsurprisingly the park was full of people. The majority was middle-aged or elderly people and families with kids and dogs (the people here seriously take their dogs everywhere) but not that many young people. There was a stage, where people were entertained with traditional dance, bands playing and children of kindergarten age dancing. Next to it where tents where free food was handed out. It was a sauce of beans with slices of sausage and a piece of bread. In my opinion it did not look very delicious but people were queuing and eating it, although some gave some of it to their dogs.

I didn't see it, but apparently there was also a demonstration organized by the unions. I only saw people walking around with shirts saying 8+8+8 referring to the eight-hour day of workers - 8 hours of work, 8 hours of free time and 8 hours of sleep - which the minister for labour had recently questioned. The following day I read in the news that the president had also been in the park, but I didn't see him either. Instead I was lying on the grass, reading in my book and observing enjoying the strawberries I bought. 

After some time a friend joined me, and we ended up staying in the park for a couple more hours until we heard thunder. We left the park to look for a place to eat. It was Labour Day so very understandable that everything, shops and restaurants, was closed. The only place open was McDonald's so we had to eat there. The prices were in line with those in Ljubljana and are nearly half of what I am used to in Finland. A Big Mac menu was something like 30 HRK which is around 4 €. However, ketchup was not included in the price, but we had to pay an extra of 0,25 € for one bag of it. Despite finishing with McDonald's it was a nice day, and I made it home before the thunderstorm started.

The weekend has been very relaxing. On Friday we went to a wine bar, which was a really good idea. The atmosphere in the place was lacking something because they played party music instead of jazz or something alike, which you would expect in a wine bar. Regardless, the wine was good and affordable - 10 cl was around 3 euro. We also had some cheese, olives, bread and delicious olive oil with it. Saturday night we went to the cinema, and as expected the price was higher than on a Wednesday night. Still, we are talking about less than 5 € for a movie ticket - in Helsinki you would pay 15€ for a movie ticket on a Saturday night! These cheap prices are a blessing for us since we can do all these fun things here we could never afford doing back home, but they also reflect the economic situation. According to Croatian ministers the economy is worst since the war in the beginning of the 1990s, and that says a lot.