I recently had to find my way back from Zagreb, Croatia, to Vienna Austria.

So I went to the main train station and asked to buy a ticket to Vienna. The lady looked at me like I was a moron, turned around and dug through a meter high layer of papers and other debris, to uncover an ancient looking computer, some Croatian brand. She attempted to boot it up, amber screen and all, to no avail. “No, can’t buy ticket here, maybe on the train…”

This didn’t give me much confidence. I’d already tried to get on the train, the conductors “no ticket on train, buy at office, take train tomorrow” advice was why I was asking this lady to do some archaeology in the first place.

I ended up just renting a car.

One day I’ll go back to Zagreb and take a closer look. It really can’t be that bad - still buying tickets with ancient Soviet-era computing. As much as I love the whole mirth of this story, I still feel like I missed something obvious. I probably should’ve bought the ticket online .. but man was it amusing seeing that old amber glow reach from beneath the detritus ..