Day One

All’s well  that ends well.  After a bit of  a  detour from the Hungarian/Croatian border  which forced us to backtrack and go through Slovenia, and a total failure to contact our  Air B and B host, we are now ensconced snugly in our little Zagreb apartment for one night, and all is right with  the world.
At the border, the problem was that I’m traveling with an American passport and did not bring along my Czech permanent residency booklet (which looks a lot  like a passport) and because we were entering a non-Schengen country from a  Schengen country and they had no way of ascertaining how long I’d been in the  Schengen zone, we had to turn around.  The guards at the  Slovenian/Croatian border raised the same issue, and  we thought we were looking at a vacation in  Slovenia, which wouldn’t be horrible, but it  wasn’t our plan.  Eventually they relented and made us promise that on  the way back we’d at least have a photocopy of the permanent residency permit, which we can do.
Then, we got to  Zagreb and started looking for our Air B and B, and things got very  confusing.  It’s on a very  busy  street, with a tram line, so  we wound up parking several  blocks away  and walking back  to  it.  But, our host wasn’t answering our calls.  We eventually located the apartment but there was nobody there. The door, however, was open.  In fact, we couldn’t figure out anyway to lock  it.  First, since nobody was there to meet us and we couldn’t contact them, we felt sort of  as if we were squatting,  or  even trespassing.   Then, we didn’t feel secure  leaving anything there, and were planning to  leave a suitcase in front of the door when  we did sleep.  ‘A short walk from the center ‘ didn’t sound like such a great selling point any  more.
So, we went and got the car and parked it here, but didn’t  move anything in. We went out for dinner.  But every place we went turned  out  to be drinks only, except the  kebab stand and they wouldn’t take a credit card.  So, we went to the grocery  store, came back  here  and  made sandwiches.
We eventually  did find  a message  from our  host  online confirming that  we  were in the right flat and  telling us how to  lock  the door.  It was that kind of thing where it’s easy  once it’s explained but you  never would have  guessed  it.