And they got used pretty fast to coffee-sipping rituals of the locals.
The task of a group of American students is to get to know Zagreb in three weeks, including its people, trends, hidden corners, local food and other features. Their mentor is Alex Crevar, a New York Times reporter, and their writing consultant is Leara Rhodes, a long-time journalist and a professor at the Georgia University, reports Večernji List on May 27, 2016.
“Hanging out and drinking coffee at any time of day” is how these 12 journalism students from the Georgia University will probably remember the city. But, they have themselves adopted this habit that they were surprised with in the beginning. They realized that in Zagreb people are sipping coffee during the lunch break, when they meet with friends, when making business deals and the list goes on and on.
The American students have chosen Zagreb as a city that will help them learn how to write travel stories. Every day after a lecture at the hotel, they tour the city and look for the latest trends, original Croatian products and similar things. After they complete their research, they will write tens of stories and post them on a website to be created next week.
They have been in Zagreb for less than seven days and will stay for another two weeks. So far, they wrote about Croatian designers, places that can be seen for free, they visited restaurants and recommended some of them. They also plan to write about their own impressions and cover some of the upcoming events.
“One student has researched what can be done in Zagreb with 20 dollars, while the other one focused on Zagreb’s wine cellars, and the third one on Croatian restaurants… We will soon take them to the Dolac open market. They are impressed with the fact that residents of Zagreb have such a close relationship with the vendors (kumice) at the market and that they always go to the specific one”, said Alex Crevar, while students added that they did not expect Zagreb to be so safe and peaceful. “At home, it would be hard to imagine walking around the city at any chosen time of the night or day”, the students said.
They are also impressed with the public transportation, which is, they noted, better than in the United States, and they like that the fast food restaurants are actually not fast, as the customers can sit down and eat. They also added that the food is very affordable, yet so tasty.
