Zagreb managed to single-handedly ruin hostels for me. It smelled like cat urine in the corner where the locker for my backpack was. That was also very close to my bed. 
When the three Australian guys came back after what was presumably dinner/breakfast (they didn’t get back the from the night before until 3p.m.) they brought with them the always pleasing smell of cigarette smoke. Unfortunately, that was the best part of the room. At 4a.m. two of the three came back and decided that would be a good time to talk and joke loudly about what they had just done. Even after much debate about what the best way to avoid throwing up after drinking all night was, they both ended up in the bathroom anyway. Austin found some of that evidence in the morning when he woke up to go to the bathroom.
After we got out of the hostel, Zagreb was much better but that’s not really saying much. For being such a big city (the capital of Croatia), there really was not much to be done. They have the most museums in the world per square foot; however, none of them are really attention grabbers. We decided on the “Arts and Crafts Museum” which does not hold knitted products, macromé, decopage, or puff paint; however, they had a special exhibit with 110 different Rembrandt etchings. The thing about Rembrandt is that all of his artwork is very small. About 4”x4” was average. Nonetheless they were impressive, maybe even more impressive because of the minute scale.
After the museum we went with advice from Lonely Planet and ate the “Steak a lá
St. Stephen's Cathedral
Zagreb” which is essentially cordon bleu but it is wrapped up into a little log instead of a schnitzel shape. Mine came with delicious roasted potatoes and Austin got the french fries. So, if you are going to Zagreb just to eat, I guess that would be ok. If you are trying to see the sites, you may want to pass on by.
When we tried to leave, we ran into more troubles (should have expected it at this point). First, we tried to get on the train but it was apparently the wrong door and we got yelled at because he thought we were freeloaders. When we went over to the conductor, he said we needed a reservation even though the man told us the night before that we didn’t. After running back to the ticket office and paying more for our ticket, we made it onto the train in time which was lucky because neither of us wanted to go back to that hostel for another night.
