Looking out of the bus, I was surprised by the number of English signs along the way. Close to Rijeka I spotted “Dry Dock” next to a huge yard covered with boats. Then I saw “Dog Grooming” and “Coffee Bar Voyager” in the center. Along the highway to Zagreb, I saw “Vienna Insurance Group” on a large sign. In Karlovac I spotted “Daily News Tobacco Shop” and “Tourism, Travel & Trade International.” And in the outskirts of Zagreb I saw huge “Sale” and “Popular Brands” signs next to each other. Closer to the center, I spotted “Green Gold City,” “Business Summit,” and “Optical Express.” All along the way, I saw many signs with “shopping,” “fitness,” and “fashion” in them, and in impeccable English spelling. Even I, an aficionado of today’s lingua franca, got pretty annoyed in the end. English is fine, but this is Croatia, for crying out loud. “What’s wrong with fucking Croatian?” I felt like shouting at some point. “That’s the last thing you’ve got you can call your own, morons!”