Getting from Belgrade, Serbia to Sarajevo, Bosnia was not a pleasant experience. At all.
I took a bus from one capital to the other. There is no other way to describe this trip but “horrific.”
To begin, it was wickedly hot. I asked the assistant driver if he would open the window on the ceiling. He obliged, but would only crack it a couple of inches. This did not provide substantial ventilation but, I reasoned, a few molecules of air is better than nothing! I had a searing headache, but did not want to drink any water because there was no bathroom onboard.
Furthermore, I was seated next to a woman who poured into my seat, taking up approximately one-third of my space.
Meanwhile, the speakers above my head were blasting a nightmarish mix resembling emo and polka. Yeah, I did not think that combination was possible, either. Until yesterday. The noise was so discordant that I put on my IPOD and blasted Bruce Springsteen until it felt like my ear drums were bleeding.
As the hours passed, I started to feel like I was going to vomit. Just when I thought that things could not get worse, the woman to my left opened her purse and removed … [drum roll] … a sausage sandwich.
At that moment, the assistant driver, who was standing in the middle of the aisle and facing away from me, reached one pudgy arm skyward and closed the window on the ceiling. Immediately, I started to fantasize about all of the ways that I could hurt and disable him.
Operation Fresh Air was as follows:
I get out of my seat, walk up to the assistant driver and tap him on the shoulder. When he turns to face me, I vomit in his face. The moment he starts to wipe away my vomit, I knee him in the groin. This disables him enough for me to reach around his body and place him in the sleeper chokehold. After he passes out on the floor of the bus, I reach up and open the ceiling window.
Then, I walk casually back to my seat. I grab the sausage sandwich from the hands of the speechless woman to my left and heave it down the aisle. I put my IPOD back on and go to sleep.
I seriously entertained Operation Fresh Air but, ultimately, decided that the cons outweighed the pros. Cons like fines, ending up in a Bosnian prison, and having to delay (or forgo) graduate school.
I reached Sarajevo as it was getting dark. I was in such a foul mood that I paid a taxi driver 10 Euros to take me straight to my hostel (instead of navigating the city tram, trolley, and bus network for cheaper). I arrived at my hostel only to find it locked.
When the management returned 45 minutes later, I checked in and went straight to bed, repeating the mantra, “Tomorrow is going to be a better day, tomorrow is going to be a better day, tomorrow is going to be a better day,” as I passed out.
Luckily for me, tomorrow was a better day, in part because of Turkish coffee.
The Ottoman Empire once controlled this area, and Turkish influence is still felt. This bodes well with me, as Turkey has some of the best food of any country I’ve visited. Turkish coffee consists of hot water poured over raw grounds. The grounds form a thick sludge on the bottom of the cup and the coffee has a strong, grainy taste. Sugar cubes are served separately. It is customary to eat the sugar cubes by themselves, instead of putting them into the coffee.
After coffee, I let myself get lost in Sarajevo. Getting lost is what I like to do in every city. I wholeheartedly believe it is the best way to get to know a place. While lost, I stumbled upon a sobering memorial to the victims of the Bosnian War (April 1992 to December 1995). It’s a graveyard, in fact.
I lost myself in this graveyard for a good hour. It was one of the most emotionally-charged moments of the trip. Here are some pictures:
