Sarajevo - 9.16.06

This is a bit of a longwinded but slightly amusing post. sorry

Around 9pm friday night, Emily and i walked to the train/bus station. She was catching a 10:15 overnight train to Budapest and i was catching the overnight bus to Sarajevo. We said our goodbyes and i headed to my bus platform. The bus arrived and after my swiss train experience i made sure i was on the right one by asking multiple people if this was the one going to Sarajevo. The bus was packed. I had a window seat...SCORE!...i thought i could just pull out my stuffable pillow, lean against the window and sleep till Sarajevo...WRONG! Turns out most serbians either don't have legs or if they do are very short. Plus the overhead compartment had enough room to fit only a few sheets of very thin paper, so i was stuck with my carry on bag taking up valuable leg room. This situation was made much better though, when who i can only imagine is next months Vogue cover model sat next to me...but i was too tired and cramped to start much of a conversation so i tried to sleep.

About 2 hours later we stopped at a random middle of nowhere rest stop for "dinner". Miss November informed that we would be here for 30 minutes and it was in my best interest to walk around. I looked at my phone (only source of telling time) and it said 12:30 am and i also noticed that i had perfect online access. I can't even get online on my phone (one of its many features) from my own room in San Francisco but in god knows where Serbia i can check who will be in Liverpool's starting line up in their upcoming game against Chelsea (this online feature becomes very valuable later). Not wanting to eat or drink anything as i had no idea when i would see a bathroom (my tummy was feeling a little funny) i paced around.

I had paced my way up to where the luggage hold was on the bus when a fellow passenger came ambling up with a wheelbarrow full of what i could only deduce was a chopped up pig in large plastic bags. He then proceeded to have a rather animated conversation with the bus driver which if i'm not mistaken went something like this.

PASSENGER: Hello good man, could you open the luggage hold so i can put my plastic bags of pig in there.

BUS DRIVER: Are you out of your friggin mind

PASSENGER: Well can i bring them on board?

BUS DRIVER : No way Jose (or serbian name equivalent)

PASSENGER: C'mon good sir, i just got an incredible deal on this pig at this remote out of the way place at 1am and i really could use your help. Tell you what, i'll give you a leg if you hook me up.

BUS DRIVER: Well ok...but only because i want to see the expression on that gypsy looking guy with the english accent who looks like he has rickets due to his legs being cramped up for the past 2 hours, face when i open the luggage compartment and put the pig on top of his backpack.

Getting back on the bus i noticed that Vogue was asleep, so i woke her up and offered her my window seat if she wanted. She seemed very impressed with this grandiose gesture and exclaimed that she loved the window seat. I confessed that i needed to sit in the aisle seat otherwise i was going to get a serious case of Deep Vein Thrombosis. The aisle was only slightly better but if anything it sparked up a conversation between Marina (Vogue supermodel and possibly the next Miss World and GOD KNOWS why she was on the overnight bus to sarajevo instead of being escorted in a limo and being fed grapes by a bunch of eunuchs) and I. Turns out she's a reporter type person (details were a little hazy as she seemed to be more of a jack of all trades) and LOVES to travel. She brought up an issue that Nikola and other serbian people i had talked to had as well, in that for them to travel it was nearly impossible for them to get visas. It takes almost a year to get a visa for anywhere and only cause that person knows someone in the embassy or money or whatever. She said that she wished she had a US or British passport and i could have sworn she said something about marrying someone or something like that (it was 3am at this point so i probably imagined/dreamt it) though it wouldn't have done any good as i couldn't even find my legs let alone control them to get on one knee...but it did make me realize how lucky i am that i can travel just about anywhere without having too hard a time getting visa. She also went on to explain how it was alot easier of members of former yugoslavia (croatia, bosnia and slovenia) to get visa's but not serbs as they're all lumped in with horrific war crimes of the previous regime. I honestly think people need to be judged by who they are as opposed to where they're from. Hell i don't want to be judged by the horrendous actions of Bush and Blair. As far as i'm concerned the world will be a better place if everyone got to meet Nikola and Marina...but that's just my 2 cents.

Marina got off a few stops before Sarajevo (DAMN) but said she would text me when/if she came into town (which unfortunately is probably when i'm in italy) and i said something to the effect that i would gladly help her get a green card by any means and no i'm not a hunchback its just these bus seats. We pulled into Sarajevo around 5:30 am and i grabbed a cab toward my hostel. I found it without much difficulty but after waking up the clerk (they did have 24 hour check in), i found out they had no record of my reservation. This hostel only had private rooms (not sure why they weren't called a hotel) and the clerk seemed to think he had one open so he lead me room number 6 which turned out to be occupied...embarrassing...so i was pretty much SOL. The clerk, possibly one of the most useless people in the world, pointed me in the general direction of another hostel. At this point it was beginning to get light out.

As i approached the new hostel i had a flashback to sitting in the Monster hostel and reading the comments about a specific hostel in Sarajevo where the words "filthy, disgusting, bed bugs but lots of fun" sprung to mind. I was exhausted and the last thing i wanted was to contract some health related disease so i sat on some church steps pulled out the ol sidekick (once again a hearty shout out to kenny for introducing me to this monster of a phone) and went online. Hostelworld had a variety of hostels to choose from and in the end i choose the nearest one that let in men (a surprising amount only took in family's and female travelers). The Kod Keme turned out be an excellent choice (Thank you T-mobile sidekick for having excellent internet service on your phone in bosnia). Its run by a bosnian woman who spoke perfect english with a very strong australian accent (turned out she spent alot of time there). They only had single rooms but at a very cheap price...SOLD...i paid and immediately feel asleep. For those if you visiting Sarajevo i highly recommend this place. Its centrally located in the old town, clean and the owner is wonderful. The Haris Hostel also came highly recommend but its hard to find (i found it randomly on top of a hill in my explorations later on).

I woke up a few hours later and went exploring. It was a grey day but i quickly saw that Sarajevo is beautiful. Its a town surrounded by large hills and mountains and filled with very picturesque houses. However, most everywhere you go you can see remnants of the terrible war and fighting that took place here. A lot of buildings have bullet scars or have clearly been bombed. Alot of the free land is filled with cemeteries with all the death dates ranging from 1992 to 1995. Not knowing what to explore i intend to take a guided tour sponsored by the filthy hostel (apparently its only redeeming feature) tomorrow. I wanted to climb up into the hills but was warned by many a guidebook that many of the hills still have land mines in them. I clambered up to an old castle like thing (which was on top of a hill so steep that it would worry Hillary and Norgay) and sat there and looked out over the city. It started to rain so i jumped on a tram and rode it around the city to where i got on, killing time and seeing the city without getting wet.

Sarajevo

Bascarsija square AKA pigeon square

Small football field. Loved the seating...made it very gladiator like

Bombed hotel (i think it was once a hotel)

I came back to the hostel and ran into Nadia and Mieke from Australia who had just arrived. They wanted a drink and i wanted food so we went out to couple of places. They talk faster, in more tangents and in an even more animated fashion than i do so we all got along well. Nadia has more of a mutty upbringing than i do (parents are jordanian and italian and she was born in england and lived in italy, jordan and now australia). We hung out on a popular street in the old town where they had a bunch of covered bars and where everyone was celebrating their saturday night. After a drink or two we were all tired and retired back to the hostel. Hopefully there will be enough people to take the tour (we need at least 4) tomorrow so i get to learn more about the terrible stuff that happened here not so long ago as well as some other history about this very beautiful town.

Covered Bar

Nadia and Mieke from Australia. Like i said...more animated and talk faster than i do!

Nadia and Mieke from Australia