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Day 84
Saturday 24Oct
(1230 25Oct)
After getting home at 6 I bullied Drew into getting up at 8. It was a real struggle. I wanted to be out of there by 830. But wasn’t even ready myself untill 840. We then went into Ivans room. Who had also got home 2.5hours earlier to say bye. After a slightly dazed couple of responses. Ivan asked “why you go now. No no. your bus leaves at 10? I will take you at 915”.
After a quick high 5 we dropped our packs and I went to the bakery to grab some food. I just pointed to some stuff and held up different amounts of fingers. The assortment I received was great and Drew and I hooked into it untill we waited for Ivan.
After leaving a little late, combined with grabbing a couple of coffees and some water, plus the bus leaving at 955 we just caught it before it left. We threw on our gear and waved good bye to Ivan 2.
The bus trip was hard. I sat writing in my diary for the first hour and a half. But then my eyes were killing me and I had to sleep. Which itself was impossible too. The roads were so average, a combination of being ridiculously windy and bumpy, with the dodging of the pot holes made sleep impossible. And I just half dozed for the next coiuple of hours.
We had a rest stop at one point halfway up the mountains. There was pleantry of snow so I grabbed a heap of it and threw it at Drew. While he was at a rest room one guy signaled for me to stand closer to the bus while he took a photo. Dunno why but I did it anyway. He then approached me, looking like a typical tourist with a NY cap and jacket on. Because of his disposable camera I assumed he was from aanother Balkan state. This turned out to be wrong annd I was greeted with a thick Louisville accent.
The drive through war torn Bosnia was a real experience, between the snow, the bullet riddled buildings and the grey skies a pretty picture was anything but painted. Every now and then you’de pass a building that looked fine from one angle but as you passed it you’de see one of the rear corners which had been blown off.
We arrived in Sarevjevo in the rain, we just decided to taxi into the city, we couldn’t be bothered sorting out a bus and it was getting dark anyway. The ride was a good 15 minutes and it would have been a hard slog. But it only cost us ten Euros. Which wasn’t bad.
We checked out 3 very close hostels and went with the cheapest. ten Euros each for a night wasn’t bad. We were in a 10 room dorm. Yet only 3 of the beds were occupied. There was Canadian there called Canada 1 and we chatted to him for a bit before agreeing to go and get some food somewhere.
Canada 1 was convinced he knew where a decent restaurant was. We all wanted something a bit healthy, soome salad vegies and some decent steak maybe. We walked over half of Sarajevo and tried a couple of places which were nothing more then bars as opposed to being restaurants.
Drew was getting s***ty, he does that. He wont contribute to any type of planning except whinging when things don’t magically go to plan. I put my foot down and at the next restaurant we went it. We had a look at the menu, it wasn’t too cheap but not bad. However Canada 1 was a little skeptical at first.
We sat up stairs and ordered. The dinner was awesome. I had a massive grilled Turkey dish, and drew a spag bol. Plus we both had a salad each. The feed was huge and it was so good.
The plan was to goo for a gonk next. We went back to thhe hostel and slept for 3 hours and got up at 11. It was Saturday night and we weren’t going to spend it in bed. We showered and grabbed the 2L bottles of beer we’de bought to get started.
Day 85
Sunday 25Oct
(0900 26Oct)
After a solid 3 hours sleep we were up at 830, breakfast was from 8 till 9. We got there at 859, in the nick of time. Only to find out that the night before daylight savings had finished and it was only 759 and we were early.
The breakfast was pretty crap really an egg and two buns. Drew ate his jam and the one from the plate beside his. That solicited a small argument with one of the guys serving the food. Good one Drr.
We went and found an internet café and made a booking for one more night. Canada 1 had booked his room online and it had only been 5 Euros instead of 10. After that I was feeling dead. So I left Drew to it and went back to the hostel to try and sleep.
The plan was to sleep from 9 till 12. That didn’t work, despite my eyes hurting from being so tired. To many people were moving around the room and the hostel and I jus couldn’t nod off. We were meeting the girls from the previous night again later, and I couldn’t help thinking about the myriad of questions I was going to pose to them about the war and Islam.
I got back up at 1030 and went and grabbed Drew. We went and chilled out in the local mall. Sarajevo itself is not very representative of the restt of the country. It’s quite clean and there’s many expensive shops and many more people dressed very expensively. I also saw more fat people there then I had in my entire Balkan travel.
We met the girls at 1400 and waited for another 10 minutes for Canada 2. We then went and grabbed some food. Some Cevapi. A Bosnian specialty that had been adopted by the rest of the Balkan states. It was great, like little spicy hamburgers in a pita thing with sour cream and onion.
After that we started our guided tour of Sarajevo. We went via then main mosque, which un fortunately we couldn’t go inside of. Past the State library, which was unfortunately covered in scaffolding.
We then walked up a steep narrow path to a lookout. We wentt past one of the many, new cemetries that’s in Bosnia. One of the Girls, Leela, wouldn’t go inside while besmina showed us around and to a few famous people’s graves.
At the top of the walk we were afforded a fantastic view of Sarajevo. And although it was cloudy and a bit foggy it looked fantastic. From here you could see Areas of white all over the city. These were more of the new cemetries filled with white marble head stones. It was all pretty sobering.
We went and grabbed a coffee and I tried to ask the girls about the fallout of former Yugoslavia. That didn’t go well. I don’t think they were taken aback but I think the language barrier just broke this conversation down.
I had a really raspy night. All the cigarette smoke in the clubs does that too me and again the lack of vocabulary was quite amusing. The girls started laughing at one point one imitating what I’d just said. I asked them what was so funny. Leela said. “Haha, your very cute your voice is very manly” a completely off the bat comment, no real complement intended just the vocabulary leads to a lack of suttleties.
We left the girls as I wanted to go for a run before it got to dark. I walked Drew down to a place with free WiFi. I said I’ll be less then an hour and if I’m not back in an hour and a half it’s coz I’ve been kidnapped.
The run was awesome. I went upstream along the old road beside the river. The river had sliced a path through the mountains, leaving cliffs on each side. On some occasians the cliffs were so close to the water that I had to run through tunnels that had been cut into the rock.
I got some strange looks as I went for a run. Local teenagers heckling me and a lot of old people just staring at me. One old guy stopped in his stride and with and open mouth just gawked at me as I ran past as if I couldn’t see him.
I got back to the place where I’d dropped drew after 50 minutes. 10 befor I said I’d be there. I looked in. He was no where to be seen. I stood around waiting for 20 minutes. I was only in my shorts and a singlet. I was absolutely freezing. Drew never appeared. I was so angry.
I ended up going back to the reception of our hostel and asking for another key. They had abit of a laugh at my attire as one of the ladies explained that it is very uncommon around here to go running.
I went back to the room. I was so pissed at Drew. But I guess I had to expect it from him. I showered, got warm and went back to the place where I was supposed to meet Drew. He was in there tucked behind a corner. At first I could of slugged him. But then I realized had I just walked into the bar (With my running shorts and Guernsey on) the qhole thing would have been avoided. So I got over it pretty quickly.
We went to get dinner. We wanted another salad from the place where we’de eaten the night before. But we weren’t 100% sure how we’de got there. We eventually found it but it was closed they were renovating.
We headed back up towards the Hostel and found a little place in the side street. We were pretty much dragged inside by an old guy, and we had a look at a menu. There was a decent selection and the menu was in a few different languages, usually a sign that It’s used by a lot of tourists. We sat down and ordered.
It was awesome. I had a massive steak with an egg on it and a heap of chilli, while drew had a big pizza. His pizza was pretty hot and he was pretty soon a dribbling mess. So I helped him finish it.
We were pretty knackered so we went to watch a movie at restaurant where I could plug my laptop into a wall. We sat at a place near our hostel drank a few beers and watched Eurotrip. It’s so funny!!
After that finished we hit the sack. Hard, at 10pm.
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