So…I am finally back on the Internet! We left for Bosnia almost a week ago and stayed in a university housing that did not have Internet. While there, I wrote a few blog posts (that I obviously could not share) that I will add one each day so not to overwhelm you. The one from the first day:
1/16/11 Trip to Bosnia
We left for Pale, Bosnia (a small town about 13 km outside of Sarajevo) at 1:00 today after a short morning practice. Layne and I hustled after practice because we needed to buy towels to bring with us and eat lunch at Palma before we left because it was about a 7 hour bus ride. We arrived back at the apartment at about 11:45, but we still needed to shower and finish packing. Luckily we were able to get everything done and arrived at the gym in time for our departure. Layne had tried to explain the bus to me and she was pretty accurate in describing it more as a van than a bus. It had six rows including the driver’s row and each row had 3 chairs. We also had a luggage carrier hitched to the back. The bus was surprisingly nice and pretty comfortable.
The seven hour or so bus ride was an eventful one. Right away, a Serbian cd was put in the player and everyone was singing along to the music. It was pretty funny to go 7 hours without knowing a single song when I usually know every song that comes on the radio. As we were driving along, there were several hazards we had to avoid. First, we almost ran over several Billy goats. They were crossing the street and I think if they would have been a little slower, our driver would have had no problem hitting them. Next, we seriously almost ran over a hitchhiker. He was standing on the side of the road and as we got closer, he moved more into the center of the road. The driver laid on the horn but did not slow down. At the last second, the hitchhiker jumped out of the way, and we continued down the road. From what I have gathered so far, hitchhiking is a very popular mode of transportation here. A lot of people do it instead of paying for a taxi or bus. It all seems a little unsafe to me! Finally, we had to swerve into the other lane to avoid a huge barrel of hay. All these occurrences made me laugh because I don’t think any of them would have happened in the states. Oh yeah, we also got pulled over a police man for some reason.
Most of the trip was along a little two way highway that weaved in and out of the mountains. Sometimes there were guardrails, and sometimes there were not. It would be very easy to go off the road if you were going too fast or hit a sheet of ice. Luckily, none of those things happened to us. In order to enter Bosnia, we had to stop at the border patrol. This process took a good thirty minutes. Layne and I couldn’t figure out why, but then again they were all talking in Serbian. On the bright side, I got another stamp in my passport! Once we got into Bosnia, the roads took a turn for the worse. They were very curvy and some were not even paved. Thankfully, I slept through most of this part or else I would have been worrying most of the time.
Finally, we arrived at our “hotel”. From what we understand, it is where university students stay during school. Layne and I were given the “luxury” room because it had two separate rooms and a private bath. There is no heat in the whole building, so we have to rely on space heaters and unfortunately there is only one for both our rooms. And the one room has a pull out couch as a bed. The other rooms all have two single beds. To make it work, we moved the smaller bed into the bigger room so one of us would not freeze to death at night. We made the other room our “dressing room”.
Our "sleeping" room
Our "dressing" room
I like the way you are serial-ing the trip- makes it last longer for us-
ReplyDeleteluv ya- DAD