Sarajevo to Belgrade: Cher and a Missing Sweatshirt

We had to wake up at 4:30am to make it to our 6am bus out of Sarajevo. I used the internet while Mom got ready. Because of the time difference, I was able to talk to some of my friends in the States.

We checked out and took a taxi to the bus station. On the way, we ran almost every yellow-red light (in Bosnia, lights run red-yellow-green-yellow-red so cars can shift into gear and go as soon as it changes to green). We were also treated to a Cher (and other tacky Western music) jam-session....at 5:30am. Passing the Ashkenazi Synagogue and Eiffel Bridge, built by the same guy whose tower stands in Paris, we arrived at the bus station.

Our bus ride out of Bosnia was totally uneventful, until we reached the border. The Bosnian customs official boarded the bus and searched through our bags stopping to examine medicine. First up was my Epi-Pen, which he seemed to recognize. I showed him my allergy paper and he moved on. Next was the bottle of Zyrtec, which he didn't know actually contained Zyrtec, Centrum and Caltrate. It said allergy and I mimed sneezing to explain its function. He asked if there was more medicine, I said there wasn't. Finally he pulled out a tampon and began to examine it. When he realized what he was holding, he dropped it quickly and zipped the bag. Our interrogation was over.

In Serbia, we were met with a female immigration official who took our passports into her office, stamped them and brought them back to us. She didn't ask us any questions. I was expecting her to say something about my Kosovo stamps, or at least ask me why I had been there. She didn't, so we were soon on our way.

Serbian roads were awful: potholes, broken bits, paver-style stones. This made sleeping almost impossible. It didn't help that the bus made an awful squeaking sound.

We stopped at a roadside restaurant where we watched two men carry an entire roasted pig on a spit from a small roaster/barbeque on the side of the road, through the dusty parking lot and into the back of the restaurant. We had brought snacks with us and did not eat at the place. We did, however, use their Turkish toilets. When we got back on the road, my mom realized her sweatshirt was missing. We had left a bunch of stuff on the bus (not any valuables), so we thought maybe someone had taken it. The girl behind us, who spoke English, told us that someone had seen a sweatshirt in the bathroom, but no one know whose it was. This was the sweatshirt we bought at MANGO in Barcelona. It was the only zip-up my mom had with her and she really liked it. We were relieved to find out that no one had stolen it because we didn't want to think these people would do that.

We arrived in Belgrade at 2pm and went across the street to the train station. I bought us tickets for a train that night to Sofia, we put our bags at a left luggage facility and grabbed a map from tourist info. Welcome to city number five!