HEY GUYS FUN FACT I’m in Belgrade! Now that I’m here I’m loving it, but getting here was a bitch and a half.
I took (yet another) overnight bus here from Budapest. I had booked a FlixBus, which is probably the nicest bus company in Europe. They have WiFi on board, oftentimes outlets, comfortable seats, and they’re double decker. WELL. My bus came in, but it was NOT a FlixBus: apparently it was one of their “partners” which is a just a way of saying that the bus was shit and tried to charge me a euro to stow my bag (I refused) and there were no bathrooms on board and the seats were horrendous and there was definitely no WiFi. I found all this super annoying but whatever. I put a movie on my phone and tried to relax and eventually get to sleep, ignoring the ever growing pressure in my bladder.
We arrived at the Hungarian/Serbian border…and sat there. And sat there. And sat there. The line of vehicles was absurdly long, possibly because it was New Year’s Day. We eventually had to get out and stand in line to actually go though passport control (normally they board the bus) and then later they came and checked the passports again. The guy across the aisle from me got detained and they took dramatic photos of him while he boarded the bus to get his bag. THREE AND A HALF HOURS LATER, we had finally crossed the border.
I arrived to my hostel at about 7:30 am, after having barely slept at all on the bus. Luckily, they are amazing and wonderful there, and tucked me into the couch with a blanket because my room wasn’t ready yet. After I had slept for a few hours, I felt like I could function again. I walked around the city a bit, found a cheap breakfast, and walked around some more. The city was a ghost town because it was still considered a holiday, and the weather was rainy and dreary. Most of the shops and things were closed, so I didn’t stay out too long: I went back to the hostel as soon as my room was ready and finally took a much needed shower.
My hostel has a super nice common area where everyone hangs out; I decided to be social for a bit and go meet some people, ended up going to KFC for the THIRD DAY IN A ROW, and spent the rest of the night drinking with new friends, playing card games, and talking.
Day two in Belgrade was much more productive, but also much more exhausting. I tagged along with an American guy and an Aussie guy to the Military Museum, which lies inside this big fortress. This was not a museum I would have gone to on my own, but I’m so glad I went: I learned so much about the history of Serbia and Yugoslavia. There are so many things that have happened in the world – even in my lifetime – that I have no idea about, and I really want to change this and learn as much as I can. It also helped that the guys I was with knew a lot of history, and would discuss things and answer questions I had.
Even though I felt like I had done enough learning after several hours in the museum, I decided to tag along to a walking tour that covered the communist era of Serbia. There ended up only being three of us, which was great because we got tons of personal attention from our guide. I learned so much on the tour, it’s insane. I never used to be interested in history, but I’m finding that the more I learn and the more tours I go on and the more places I see, the more I feel like I can understand and connect with what is happening, and the more interesting and important I’m coming to find it all. For example, I had no idea that a communist leader would be so revered as he was in Yugoslavia, and after hearing what wonderful things he did for his people, I completely understand why they loved him so much.
After all this information being stuffed in my head, I was completely drained. I headed back to the hostel for a bit to relax, but I didn’t really have much time for that: we ordered some burritos for dinner and then went out to some bars.
We started at this Rakia bar, which is the national drink of Serbia. It’s this really strong liquor that you’re supposed to sip: the best kind is definitely the honey flavor which is delicious. But some of it is downright gross. We then went to several other bars, which was awesome because Belgrade has a great nightlife scene. BUT I’m secretly a grandma and got progressively more exhausted. By 4am I was absolutely done, walked home alone and was closely followed by the rest of the crew, deciding that they actually didn’t want to go to a 7am bar.
The problem with staying up until 4am is that you don’t wake up until noon, which of COURSE didn’t happen to me, what are you talking about. I eventually got my ass out the door and went straight to the Turkish embassy because I’d really like to go to Istanbul. Visiting an embassy to talk to them and just see what’s up is something I NEVER would have considered a couple of months ago. But it was so easy. And they were so nice and helpful. I learned that about a week ago, Turkey changed the laws and are now letting US citizens in with a visa they way they used to do. The woman was super nice and gave me the website to go to to apply for the visa, which apparently takes no time and gets emailed to you immediately. Now that I know how easy it is, I think I’m going to visit the US embassy in Athens and tell them that I’m interested in visiting Turkey, Egypt and Morocco, just to make sure I have all the documents I need because the website can be a little confusing.
After this, I went to the Nikola Tesla museum. It’s tiny: you can look at all the displays in about fifteen minutes. The cool thing, though, was that they do an English language tour, and I got to get electrocuted and stuff. Which was cooler than it sounds. They had a lot of his inventions on display, and even an urn with his ashes (which is a thing I don’t really understand but I guess it’s cool that I saw it).
Then I walked around a bit, saw a big church thing that is hardcore under construction, and walked around some more. The city is so warm right now – it’s sunny, in the 40’s, and absolutely beautiful. I’m so grateful to be somewhere that’s warm as hell right now instead of Chicago or New York. Even better, I’m learning about their rich, fascinating history and hopefully becoming a more educated human.