That Time We Almost Went to Serbia

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You may notice that my Facebook status says I'm going to Serbia. You may also notice that I'm blogging from Budapest.

Here's what happened...

I came home from school all excited for my 11:00 bus that was going to take Darcy and me to Belgrade tonight. We were going to arrive at 5 am tomorrow morning, nap in the hostel, and then explore Belgrade all weekend.

Nope.

I packed, I showered, I did laundry, I cleaned my dishes, etc. I went out and exchanged Forints for Euros so that we would be able to pay the bus driver. Darcy made the bus reservation earlier today. Darcy came over, we got a beer, and we left for the bus station. We knew where to be and when. Darcy got the reservation through a company called OrangeLines.

We got to the bus stop at 10:00. We had to be there at 10:30. 10:30 came and went. We met an Indian who lives in Salt Lake City as well as 2 Romanians. There are a ton of people at this stop, and no one seems to be going to Serbia. Darcy and I were excited, but this was all very last minute for me, so I said that I would believe it once we were on the bus. HA. Eventually a bus pulled up that said Budapest to Belgrade on it, but it wasn't the company that we had gone through. I started talking to the bus driver asking "OrangeLines?" He just pointed at the bus stop sign, which was not helpful. Another Romanian came over and told us that this was NOT and OrangeLines bus, so the bus drove away.

OOPS. Stupid wrong Romanians. Turns out that the company was a subset of OrangeLines but stupid language barriers caused us to miss our bus. So we got on the metro and went home. At this point I was tired and cranky. Still am.

At the bus stop, Darcy's feet got cold, so she put on snowman toe socks under her fancy sandals. We thought we were sleeping on a bus for 7 hours. So when we got on the metro, a Hungarian started talking to her because of her socks. He was asking a million questions like "where were you born?" "what's your favorite music?" "what's your favorite cinema? (movie)" Then he offered to give her a foot rub. Umm...no. Thankfully he got off the metro a couple stops later.

So now we're back in my flat and not on our way to Serbia. HOWEVER, we're considering this a blessing in disguise. Here's why. There's been some stupid cold/virus/flu thing going around, and my throat's been dry this week, and I feel something coming on. Going to Serbia this weekend would have made my week miserable, which I kind of knew, but I was going to do it anyway because...Serbia. Darcy was also having some doubts in the very back of her mind. We both have a feeling we're missing a potential disaster by not going. So that's good. We'll call it a blessing in disguise.

Also the Budapest chocolate festival is tomorrow as well as the Sausage and Palinka festival in Debrecen. So I think we'll figure something out tomorrow. At least this city is never boring.

Also, we're definitely going to Serbia next weekend. Definitely. It's happening.

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