Sarajevo - last stop on the road

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I arrived to Sarajevo late at night with the bus from Beograd. As I exited the bus I discovered that I wasn't at the bus-station which I had hoped. I was not at the central busstation, but at "the other" busstation 15km outside town...Shit...
Lucky for me a local girl was to be picked up by her boyfriend and she offered me a ride with them into the center. So around 10.00 in the evening I finally after 20 hours of travelling got to the youth-hostel. And what a mess. The bed I had ordered wasn't there. And already one guy was sleeping on the couch in the kitchen. Luckily enough after an hour of waiting I got another couch made ready for me, and my backpack and I went directly to bed.

The Stadion

The next morning became the beginning of the end. The first day of my last stop. And what a beautiful morning it was. As I walked through the center of old Sarajevo I met to American guys from the hostel and we joined up for a turkish coffee and some burek. One of the guys talked for hours about this specific olympic stadion that he knew was somewhere in some direction... so we started climbing the hills of Sarajevo. Walking for hours through quiet neighbourhoods, stopping and thinking our own striking thoughts at every cemetery and buying a new bottle of water at each shop we met on our way, it started out to be a relaxing day in the name of discovery. After having walked and talked for half the day we finally had infront of us the kosovo stadion. And what a bommer it was to find out that it was closed!

But after we had been standing there for a while figuring out what then to do, the elder man sitting guard in the door told us that he would let us in for ten minutes. Ten tremendous minutes. As we walked into the stadion I felt like being one of three people alone in the world; running around on the field with bare feet, lying in the grass and formating the sky or just pretending to shoot on goal - just the three of us. I wonder how it must be for footballplayers when the tribunes are packed with people. For me it was one of the biggest experiences at the whole of my trip.

Company

But the day should turn out to be even better. As we returned to the hostel we joined what fastly became a party in the kitchen. Which included beer-botles of 2 litres, making people talking. And the night started forming into a morning headache.
We fastly got thrown out of the kitchen and at around midnight we ended up down at the centersquare, with even more beer than when we started. I was sitting at the fountain enjoying the atmosphere of the evening, when this aussie guy asked me if I liked watching porn with my boyfriend. Response: who the fuck are you? He is Aaron, originaly from Adelaide and has been travelling Europe for 2½ years and for the next five days of my life we became one!
It was a strange feeling here on the final days of my travel to meet a fellow traveler with whom I connected so easily. But great though. Great to have someone to share the beauty of Sarajevo with.

We went the next day for a halfday trip to see the tunnel museum and the Jewish graveyard from where Serbian snipers shot on what in present days has been known as Snipers Alley. It was amazing to see these places. To be surrounded by such a terrible and yet beautiful history and knowing that it happened only a decade ago at the very grounds on which I was now standing. But what was most amazing and wonderfull was afterwards to see the life of Sarajevo, as it is today. Young people relaxing in the cafés and the older generation enjoying chess in the free.

All-in-all I believe Sarajevo to be one of the most fascinating cities I ever visited and the Bosnian people to be extremely kind and open. It was a great end of my trip. Aaron went with me back to Ljubljana and I had the fortunate luck to for once on my trip being able to sleep comfortable in the nightbus with my head on the shoulder of the passenger next to me.

Home again

My trip had ended and I was back from where I left a month earlier. But changed! I have now found in myself a passionate love for the wild beauty of south-eastern Europe.
One day in the near future I will return. I will visit my Ljubljana and enjoy more of the Croatian Islands and the beauties of Albania, Macedonia and certainly Bosnia.

Anna

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Photos

White is the color of war
All over Sarajevo you find white gravestones all of them standing over an other human soul who died doing the siege

the stadion
There is no place like an empty stadion if you wish to feel all alone

street life in sarajevo
if there is one thing that charms a tourist from the cold north it is how the locals spend their time socialising over a game of chess in the afternoon.

the red river of sarajevo
standing at the bridge from where 1st world war evolved.

sarajevo at 04.00 in the morning
standing getting warm at the eternal flame from 2nd world war.