Day 2 - I hate Charles de Gaulle and cold weather

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I knew there was a reason why I hated long flights.

Cramped seats, nonexistent leg room, disrupted circadian rhythms...oohhh yeah.

But at least I was able to blow through a new airport: the Charles de Gaulle Airport in Paris (yay!). Unfortunately for this little ignorant American, Charles de Gaulle fully intended to unnecessarily complicate the entire flying process. After spending a full hour running around like a headless chicken on speed, I finally managed to crawl my way to my gate. Who the hell puts check-in counters next to the gates?? Hm. On second thought, that makes the world of sense. Needless to say, as the French would say, I was...le'tired.

When I finally arrived in Belgrade, I met up with Steve, who picked me up from the airport, which turned out to be this one-story hovel that boasted 5 baggage claims. Wowzers. And here I was, worried that I wouldn't be able to find Steve from a throng of....fifteen people waiting in the lobby. Oh, the perils of flying to the Balkans.

The bus plopped us in the middle of the city, and it wasn't until this moment when I realized I was in Europe. I was in fucking EUROPE.

I couldn't resist the temptation -- I had to play the dumb little American tourist. Haha, if my Asian stature and oversized hiking backpack didn't make it obvious enough, then I think it was my moony expression and unabashed drooling that gave these Serbs a clue.

Shortly after I snapped a shot of our bus stop did these 3 Serbian girls take notice (you can see them looking at the camera in the bottom right! lol). Conversation was predictably awkward but still incredibly funny.

Our hostel was actually quite nice! The dorm room had 8 beds, but we ended up having the room ourselves anyway. I guess not many backpackers are romanced into traveling during the wet and cold season, haha.

More sightseeing tomorrow in Belgrade...

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Photos

Charles de Gaulle Airport
fancy schmancy! unfortunately, I couldn't appreciate the beauty of the decor because my body clock's still set to 3am at this point

First glimpse of Belgrade!
Taken literally the moment I hopped off the bus

Bus stop
3 girls saw me taking pictures and smiled and waved over at us...you can even see them in the bottom right corner of the picture, lol

Central Station Hostel
my first hostel stay! :)

Comments

[Christine]

AAAH HOW COOL!! Europe is so un-American, lol. It's okay, you're allowed to be touristy for the first few weeks =P

[yux]

i read your commend about the "headless chicken on speed" and fell off my chair..laughing. very funny. now you just need to take more pictures!

[devyn]

haha! yeah, I can't express how different everything is over here! Everybody here seems so worldly and whatnot... and yux, of course you would enjoy the mental image of headless chickens...I keep telling everyone about you eating dogs in china! :DD