That Time We ACTUALLY Went To Serbia

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New country! New red shape on the map! I definitely did not know what region Belgrade was in (the blog required me to pick a region rather than a city), so I guessed until I found Belgrade. Apparently it's west. So keep that in your pocket, because someday you'll need that information.

Anyway, Belgrade. We made it! We almost didn't make it again. So on Friday Darcy and I made delicious food, drank a bunch of wine, and went back to the bus stop, determined to get on the first bus that said Belgrade or Beograd or something that seemed like Serbia. 11:00 came and went. And no bus. So we waited. And waited. At 11:45 we met a Serbian, which made us feel better. At 12:15 we met another Serbian, which made everyone feel better. Our bus finally came at 12:30. SUPER comfortable night bus. I passed out. At 3 am we had to get off the bus into the freezing cold night air at the Hungarian border, but then we got back on, and I passed out again.

At 6:30 am, we got to Serbia. Here are some things that I've learned to do before you go to a foreign country.

1) Know how to get to your hostel.

2) Know a good cab fare, so you don't get ripped off.

3) Speak, like, A word of the language.

4) Research the nightlife. Especially when you're in Serbia where you have to make a reservation to get into a good club.

That being said, we somehow made it to our hostel with lots of asking people for directions and one sketchy tram ride. We buzzed the hostel a bunch and ended up having to go to another hostel across the street so that they could call and get us into our hostel. The guy is shocked to see us there so early but let us into our room where we crashed for 3 hours. We woke up and left for the day. We had coffee at this super cute cafe and then got some pastries elsewhere. We spent the entire day walking around. See pictures. The churches were unbelievable. We went inside the giant Cathedral of Saint Sava. The only word to describe it would be cavernous. And under construction. Bummer. Gorgeous nonetheless. Outside there were more fountains. I took pictures because I am apparently really into fountains. I have a lot of pictures of fountains in Belgrade. We also went to St. Marks Church where I bought and lit a candle for my cousins George and (now) Kate who were getting married that day. I'm adorable, I know.

We had some delicious food. I don't remember what it's called but it was some sort of sausage sandwich with lots of good stuff in it. I didn't know what anything was, so I told the girl behind the counter to put whatever she wanted in it. It ended up being a good decision.

By the time we got to the Belgrade fortress, it was dusk. One of the coolest things ever was seeing the Sava river and the Danube for the first time from the top of a fortress as night fell and the fortress lit up. No big deal. We ran around the fortress for a while as it got dark, and we ended up getting lost a few times. A nice security guard man ended up showing us the way out of the fortress. He took us through this place that we had already been in and was pointing and telling me to take pictures. Which was awkward because I already had, and he didn't speak English.

Darcy and I left and went out to a nice dinner. There was a huge wedding reception inside the restaurant we went to. The cake looked so tasty. I ordered a tomato salad to start. It was sliced tomatoes on a plate. Thankfully, I'm a huge fan of that, so it was delicious. I don't really know what I was expecting. I then got a plate called "Mixed meat" because...why not? I can't even tell you what kinds of meat were on it because...language barrier. There was chicken. And sausage. And steak? And...some patty. Oh! There was pork stuffed with bacon. That was my favorite. There were also potatoes and vegetables too. Some of the stuff was good, some was not. I was pretty pleased with it overall. During dinner this little string quartet played for us outside and kept staring because that's what people do here. The music was great though. Then for dessert, Darcy and I tried to order one apple pie to split. But, of course, we got one each. Thankfully things are cheap. When we were eating dessert an old guy from the wedding put a sprig of sage on our table and said "for the beautiful ladies." Sweet, but no. So we paid and left.

We went back to the hostel and tried not to nap even though we wanted to pass out so bad. But we had to go out, so we just chilled for a bit. Then we drank wine with the guys who run the hostel. We just hung out with them for a while, and the owner made us become facebook friends with him. Like, brought us over to his computer so that we could request ourselves with his facebook. Ok. No big deal. (That part comes later. Suspense.) Darcy and I are drinking and talking, and then these guys bring out this alcohol called..Rakija? I think? Basically it's Serbian liquor. And it tastes GREAT. If you enjoy the flavor of rubbing alcohol. We also drank it out of what looked like mini test tubes. Then we asked the Serbians about the nightlife and they tried to get us to go to this one club and were showing us pictures of it. There's a lot of hookers there. So we didn't go to that club.

So that happened, and then we went out. We went down to this pedestrian street, found a pub, and decided to sit down and have a beer. We met some British guys and ended up hanging out with them for a while. We then tried to go out with them but got rejected from every club we tried. So we ended up leaving the British guys, found a club, and immediately got in. My favorite part of the night happened after the bars. We're hanging out by the Sava river, you know, casually. And I decided I wanted to go touch the water. I'm down putting my hands in the water, and there's this really old man fishing next to me. It's about 4:00 am. I looked in the bucket next to him to see if he caught anything, and he opens up the bucket that has a lid on it. Full of fish. Then he hands me his fishing pole and I reel it in. And there was a little fish caught! So I caught a fish in Belgrade at 4:00 in the morning. Pretty cool.

When I got home from the bars, I had 24 Facebook notifications. This hostel guy had pretty much creeped through my entire life and commented/liked everything. Weird. Unfriended him immediately.

Sunday morning, Darcy and I got up, drank so much coffee, and went to the Nikola Tesla museum because he's a badass. It was a little museum, but it was still pretty cool. Then we went to walk around, but it started pouring rain. For the rest of the day. The end.

Just kidding. We bought a crappy umbrella that sometimes opens and walked to the pedestrian street to find a pub to spend our day in. We stumbled on a little indoor craft fair that was the coolest ever, and I bought a little headband warmer thing while Darcy bought a necklace. We went for a great 2 hour lunch in some Italian place. Then we met up with the Brits again and had drinks because what else can you do in Belgrade when it's cold and rainy? Answer: nothing. We went to an outdoor cafe with heated tents and snuggled up under blankets (cafes provide you with cozy blankets) and drank coffee drinks. Even that got too cold, so we moved to an indoor bar.

By the time we got back to our hostel it was dark. Tom (one of the Brits) was coming to Budapest anyway, so I told him he could crash with me. Darcy and I met up with him and walked to the bus stop. We made our bus again (new record!). This bus was way less comfortable than the bus on the way to Serbia. It was a normal charter bus. For 6 hours. At night. I couldn't fully fall asleep the entire time because humans aren't meant to be in that position for a prolonged amount of time.

We got back to Budapest at...3:30 am? I called a cab and we were all passed out in my flat by 4. 4 hours later I woke up to go to school.

Serbia. Check.

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Comments

[sheila]

you are a droll and hilarious writer! we love your blogs, back here in the U.S.of A.