Week 8 – Vidin, Sofia, Belgrade, and Sarajevo

 Vidin:

·         This was a stop just over the Romanian-Bulgarian border to break up the trip to Sofia.  It’s the poorest city in the EU but wasn’t as shabby as I expected.  Rough sidewalks but it felt cleaner and safer than I expected and I think the living there seemed better than it did in many of the small towns we passed through.

·         We walked the town square and along the Danube (tour boats stop there at times.)

·         Bulgaria has lost over ¼ of her population since Communism ended ad has a negative birthrate.  Vidin felt like a time machine back a few decades.

·         Our hotel room had wallpaper with huge cat eyes on opposite walls.  I thought they were cool.  KK voted for creepy.

·         We took a mini-bus with 19 seats from Timisoara, luckily with only 8 riders.  As the driver was leaving town, he pulled over at a local bus stop and found someone willing to slip him some cash to ride about 30 minutes.  Our Serbian bus driver (55 seater) tried the same trick, with no luck.

Sofia:

·         I had read warnings about Eastern Europe trains but our ride to Timisoara was so good we tried it again.  Still decent but not as good as before.  The day was a school holiday to honor 18^th and 19^th century reformers (teachers, philosophers, artists, etc.), a holiday the Communists took away during their reign.  So we were lucky to get on at the first stop and get our reserved seats in first class for about $10 each.  By the time we got near Belgrade there were more riders than seats, with some heating discussions about who got to sit where.

·         Tony, an engineer from Sitecore, took us to a typical Bulgarian restaurant with singing and dancing.  He is gregarious and a lot of fun to hang out with. He spent 3 summers on a student visa working in an Alaskan restaurant (working his way up from dishwasher to bartender as he learned English and used his gregarious nature.)   Tony introduced me to sipping Finlandia Vodka on the rocks, with a Coke on the side.  I’m still a beer guy but much smoother than I expected.

·         We went on a 2-hour walking tour of the city with Nikolai, a pianist who had studied in London.  Free (tips based) and well done, with about 20 people in the group.  We met Xianshu from China, Chiago from Brazil but living in Portugal and working in Spain, and Malcolm, a digital nomad from the Netherlands.

·         Our next tour was 3 hours with Vasyl, who was born in 1993, after Communism ended in Bulgaria.  Nikolai had explained this tour was 14 Euros because on the communist tour you couldn’t rely on tips.  Vasyl said he would present the good and the bad, which he did, explaining there was no unemployment and the literacy, healthcare, and opportunities for women all got better.  But he spent more time on the negative, talking about the land-taking and suppression.  He said if you ask someone whether things were better under communism, it depends on who you asked:  His mother’s family thought so, but his father’s side didn’t since they had their property taken at the start.  After the fall, when people looked at the records of the secret police it turned out 1 in 4 citizens was giving them info on friends and family.  We met some more people on the tour, including Chelsea from Australia who was about to move to Mozambique.  Nobody in the crowd seemed to be a commie lover.

·         We ran into Xianshu again and ate dinner with her, talking about her life in Switzerland and her parents’ lives in China.  She is 32 and not defensive of her government but not critical of it either.  She was surprised to hear not everyone in America owns a gun.

·         I’m a little better at reading and writing foreign languages than I am at listening and speaking.  At first the Cyrillic script looked like hieroglyphics, but it started to make sense.  Seeing Sofia listed as София (S=C, o=o, f=ф theta, и=I, and я=N) and other dual-listings helped with the substitution of letters.  But after 3 days I still struggled with “blah-goh-DAH-rya” (thank you) and kept pulling out my cheat sheet.

Belgrade:

·         We teamed up with a Brazilian guy who was on a 6-month sabbatical and negotiated with a taxi driver to take us together for 2 stops for 10 Euros each.  We had to pay at the bus station to

·         Serbia is the first country we’ve been to with smoking in the restaurants.  We were worried the bus would have it too but lucked out.

·         Similar to Tony, our waiter, Luka, had spent 3 summers in San Francisco waiting tables and was very sentimental about his time there.  He also spent a semester in Charlotte for a basketball academy but wasn’t enthusiastic about that stint.

·         I messed up our bus tickets, so we had only a few hours to explore, in the rain with our hotel a couple of miles from the bus station.  Maybe if we saw more we’d like it more, but it’s in the bottom half of my places we’ve been so far.

·         We had to pay an exit fee of sorts, 169 dinar each (about 10 cents) to enter the bus platform.  I saw no sign but another American traveler told Karen he just learned that at the info booth.  Just a different approach – maybe a token amount to keep the platforms from getting too crowded.

Sarajevo:

·         One of my top places.

·         We took two tours, the first a walking tour with Selma, including a mosque, a Catholic church, an Orthodox church, and a synagogue.  We saw the spot where Franz Ferdinand was assassinated, somewhat by sheer chance.  Selma, as several guides have, warned us to be careful of pickpockets and I tried to keep my hand in my pocket when my phone was there.  But one woman lost her phone midway through the tour and Selma gave her advice on what to do next (I’m guessing on contacting police) – luckily she was with friends, whom I’m guessing will cover her the rest of the trip as needed.

·         And we went on a second tour, with Armin, on the war, which was 1991-1995.  The focus on the Tunnel of Hope, dug by volunteers in 6 weeks working around the clock.  It ran from the airport, which stayed under UN control, to the city, and kept Sarajevo alive while was it was under siege for over 1,400 days by Serbian paramilitary.  Armin was clearly a fan of Tito, who died in 1980, although Armin was born in 1996.  There was a woman from eastern Ukraine on the tour, who teared up during part, possibly when hearing the UN had imposed a no-fly zone (Milsovic didn’t have nukes.)  They went almost 4 years without power, heat, or water.

·         We visited the middle of the bobsled run, which was graffiti-covered (like a lot of Europe) and made me wonder if it could be put back into service as a tourist attraction.

·         We visited the Children in War Museum, which started as an author’s memories of being a child during the war, grew to interviews with others who were, too, then included short descriptions and artifacts, such as a doll a girl of 11 carried with her to the basement during the artillery barrages or a pair of jeans a girl’s brother was wearing when he was killed.

·         We talked a bit with Mustafa, the hotel desk clerk, who had a brother who went to school in the Midwest as a refugee but moved back several years ago.

·         My dad’s favorite Internet café, Clik, is no longer in business.

·         We had to pay an exit fee of sorts, 169 dinar each (about 10 cents) to enter the bus platform in Belgrade and then again in Sarajevo.  It’s not posted but the second time was easier to figure out that was the case.  We also paid a few bucks extra for the 3^rd piece of luggage (via Flixbus we paid in advance.)

·         About halfway on the bus ride to Sarajevo, we pulled over and I figured that was a good time to use the bathroom onboard.  The driver didn’t agree and got really pissed, yelling a lot of things I couldn’t understand but the gist was that I should use the bathroom in the restaurant.  It wasn’t clear why, but he was really pissed.  Luckily, I simply said back to him “OK, but I don’t know what the big deal is” in a calm voice.  Maybe someone will explain to me before this Europe trip is over.

·         Great food in Sarajevo.  And beautiful views, although it was foggy most of the time.

·         I think 70% of the buildings in town were destroyed.  There were still buildings scarred by bullets and shrapnel.  Pope John Paul II visited soon after the war and said the church would rebuild but asked them to leave a corner damaged as a reminder.  To oversimplify, it was mostly Christians shelling mostly Muslims.

 

Misc:

·         From what I’ve seen Europe has few double-hung windows that slide up and down like we do in the US.  Instead they have big ones with no mullions (the pane dividers) and can tilt open from the top about 5 degrees or swing open.  But I don’t think we’ve seen a screen yet and luckily only a few bugs.

·         Google maps and Apple maps aren’t as reliable in Eastern Europe but still make travel so much easier that it would be without them, especially to find public transportation options.

·         NASA is a fashion trend in Europe.  Maybe it is in the US, too and I never noticed.

·         Most public restrooms charge to use the bathroom – usually about 50 cents each.

·         Romania, Bulgaria, Serbia, and Bosnia are in the EU but outside the Schengen area, meaning we have to go through border control for each (unlike, say, Germany-Poland) and requires local currency for each.  Doable but makes me appreciate the ease of travel among the EU countries.

·         If I ever travel Europe alone, I’ll stay in hostels, which seem to be the best place to meet other travelers.

·         My laptop is heavy but I’m glad I have it – using my phone for everything, including typing notes, wouldn’t work for me.

·         Balkans are tall – Boz would be above average here but wouldn’t stand out as much.