The night bus

I caught a night bus to Sarajevo from Split. There was a whopping total of ten passengers on the bus, and I had four whole seats to myself to stretch out. It was a beautiful thing. (There is a tradeoff between the bus and the train. Though I had more room on the bus, the ride was much bumpier. By the time we finally arrived, I was a bit greenish around the gills. Hmm, that phrase seems like something a really old person would say.)

For the first half of the trip I chatted a bit with a British/Hungarian couple living in Budapest. The guy had consumed too much beer and really had to pee. (Though I don't think his situation was as dire as mine was on that fateful bus trip to Nice.) Anyway, they allowed him to get off the bus to use the restroom at the border. He was escorted to the side of the Croatian border control building, where the guards told him to urinate on the wall (while they watched). How lovely.

When I bought my ticket I wondered why it took so long (7.5 hours) to get to Sarajevo. It didn't look like a far distance on the map. As soon as we crossed the border into Bosnia-Hercegovina, the mystery was revealed. We drove for nearly three hours on a dirt 'highway'. The road was lined by an upheaval of twisted and broken earth, which was illuminated only by the moon and the headlights of our bus. Beyond our vehicle there was only darkness; a wasted and desolate lunar landscape. Only a handful of cars passed by us on the road, making it feel like we were the sole survivors on an empty planet. As the night went on, a fog rolled in that was so dense I could barely see the road in front of us. The experience was incredibly surreal.

After we arrived, I had tea at a cafe with the couple I met on the bus. We got in a long conversation with the proprietor about the war in Sarajevo. She was obviously still very distressed about it all. It was really sad. Though the city has recovered quickly, it is evident that the emotional scars will require more time to heal.

Oh! I bought a packet of peanuts, tossed a handful in my mouth, and chomped down on a rock. Of course I completely freaked, thinking my teeth were going to fall out. I have reoccuring nightmares about losing my teeth. It's probably one of my biggest fears. So now I will consider myself warned, and will always inspect my food products for pebbles prior to consumption.