Traveling

            I am pretty behind with my blogging!  It’s been quite busy since I got back to Sarajevo early on Monday morning.  I had a very exhausting trip back, so I’ve basically spent all of my free time sleeping.

            So, I guess I’ll start with an account of my trip back to Sarajevo. I left Evanston around 8am on Saturday.  We had a snowstorm on Friday, so I was kind of hoping that my flight would be cancelled and I could stay home an extra day or two.  Of course, re-booking a flight that involves 3 connections would have been nearly impossible.  And I had to make it back in time for a rehearsal on Monday morning.  So, it was probably for the best that my first flight left right on time.

            I flew from Chicago to New York, where I had a seven-hour layover.  It was in the JFK airport, which was actually really nice, with lots of good restaurants.  So I had lunch, wrote my latest blog post, window-shopped, talked on the phone to my family, and read.  I gave myself two hours to get to the other terminal for my flight to Rome, which ended up being a good idea, since I had to ride the subway all of the way around the airport.

My flight to Rome also was on time, but it was far from uneventful.  I had a rather noisy Jewish family sitting behind me, with two precocious children who proceeded to ask questions about every single article in the in-flight magazine.  If they hadn’t asked such intelligent questions, it would have been extremely annoying, but instead it was rather cute.  I was in a row of two seats with an empty seat next to me, so the flight would have been perfect, had I not gotten sick.  I’ve never had to use those little paper bags in the seat pockets before, but they sure came in handy that night!  If I had someone next to me, I would have been very embarrassed; I was fortunate that I could be discreet about the whole thing.

I felt so dirty and stinky when I got to Rome.  All I wanted to do was wash up, brush my teeth, and change clothes.  Unfortunately, I was stuck in a sort of limbo zone between customs and my flight to Belgrade.  I had to change airlines, didn’t have my boarding pass yet, and had difficulty finding an agent who could check me in.  Then, the airlines wanted me to show that I had a return ticket back to the US, I guess in order to prove I wasn’t fleeing the country! I do have a ticket to go back in July, but didn’t have the information on hand.  Fortunately, I showed my Bosnian residency permit and they let it slide.

Once I found a bathroom in Rome and got myself cleaned up, I felt much better.  My layover in Rome wasn’t long, so I boarded my plane and took off for Belgrade.  In Belgrade, I had another 7-hour layover, which was a little more boring than the one in New York.  I couldn’t make phone calls, and didn’t have internet, and there weren’t many options for eating.  However, I eventually got some pasta at one of the cafes, and I killed the time by playing games, reading, and watching videos on my iPad.

Around 9pm on Sunday, it was finally time to fly to Sarajevo.  But, alas, the flight was cancelled!  The Sarajevo airport was closed due to fog, a frequent occurrence in the wintertime here.  The Jat Airways agent informed me that the airlines would take us to Sarajevo by bus.

So, if a flight in the US was cancelled, and the airlines put all of the passengers on an eight-hour bus ride, everyone would throw a fit!  However, the Bosnians/Serbians are much more laid-back and understanding.  In fact, all of my fellow passengers seemed pretty happy about the bus-ride.  They were joking, singing, and taking pictures.  Even though I was very tired, being around such positive people kept my spirits up.

We finally pulled into the Sarajevo bus station around 5:30am on Monday.  The bus ride took 8 hours, including the border crossing and all of the obligatory “pausas” for coffee and smoking.  (In true Bosnian fashion, we took a 45-minute coffee break after the first 30 minutes of the trip!  I was worried that if we continued at the same rate, we wouldn’t be back until Tuesday.  Fortunately, all of the restaurants closed after midnight, and the subsequent stops were much shorter smoking breaks.)

I took a cab home from the bus station.  The driver had no idea where Otes was, spoke no English, and it was so foggy that I couldn’t see out of the window.  Fortunately, my limited Bosnian and intuition managed to get me home anyway.  Just in time to sleep for three hours before dashing off to rehearsal.  Whew!

Despite the fact that my trip took 36 hours, and that I got sick, I never felt very angry, stressed, or frustrated.  I am so proud of myself for keeping a cool head.  After all, there was nothing I could have done to change the circumstances.  It helped that I had a great time at home in Evanston and, at the same time, was excited about my upcoming weeks in Sarajevo.  During my initial trip here, I was a bit fearful of what lay ahead.  During my trip back in December, I felt a bit hesitant about going back.  This time, I felt almost entirely positive.  I am sad about being separated from Ross again, but I am liking Bosnia more and more and look forward to spending the next five months here.