Long Journey to the Balkans; Destination Sarajevo

The next day involved driving back up to Venice, dropping the car at the airport, waiting in a hotel, having a last drink together with my family, and getting on a train. Long day. It was hard to leave my parents!

I knew I was going home in a couple months though, because mom and I made arrangements for me to come home for Christmas the day before!! Woohoo!!! This was huge! I was super stoked!

Nevertheless I had to part ways and get on the train.

It was an overnighter, my first one, and my compartment was full. Not ideal for sleeping. I tried and it kinda worked... a little. Everyone in my compartment but me got out in Ljubljana though so after that I could lay down...

...but after Ljubljana there was all the borders so I was woken up twice for a glance n stamp then I could sleep till Zagreb.

I arrived in Zagreb at 5am or something crap like that. I had at least an hour to walk around, and I was trying to decide between dropping off my pack at the bus station and staying in the city till noonish, or just waiting the hour and half to hop on a lengthy bus ride to Bosnia.










The bus station was not right beside the train station, so those were on the walk to find it. I found said bus station, and found the bag drop, but nobody was working there. If I wasn't able to drop my bag, then it was unlikely that I was about to walk around for 6 hours or more with less than that many hours of sleep... not likely at all...

So I bought the bus ticket. I sat down, had some food, looked at an English brochure on Zagreb (looks quite nice! Wouldn't mind seeing it in daylight at more length at some point) and before I knew it the bus was there.

It was a grueling 8-9 hour bus to Sarajevo. I slept while it was fog minus being awoken for the border,



then when I woke up next I was blown away by what I was seeing out the bus! I was not prepared at all:





















The colours were changing! It was incredibly beautiful :) I was impressed at how much raw nature there was - and I didn't even get sick on the bus.

I arrived in Sarajevo in the afternoon. I found my way into the city from the bus station, and found the hostel fairly easily too. The owners were a nice older family that showed me to my room, gave me slippers, and showed me around. The place was quite nice - I hadn't been in a hostel in ages so it felt very comfortable to be able to just do whatever. I love couchsurfing, but it does require a certain degree of social activity... and coming here I could just lay in my bed and not talk to anyone and it's ok since I'm paying for the room.

I had a headache from sleeping all weird on the train and bus, so I lay down and tried to kick it. I was so tired after traveling since the day before (well over 24 hours moving) I somehow slept for several hours and woke up around ten or something weird. I was starving, but my headache was still there.

I went out and had a bit of a night stroll. I really liked the city, and I found some cheap chevapchichi. I ate hoping to clear my head, but it only went away a little so I ended up coming back and eventually going to bed again.