May 27th, 2010 Sarajevo

Sarajevo

Bombed Ruins in Sarajevo

5AM I arrived at Sarajevo and found that I was miles away from where Zoe lived. No one spoke much English here. I got tired of waiting for the bus and got on a taxi for 5 Euros and paid 20 EURs and got 29.3 BAMs back.

6:30AM I got to Zoe’s home. She is really nice to let me stay here and let me have the keys for the day.

Sarajevo

I loved her Gaga look.

9:30AM I took my third shower in Europe. Ew. I found that the bus for Dbrovnik a in morning and Split at 11:30 PM. I left for the old town in Sarajevo. Honestly, it was great. But after seeing so many old towns, I would say it is not extraordinary. The trams did not charge and I got there in about 20 minutes. It took about an hour to walk through.

Old men play giant chess pieces.

Bosnian tourists in Sarajevo

Burek was too much grease for me.

Cevapcici is my favorite food in Europe and on my top 10 list of all time.

This bridge is where the Archduke Ferdinand was assassinated before WWI.

3PM I got to Mostar and carried my luggage again. My shoe has been torn apart and I could hardly walk. Luckily, someone helped me to find some superglue for 0.5 BAMs. The city was nice but just a little disappointing after listening to that girl at the bus raving about it for 5 minutes. It was cool though. There is a famous old bridge and it is a UNESCO world heritage site. I would say it is more impressive than Hoi An. Everything is very well maintained here.

Scenery on the Train

8PM I took a photo of this man upon request and he bought me a beer. We sat on the streets for a while before I left to look for accommodations. After getting almost to the bus station, I found a woman that asked her about a guesthouse that was recommended by a group of European kids earlier. She said it is really far away and I spotted the lie. I followed her back to her place. Serendipity placed me back into the hands of the woman that first approached me with a 8 EUR offer off the bus. They were mother and daughter! Bargaining again, I could not get her to come down to 5 EURs or 6.5 EURs. But after leaving and knocking on the door again, they agreed to 6 EURs and 0.6 BAMS, which is just 6.6 EURs. I think they misunderstood 6.5 EURs earlier. The contact info for the hostel is Dada tel 036551664, 062426291 Ivana Krndelja 11c, 88000 Mostar. I took it and then had a shower. As I was writing my blog, two Americans came back to my dormitory. They were both ex-army veterans from Afghanistan. They offered me some Rasca (some type of homemade alcohol) and I reluctantly went out.

Mostar

Outside Old Town

The “Muslim” girls were very stuck-up here at the bars and we went to another place called Sky Bar on the top of a building managed by someone who has been to the Seattle. He offered to buy us a round but Andy refused. Well, I bought the second round for 20 EURs. Luckily, I got 20 BAMs back so it was only 10 EURs for me for around 8 beers. I do not know whose 20 BAMs it is. It cannot be from the Bosnians. They are all very phony here. One guy who got a drink from us charged us 3 BAMs for entree free anyway. I had about 4 beers that night and we called it quits at around 1AM.