Day 218 – Monday – 4/16/12 – Bosnia Trip 4

It was our last day in Bosnia/Herzegovina. We were leaving early enough that another museum was not really a possibility.  BUT we ventured out for something to eat before getting back in the car to drive through 2 more countries and back "home" to Macedonia.  Aryn had seen a place advertise coffee to go... this is a HUGE deal because I have not seen that ANYWHERE since getting here to the Balkans.  So we went to check it out.  Sure enough there was the sign...we went in, Aryn told him what we wanted...and he looked at us like we had gone a bit crazy. She said it again, and he nodded. My opinion about this was that even though its advertised, maybe people don't actually take coffee to-go! Now I do have to explain a bit more here. Coffee here is served in smaller portions no big cups and refills in coffee shops.  Well, although the cup looked like other to-go cups it was not filled to the top, just the same amount that you would get if you ordered it in the shop. Upon walking out we thought about going back in and ordering a second one and having him just pour it on top, but we decided we had "weirded him out" enough.  Even though it was not a lot of coffee, it was a great accomplishment!

Before this trip I was not aware of this phenomena called, "Surf and Fries".  I now know it is a popular fast food chain where they serve one of my favorite foods- FRIES!  It is located throughout the Balkans, but this was my first encounter of it.  Not only do they have tasty french fries, they also have sauces you can pick from. I chose, Aurora (worcester, tobasco, ajvar and mayonnaise) and Mediterranean (dry tomato, olives, garlic, oregano, anchovies, olive oil). Wow! It was quite the tasty treat!!!

 

The rest of our journey began driving North out of Sarajevo. You might think, why north? don't you want to go southeast?  yes, but we needed to meet up with the main highway that we were taking in the south east portion of Croatia.  On our way to the Croatian border, we drove through the area of Bosnia/Herzegovina called Republika Srbska. The countryside was beautiful.  We stopped for lunch after trying MANY places to no avail.  You could tell this road had once been filled with places to shop and eat, but much of it now looked deserted. For lunch I had a Srbska Salad (onions, cucumbers, peppers, hot peppers and tomatoes), and goulash- a stew with meat, and spices served on pasta.

Our drive once through the rest of Bosnia/Herzegovina took us through small portion of Croatia, where we met the highway that would take us to Macedonia. From Croatia we passed through Serbia...we had now been in 7 countries, 6 of which were part of the former Yugoslavia, all we missed was Slovenia!  I tried to take a few shots of Serbia as we drove... not great quality but at least gives a bit of a picture. The section of Serbia we drove through was pretty flat.  I am sure this was quite the nice change for our wonderful driver Justin!

These past four days were amazing. I have not only seen more of the Balkans, but I have enriched my knowledge of the area and people. I knew this year abroad would be amazing, but I never could have imagined all of the wonderful experiences and life long memories that would come as well.

Lesson: Our lives can be divided into symbolic chapters, defined by one moment within it.