Filed under: Serbia and Montenegro | Tags: belgrade, buses, communism, eastern europe, frustration, journal, lost, trains, Travel, white city, winter
Beograd, the "white city"
7:30 am: The view from my Hotel Astoria room faces another gray concrete structure. The window curtains are orange and dim lamps cast a faint glow. The sun is rising, but it’s still freezing outside. The bus leaves at 10 and I refuse to miss it.
Last night in the bus station, Ari and I hopped from station agent to agent, asking when the next bus left for Osijek. “Last one,” we were told over and over. We wandered all around the bus station, through the train station, which was surreally quiet. A few military men paced in front of a bench, waiting for the next train. The further east I travel, I begin to see signs for cities in Ukraine, in Turkey, and Belarus. The famed Orient Express stopped here. I imagined Rebecca West writing passages of Black Lamb, Grey Falcon on loose sheets of brown paper. Not much has changed since then.
Or maybe it has. What we figured out later was that “last one” wasn’t “last bus,” but “next one over,” meaning the next station over. There is an entirely separate station for Croatian buses. This is when language barrier isn’t just a cute little travel tale to tell the folks at home. The importance and beauty of the preposition!
I am dirty and desperately in need of a toothbrush and a comb. The direness of my financial situation finally kicked in this morning too so I must get to an Internet cafe and track down some money. Two more months of European splendor! If I make it that long. It’s almost 8 am and I’m catching that damn bus back to god-forsaken Hrvatska.
8:43 am: Notes from god-forsaken Serbia
The Internet connection (or lack of) is painfully slow. I spent 45 minutes trying to connect, then gave up. I don’t even have access to email, my lifeline. I stormed back to my room to find 2 women dressed in french maid unifroms standing outside my door. One woman had a broom in her hand and the other a bottle of window cleaner. They pressed their ears to the door, probably checking if I was there. I marched between them, breaking up their little conspiratorial party. They burst into laughter. When I looked through the peephole in the door to see if they were angry, they had already gone.
I know I should make the best of this and not have such a crap attitude, but I am so ready to just go.
10:00 am: I made the bus. I should have asked Ari for 20 dinar for the seat reservation (roughly .32USD – it’s customary for a seat charge on Eastern European buses), but the lady who guarded the turnstile knew I couldn’t understand Serbian and let it slide. See, everyone is so nice here — I just wish the circumstances were different for me to enjoy it all. Am I not cut out for die-hard travel? How brave am I, living on the promises of friends for cash, blowing off my bills back home and doing volunteer work when I could use my own donation? I am so disappointed at how American I am acting right now.
11:00 am: I am still on this bus. The irony that yesterday the bus left on time and today I am on time and the bus is late is not lost on me. I am laughing to myself thinking of the Hotel Astoria’s idea of an “Internet cafe” — an unheated office room with an empty desk, a spinning rack of travel brochures and a pleather couch loaded with boxes. God I love Eastern Europe! I do, actually. I already miss Belgrade just thinking of my return to Osijek.
one last look before I go
(2.5.05)
Filed under: Serbia and Montenegro | Tags: belgrade, buses, danube, february, hotel astoria, journal, lost, off-season, serbia, snow, winter
On the bus to Belgrade. Stopped now in Vukovar. What a frustrating morning.
My roommate Ari and I got up early again to go to Pecs. We ended up on the wrong train going to Bizovac instead of Beli Manastir. So we jumped off the train somewhere close to Osijek city limits, took the bus to the station and decided why not go to Belgrade? When I went to get cash, the ATM said I had insufficient funds, so fucking A — I have $49.90 in my account, $262.00 which is unaccounted for. All I can say is, it had better be traced — what the hell happened to that money? The only thing I can think is that Dan mailed all my bills back home. Which sucks because that means I have no money to live here until my tax refund. Ari was cool enough to pay for this Belgrade trip. I’ll have to write home soon. I’m worried about the money, but part of me also feels like well, what can I do? Maybe I’m in deep denial, but years of growing up a poor kid has shown me things just work themselves out. In any case, I’m on my way to Belgrade, a completely unexpected trip.
12:00 pm: Crossed the border into Serbia. Surreal images of travel:
A black dog walking across the flat, snow-covered fields of an unknown village in Serbia.
Two girls getting off the Beli-Manastir-Osijek bus and walking down a road, disappearing into dark-blue nothing.
Six women dressed like hearts for Valentine’s Day walking single-file down Zupinjiska.
Even with all the ups and downs (and sidetracking) of this whole Osijek experience, I would pack up my life and disappear all over again. But with more money. And much more time.
8:00 pm: In a Belgrade hotel room, the Hotel Astoria.
Because Ari pissed around looking for postcards (“Oh, we don’t have to hurry, we have time!”), we missed the Osijek bus by 10 minutes. Already freezing and pissed because we had been walking around in the bitter cold for, like, 3 hours looking for said-postcards, I was thinking, I can’t believe this — two missed transports in one day. It’s like Osijek is this black hole that sucks you in and if by some act of God you do get out, it makes it near impossible for you to return.
Hotel Astoria is nice enough. Nice 1970s decor chic – red velour chairs in the lobby, wood paneling, shag carpet, an unhappy desk clerk pulled right from a modernist film. The room is no frills with starchy white sheets and a pilled brown blanket to keep warm. The wallpaper is nicked and peeling but hell – it’s clean, I have my own bathroom. For Ari’s $34.00 USD I can’t go wrong.
And I’m in Belgrade! The city has so much energy. There were times I felt as if I were in New York – the loud honking of traffic, beautiful smog sky at dusk. With Ari’s knowledge of the Cyrillic alphabet and my scant Croatian vocabulary, we could decipher street signs and get around fairly well. People here are much friendlier than in Croatian cities, more helpful and willing to talk. The histories between the two countries are so complicated, relations so tense (it was difficult, for example, to exchange kuna for dinar here) — I couldn’t even begin to understand it as an outsider.
The architecture here is a majestic mix of communist-Hapsburg in all its grime-covered glory. There’s a park at the edge of the city overlooking the Danube, a bridge in the distance. The tableau reminded me of Pittsburgh. Even the winters are as cold as the ones at home. I would love to be here in summer when it’s full of life.
Hotel Astoria lobby
(2.4.05)
