Technically, though, I’m not wrapping it up in Istanbul.
Given the OK to travel again, I promptly bought several plane tickets and am
currently sitting in a room in Guesthouse Ciru in Sarajevo. Last week, I spent
Christmas with a friend in Kiev, and I’ve made plans for MLK and Presidents’
weekends plus have asked off a week in February. I’ve also signed up for two
different 10ks – one in Antalya in March and the other in Dublin in August. All
flights for the above have been booked, and I’ve also penciled in weekend away
in March. I’ve got plans for that but nothing inked.
The laptop made this trip with me because my Slingbox talks
to it and lets me watch FSU football, even though I tend to have the most awful
connections. Still, it’s the best I could do from Bosnia and Herzegovina, so I
embraced it.
Despite a nasty wintry mix in Istanbul, I made it to the
airport in plenty of time and my flight went off flawlessly, even if I was
pretty much famished. I’d spent the workday at someone else’s desk until
lunchtime, when I grabbed my PD sandwich and ate it over the course of doing an
inventory that took three hours. When I finished that, I grabbed a bag of
Cheetoes and went back to the other office to finish work and then grab a cab
to the airport.
The flight was only an hour and a half. Since Istanbul isn’t
on daylight savings time (or whatever it is), we’re an added time zone away
from wherever it is we’re going. In this case, Sarajevo is normally one time
zone away but now it’s two. So my flight, which left at 7:35 p.m., was
scheduled to land at 7:30 p.m. I just love that. And I got to watch “Hoot”
again.
I did not book a car from the airport, figuring I’d either
take a cab and insist on using the meter (there are bad stories of people
getting ripped off) or take the bus. So I changed some Euros I had to whatever “KM”
stands for, then went to take out more money from my bank account – and completely
blanked on the PIN. I have three bank accounts and two have the same PIN. This
was the other one, and I totally, absolutely blanked. I could remember one
number for sure and I thought I had another. I tried 2-3 combinations and then
stopped, not wanting my card to get swallowed in a foreign country.
Since I’d planned on paying cash for the hotel (even though
I carry both a Visa and AmEx), I was a little concerned about cash flow, so I
opted for the bus. It was pretty easy; I was the only one getting on at the
airport and I showed the driver the guesthouse address so he’d let me know
where to get off. So that was no problem, but once I got off, I was completely
backwards. I had the GPS and knew I was 600 meters from the place, but trying
to figure out which left turn the stupid thing meant drove me crazy.
I wound up taking about half an hour to make a “9 minute”
trek, the last part of which was incredibly dicey. I’d taken the “1 minute
longer” route, mostly because I could find it, and it turned out to be uphill.
Normally, this is not a problem, but it’s cold in Bosnia and Herzegovina and it
snows. There wasn’t any coming down, but the roads were covered in snow, and
then re-freezing for the night. So I was trying to climb an icy road in the
dark, cell phone in one hand and struggling to remain balanced due to the
duffel bag slung across the other arm.
All I could think about was slipping and snapping my leg in
two, but God is kind to morons who take the “1 minute longer” road and I got to
the place frozen, but just fine. I took a hot shower and crashed, but only for
about three hours because I had to wake up and watch the game.
THAT was terrifying. Holy cow. I had bad feelings about the
game beforehand and my stomach was in knots the whole time. Thank God the Noles
won!
And about five minutes after FSU won 33-32, my alarm went
off. I shushed it (it’s barking dogs) and went to bed, pulling myself out
around 9:30 or so. At that point and really well before, I was pretty famished
and I hit the town for food and sightseeing. I turned the other way out of the
guesthouse and it’s much easier. Still a hill but not one that made me feel
like I needed crampons and an ice pick.
Food had to wait, though, because I am easily distracted by
shiny things, and they had a ton. Most of it was copper, I think. I went to the
downtown area, which is full of little shops of handmade stuff. (Most swear it’s
done locally, but I have my doubts on some of it.) Lots of jewelry, crocheted
stuff, the copper tea things and such – just all kinds of stuff to wander
through, booth after booth.
Then I hit upon a Christmas market-ish kind of thing and
went for hot chocolate. What I did not remember from last week’s Kiev trip is
that there are two kinds of “hot chocolate.” When we say hot chocolate, we
really mean hot cocoa – powdered or liquid chocolate flavored something mixed
with milk or water. But it can also mean melted chocolate, which, although I am
a chocolate lover, what I want when I see a sign proclaiming “hot chocolate”
and my hands are freezing. I got a Dixie cup’s worth of this thick chocolate
that required a spoon to drink. It was good, but not what I wanted.
So I went for doner, schwarma, whatever you want to call it.
Slices off the hunk of meat that sits on a spindle and gets shaved off as you
order. Oh, it was fabulous, but not a Sarajevo meal. It’s Turkish. And I love
it. So much, in fact, that I also had it for dinner later in the day. Chicken
for brunch and beef for dinner. Maybe I’ll eat Sarajevo food tomorrow. I’d like
to; I’ve heard about the meat/cheese pies, but I can’t read the menus!
Dinner was kind of brutal, not because of the food. I sort
of got waved into this place. Although I wasn’t that hungry, I really was done
for the day and figured why not. They sat me at what must have been the misfit
table, right next to some guy who was eating soup. Well, he decided to strike
up a conversation, and I just did not want that tonight.
I never want to answer the “where are you from?” questions
and I REALLY don’t want to go with “where do you work?” I also don’t like being
rude, so I try to be nice about it. Unfortunately, this guy just … geez, I don’t
even know. He asked both of the above, then wanted me to go over visa
information with him (I need to lie, but I’m a terrible liar.) He even wanted
to show me the stamps in his passport. (I think he’d been denied a visa and he
wanted me to tell him why.) I tried to be polite and ask reciprocating questions
to show that I didn’t hate him or anything but I just wanted to eat.
He asked if I was married. (I said “Not now.” I have no idea
why.) He asked how old I was, and when I said, “Older than you,” he said no,
then tried to guess. I had to give him hints until he got it. Then he wanted me
to guess how old he was and I refused. He told me – 31. I really wanted to stab
my ears out. He said multiple times that he was “all alone” and “lonely” in
Sarajevo and that he’d been there multiple times. I was just wolfing down my food.
He gave me his card and then asked for mine, which I could honestly tell him
that not only did I not have one but I’d never had a job that required one.
Dude was just annoying and I wanted to smack him. Oh, he was
also a smoker, and that’s allowed indoors, so he was smoking as I was scarfing
down my beef. He wanted to know where I was staying, because he was staying
around there. I said not around there. He asked if I’d taken a cab. I tried to
calculate the odds that he was staying in the exact same guesthouse I was, not
500 meters from the restaurant and gambled and said yes, I’d taken a cab. As I was
getting up, he asked for my number. I was like, I’m on vacation and I don’t
even have a phone. I have no idea if he believed me, but I am a terrible liar
and as I was sprinting off, I realized I had tried to check my phone before my
food had come. Oh well. I am not interested in some horny, lonely Bengali
31-year-old.
Maybe I’ll run into him tomorrow. That’d be my luck. There
are a bunch more tourists here than I would have thought. I mean, I am cold! My
plan tomorrow is to go to breakfast – I saw a place on my way back this evening
– and then see if I can find the right pair or crocheted slippers for me. They
are pretty cool and I want some. Maybe I’ll
wise up before tomorrow, but I did get my pin number verified and have taken
out money, so I can spend it.
Meanwhile, the party is starting here in Sarajevo. Luckily,
I can hear it from my room and I don’t need to go out. I’m going to ring 2017
old people-style: with a hot shower and a book.
Happy New Year! Happy Orange Bowl victory!
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