There and back again - by Kylo Ren (Part 4)

       If you are reading this article, it means that I wrote it. Also it means that you are able to read, but about that maybe later. So brace yourselves! “After all this time?” “ALWAYS” (R.I.P. Snape). Last time we left our Heroes (R.I.P. David Bowie) in Beograd, tired after New Year’s party and chillin’ in Irena’s place. Now let’s take those two and rotate earth a little, while keeping them firmly in your palm. Okay, maybe not that much of rotation, we didn’t want them to end up in Madrid. Little back, little more, just a littleee…. STOP! 

       Okay, now they are in Zagreb. It is already evening (that’s how you call it, when it is dark outside – in most of cases, but also when you have really strong sunglasses, eclipse happened or there is a huge swarm of pigeons flying above you) and someone turned on the snow effect. Hostel – Check, shower – check, sleep – check, stop snowing - … stop snowing - … damn. 

       Good morning and in case I don't see ya good afternoon good evening and good night. We’ve heard that Zagreb is full of museums and exhibitions, so we were really excited to visit as much as possible in two days, we were supposed to stay. Problem is that nobody told us, that on Sunday and Monday almost every single one of them will be closed. Since we also didn’t expect snow and temperature below zero, our following days looked like this: One hour of absorbing the snow in liquid form to our socks and shoes, sitting in coffee place for half an hour, another one hour of walking in city while freezing, sitting in another coffee place for same amount of time as coffee place before, one hour of…hope it is enough of cycling, for those of you who still wonder what happened after those 4 hours, just write me message, we can make an appointment and I will explain you, why this world don’t need people like you (wing, wing, wing. Hero?). 

For my fellow Slovak readers

       Who am I kidding? We found one great museum of Broken Relationships and also the architectonical part of the city was really nice. 

       I mean the part, which wasn’t covered with that white sh*t. (#snow #colombia #wetsocks). We successfully ended first day by simply defrosting our feet and toes and exhausted fell asleep, wondering what will next day bring to us. You wouldn’t guess. It brought even more snow and fewer opportunities so we decided to change country and hitchhike to Ljubljana. One hour of walking to frequented highway connection in direction of Slovenia, two hours of freezing there and trying to stop some car. When all our hopes vaporized and turned into dust, the car appeared and took us to candy land. By candy land I mean middle of nowhere. The place where foxes are wishing you good night (internal Slovak joke). With no cars going our direction. I am not proud of myself, but we gave up and returned to Zagreb, where we continued with our head and shoulders knees and toes activity (Walking, freezing, coffee, warm). 

       I really don’t know what else to write about our time in Zagreb, since it felt like a realistic ninth circle of hell – Treachery. Next morning I took a bus to Mostar and spent my last money on it. 

       To summarize all those traveling days mentioned in last 4 articles by using numbers: 11 days spent, 300 euro “threw away”, 4 countries visited, more than 15 car rode, more than 15 pairs of socks used (by me, about 40 by Georgia, since she was wearing 2 or 3 at once), about 27 Wi-Fi passwords saved in more than 20 coffee places and 3 hostels. 

       To summarize without numbers: It was really funny time, full of new friends and experiences. We laughed, we cried, we were cold, we were warm, we were dancing, we were… what is opposite of dancing? Doesn’t matter. I would give you some advices, like: prepare yourself for every possibility, be careful, don’t do that, do that, never eat yellow snow, etc., but you know, since I really don’t care about you, I will not give you any. Just grab that bag in your cupboard, pack some stuff, and kiss your friends ass goodbye and hit the road Jack (R.I.P. Jack).

P.S. The socks mentioned in article were used only to cover feet.

P.P.S. Were they? (drumroll please)

There and back again - by Lando Calrissian (Part 3)

       Day 1. Our journey to Beograd was truly connected with high amount of luck. From those 5 cars which stopped us, I should mention at least 2 of them. First guy’s name was Baťo and he used to play football for Switzerland, but since he was like 50 years old and already retired, he was just driving from one place to another and enjoying his life as much as possible. He mentioned that he decided in the morning to visit his friend on the other side of Serbia and spend night with her, so he just took a car and hit the road (not as good as deciding to go to Bahamas in the morning, but still…).
       Next guy was Idon’tRememberYourNameSorryDude and he was working on a boat for 7 years already, so he basically traveled the world. On the boat. Finally also Georgia had an opportunity to talk to drivers. He dropped us in center of Beograd, right after he invited us for čevapi. It was like 8pm already, so getting from Berane to Beograd took us whole day. We found a hostel and went to explore a city, but in maybe less than 15 minutes we found ourselves in an exhibition of local Fine Art Faculty (maybe not exhibition, since they were also selling their pics). There we’ve met Irena. She went for a walk with us, invited us to her friend’s apartment for “a party”, where we’ve met a lot of locals and became a friends with them. After that great time, we’ve made an appointment for next day’s morning and went to bed.

       Day 2. We woke up, went to explore a city, and moved our stuff from hostel to Irena’s place. She kind of invited us for a New Year’s party and since we wanted to travel next morning to Zagreb, she allowed us to drop our stuff at hers. So we’ve also met her mum, who prepared us some delicious food and was really hospitable and talkative. Then we had a walk, followed by great dinner in a really beautiful restaurant (and also kind of expensive, but it was worth it, after few months of potato diet- name is homa), then preparation to New Year’s party, followed by party itself.

 At first we went to a place from day before, where we’ve celebrated with the same people and danced a little. It was pretty “intimate” atmosphere there, so half an hour after midnight we decided to switch local for something more “punk” and headed to city to…

       Day 3. private apartment right in the center. It was really crowded and average age might be 40, but still, they had great music (rock ‘n’ roll mostly) and I danced all night until maybe 5am. Then we went to sleep a little, before our upcoming journey to Zagreb. But since Georgia looked like a jelly, I asked Irena, if we could stay at hers one night longer and she immediately agreed. This hospitality literally melted my heart (or maybe figuratively) and I fell asleep thinking about turtles. 
       To describe time spent at Irena’s place, after we woke up would take a long time, so I’ll make it shorter. We’ve been chillin’ and doing nothing. Like really nothing, at one moment I even stopped breathing, just because I can. So if it is true, what they say, that whole year is the same as its first day, my year might be laziest year of my life, full of stuff I will not finish or mess up. Like this article. I forgot that almost one whole day we were also in Novi Sad and I realized that after I wanted to add photos to this article. And for the reason I really don’t want to re-write the whole story, I will just mention it in my little emo poem:

Novi Sad

(Martin Frič)

They went to Novi Sad,

it wasn't that sad.

The End.

To be continued...

There and back again - by Chewbacca (Part 2)

       Maybe I didn’t mention it in previous article (who am I kidding, of course I didn’t mention), but weather in Berane was really foggy, when we arrived and the fog (read with British accent - practice at least 2 hours to make it sound really inappropriate) was accompanying us through our whole stay. We woke up really early and after a longtime taking coffee went to a city for a walk. After few minutes we realized, that due to fog, there is literally nothing to see, so after a lunch in bakery, our next steps led to abandoned paper factory behind the city.

Can you find Georgia?

        I’ve been working in a paper factory before, so my surprise, when I first saw the complex of buildings was indeed significant. To compare it would be like compare disabled Shih-Tzu without legs and tail with Scottish deerhound on strict protein diet. I’ve been in a lot of uninhibited buildings, but this experience has been breathtaking. 

       After some time on the first floors we decided to make our adventure even more exciting so I and Mathieu climbed shaft leading to another building and like a true pirates, we started looting. From office of director (who is probably dead at the moment) I took a notebook (with few first pages filled with reports from 1978) and some “sizer” for Georgia (probably for measuring… ehm… ehm). Mathieu took welding warning sign from workroom. 

       It is pity, what we’ve done, because in case some hobo will decide to weld his freshly measured ding dong and subsequently write a report about his achievement, he will be unable to do that. After our paper factory adventure we returned to the city for a coffee and visited destroyed stadium (it was already almost dark outside).

Then we headed to old Monastery, which smelled really orthodoxy and went to play some ping-pong with locals (I beat them all, but if you will ask them, they will definitely not admit it). 

       Later that evening we went to theatre for an excellent Christmas show full of bizarre images. Santa with visible pillow-belly, drunken Reaper and drunken Elfish-homeless-man are only tip of the iceberg. Everything in French, but since it wasn’t poorly directed I understood almost everything (who am I kidding, Mathieu needed to explain me the meaning of the show, since I’ve been laughing all the time and applauding loudly – it was so great). 

       After this perfect performance we went with director of Mathieus organization for a late night coffee, followed up by visit of club with Felix (Ha! You don’t know Felix, for I didn’t mention him yet!). Then we came to our flat, cooked some food, watched a movie and talked a lot. 

Can you find Felix?

       Maybe you are asking: how could you make all of this during one day? The answer is really simple. We didn’t. I mean, we did everything exactly as it is written, but in different order and it took us two whole days. BOOYA! Now it doesn’t sound so interesting and full of actions anymore, so I will add that we also went to a forest to see a monument, played basketball with local children,

 made a chocolate fondue and prepared some French potatoes with chocolate on top (something like Tartafel, tartafat, tart? damn). Nobody except me thought, it could taste so good and well, to be honest… it didn’t. Maybe like 7/10. 
       On the third day we said goodbye and continued with our circus to Beograd for a new year’s party, but about that later (spoiler alert – my nails are still polished with 5 different colors and yesterday I’ve been throwing up silver glitters).

P.S. If you are still wondering, who the hell is Felix - he is a footbal player from Cameroon and a great guy.

To be continued...

There and back again - by Luke Skywalker (Part 1)

       One wise man once said: “If you wanna be rich, work, if you wanna be wise, study, if you are already rich and wise, travel.” I made it out, but since 12 days ago I really felt rich and also my mind was kinda allright, I decided to go and hitchhike during this holidays in Balkan with my fellow Companjera, named Georgia. It was the first hitchhiking experience for her, and hopefully not last for me. Our first direction (not One Direction – Hell no!) was Berane, in Montenegro so on Saturday morning we took our backpacks (my about 5kg, hers about 50) and we raised our thumbs to the wind. 

       Luckily in about 10 minutes we had a ride, so I didn’t need to explain to her, that sometimes it takes a little time, to stop someone. Guy took us like 20km southern and dropped us on "really frequented" road in direction to Stolac. It was a beautiful day, so even though no one stopped us for next half an hour, we were quiet happy, that we are doing this. Few more cars and we found ourselves in top of the mountain next to Stolac.

       Guy who took us there was local, but he was some time ago working in Florida, so as all guys before, he was speaking English kind of fluently. He just asked us, if we have time and want to see something special and since we didn’t have so much time, we agreed. So he drove us to this mountain something something (sorry, but I am really bad with names). It took us maybe two extra hours, but it was worth it. Old ruins on the hill with a perfect view of the whole landscape all around us. Really magical place. After that, he dropped us in city and few minutes later we already had a ride. First person, who wasn’t speaking English at all. What should we do now? Since my local language is not on a high level and Georgias Local Language sounds like Chinese, I just improvised and I was pleasantly surprised, that I could have a conversation and understand almost everything. Whoa! We have been talking for about half an hour! And then he dropped us in the middle of nowhere! So we have been waiting there for like forever! And then, suddenly, out of nowhere something awesome happened!

        You wouldn’t believe that, but really excellent man stopped us. His name was Sašo, he wasn’t speaking English at all, but since I had this Local Language “Renaissance” in last car, I just opened my mouth and words were coming out like a waterfall. All the people in the car were surprised, but mostly my imaginary friend Jessica. She was just staring at me with her mouth opened and couldn’t make a sound. Then she turned into an ashtray so I knocked off my cigarette and continued with conversation. Sašo mentioned few things: that he is often coming to Mostar, so we exchanged our phone numbers and agreed, we will have a coffee in Mostar; that in summer we can go together to Guča to a festival; and in case I will come to Trebinje, his house will be opened for me. He acquainted us with his wife and showed us Trebinje, the city he took us to (and luckily, we wanted to go to).

        He invited us also for a coffee and pizza and then took us little bit further, to the border with Montenegro. And then the darkness fell. And not a single car passed by. If we wouldn’t be so happy and excited, we would be truly desperate.

 And like 5 hours later...we were in Berane. Are you asking how? Because we are wiz... wait for it...

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wait for it...

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      ...we took a bus. Oh yeah. Sometimes the force of nature is stronger than you and it is better to pay some little money to go somewhere you want to go, than freeze to death somewhere you already are and you don’t want to be anymore (and also because we are wizards). Mathieu (our French friend) was waiting for us on a bus station, took us to his apartment and made us some kifla (footage not found). First day was over and we were falling asleep smiling, for we made it almost exactly as we planned. And at least, but not last (okay, maybe last for now), I will inspire you with one quote: "Cut the potatoes to small pieces and don't cry while doing that, for they don't feel the pain"

To be continued...