Today we headed out for a long drive to Bosnia. Today’s movie of choice was Meet the Millers. I mention this, because this movie has a classic character in it. Scottie P. He has a catch phrase that became our running joke all through the movie. “You know what I’m saying?” He says it after everything he says. Also he has a tattoo that says No RAGRETS.

“What’s the one right there?”
“Oh this? This is my credo, No Regrets”
“How about that. You have no regrets?”
“Nope”
“Like, not even a single letter?”
“No Way not me.”

This became another scene we would quote to ourselves all along the trip. Particularly when we were brainstorming silly things to do. I also bring up this movie, as it is the movie that was playing as we were at a boarder crossing. It was awkward when we had it on and a boarder guard came on board to check our passports.

From the Bosnia border, we drove towards Mostar. On the way we found that the hills of Bosnia were beautiful. The rivers everywhere were crystal clear. Marco our bus driver found a great spot for us to stop and take some selfies. It made us laugh, because we were observing the mountains, and the landscape, but there was a small garbage dump that we had stopped at at the side of the road. We decided to do some yoga poses to channel our inner chi.

We drove to the historic city of Mostar for lunch. Mostar was named after the bridge keepers who guarded the Old Bridge (Stari Most), that was built by the Ottomans in the 16th century. Charged under pain of death to construct a bridge of such unprecedented dimensions, the architect reportedly prepared for his own funeral on the day the scaffolding was finally removed from the completed structure. Upon its completion it was the widest man-made arch in the world.

We were warned by our tour guide that Bosnia had more child beggars then we had seen previously. And to be on our guard more for pickpockets. We were not sure what that meant, but as soon as we got close to old town Mostar, we were asked for money by child beggars. We were lead to the edge of old town where the cobbles started, when we were given two hours to walk around. Mostar looked very different then all of the cities we have seen so far. It was smaller cobbles, lower huts, lots of mosques. I think the pictures do it more justice then words do.

I loved Mostar. There was so much to see. The souvenirs were really cool to look at. The buildings were really cool. The river was so beautiful. We definitely did not have enough time here. The roads were all laid in river stone (which was both beautiful, and slippery to walk on). We walked straight to the historic old bridge.

At the base of the bridge there was a diver, asking tourists for 50 euros to jump off the bridge. Our group debated, but then decided that we were ok not seeing someone jump off the Mostar bridge. Mostar bridge itself was really slippery to climb. It was a good thing that they had horizontal ridges across the bridge to help with the climb. Otherwise we would slide all the way down.

We found a little restaurant beyond the mosque and had a typical cevapi meal for lunch with some tour mates – one from Scotland, another from Brazil. It was delicious. Although the onion salad on the side was a little bit weird. After lunch we had to run to the bus. We had run out of time. It was a hot day, so it would have been nice to have gotten some ice cream to go with our lunch.

We arrived into Sarajevo later in the afternoon just as rush hour traffic was in its thickest. Getting off the highway and going the three blocks to our hotel was crazy. Once we did check into our hotel, we had an hour to get ready for dinner and meet in the lobby. This hotel was a really large hotel, with a bowling alley, spa, olympic sized pool and probably more. They held a lot of weddings here as well. In the lobby there as a bridal shop. It was around this time that we were introduced to smoking in the lobby. Out of all of eastern Europe, it was the most smoky city.

We all jumped on the bus to head downtown for dinner. Our hotel was on the outskirts of the city. Since the 1992-95 siege of Sarajevo, the inner city is still in disarray. So all the modern hotels were on the outskirts of the city. This meant we could then see the city as we travelled to the old town. Honestly, the city has had a rough time recovering. The buildings still show the damage on the outside from the bombings. It felt weird to be excited to see the all the damage, but it was showing the actual impact that war has on a place. I had never really seen that before in my travels.

And Bosnia was a special place for me. I think out of all the places I was travelling to it was the one I was most curious about. As a kid I had done extensive fundraising with the Canadian Red Cross to raise money for Bosina. It was cool to see where all the money went. I also grew up with a lot of Bosnian friends, so it was cool to see where they came from, and how the country had really affected their personalities.

Our restaurant was on the muslim side of town. This evening we had an included dinner, it was a traditional restaurant that served us a 4-course meal: we started with a simple soup, followed with a burek-like pastry, and a main of chicken with vegetables, and a honey cookie. The soup came in a silver tanginess. How cool is that? This was the first dinner where we ate with Amy and Jena, two girls from the US, who were about to become our dinner buddies for the rest of the trip. Amy and Jena were hilarious. We loved them. Every dinner with them was so entertaining. We also invited our tour guide Carly to join us.

She was waiting for Marco our driver to arrive, but we didn’t want her to wait alone, so she join us. Needless to say, she did not have quite the enjoyable dinning experience that we did. Her phone had terrible service in Bosnia, so she was unable to communicate with Marco, which meant that she was constantly going to the street to check if Marco was there. She also would walk to the point that we were dropped off, and then come back. On one of these trips, she had a woman grab her purse and try to take it. She felt them doing that and stopped them, but this gave the night an edge that we all felt.

From the restaurant we walked from the muslim side of town to the catholic side of town to find a pub. We went to a pub and were immediately overwhelmed by the crowds, the smoke and the noise. The pub was inside an old stone building with curved stone ceilings. The pub was gorgeous, however, none of us were prepared for how smelly it would be with all the smoke, so most of us were longing to go find a place with an outdoor patio. We all got a local beer, and cheers to Kay’s birthday.

Once our drinks were done we headed next-door to CHEERS! a pub themed around the TV show. We loved that they had outdoor patios. So decided to grab beers and give that a try. Inside they had a live band, a million people and lots of beer on tap. So we all got the local beer, and headed outside. Outside, there were two life-sized english butler statues that were so creepy. We kept thinking they were real. We also we sitting next too a group of older guys who were VERY drunk. To the point where they kept falling off their chairs and bumping into us. Not super enjoyable. But atleast we had escaped the smoke. So we stayed outside, and as the night wore on, a lot of our tour mates came to join us.

We had to laugh, because we were definitely on the patio for the pub Cheers, but most of us were served by the pub across the street, that had no people in it. It was a little weird. But it worked. We played a game of never have I ever to pass the time. Around 1 am, the Bosnia police came by the patio to break up the crowd. Apparently the neighbours were upset at the noise, and so we were told we had to go inside the bar.

Eek. Inside with all the smoke. Ick. So we found a room on the side where we could talk and hang out without the crowds, and we met some Swedish backpackers there. We ended up talking to the Swedish backpackers most of the night. They were super friendly, and loved talking about how Canada is really awesome and supports our refugees with language lessons and job councillors, while Sweden doesn’t have anything like that.

At 2 am, we decided to head home, as we had a 8am wake up call. I caught a ride home with my hug buddy Kelsey then showered off to get rid of all the smoke.