Very Close

Pot 'O Gold

When I bought my bus ticket to Dubrovnik (Croatia), I asked how long it would take and I was told it would be 8-10 hours, I should arrive at noon. My bus was scheduled to leave at 10:45 pm and 8-10 hours would put my arrival time well ahead of noon. I had no idea how long it would take, but I decided it didn’t matter how long it took, I would just be sitting there anyway. The guy who worked at my hostel told me that usually that bus isn’t very full and I had a good likelihood of being able to get the entire back row to myself.

When I left my hostel for the bus station I had to go to the bathroom but didn’t realize it until I was half way down the stairs and decided I could just go at the bus station. Like most of Europe there is a charge for using the bathroom and it was 30 HUK at the bus station. Earlier in the day I was really proud of myself because I purchased a 2 liter of beer and then my dinner and used all of my money, I literally had 0 HUK left. I asked the bathroom attendant if I could use Euro’s and she told me I could not, I had to use HUK. I went to the Exchange place and asked if I could exchange for 30 HUK and the attendant told me the minimum I could get was 5 Euro worth which was significantly more than 30 HUK and so I decided I would have to wait.

When I boarded the bus it was nearly empty and my eyes quickly darted to the back of the bus to see if the back seats were free. Unfortunately there was a Serbian guy sitting in the middle of the back five seats. I decided I would sit in the second to last row in hopes that at some point over the trip he might get off the bus and I would be able to take the back row for myself. As the bus headed out I moved among all of the positions I could think of to try and get comfortable and sleep. Ultimately the best position was having my hips, head and chest on one side of the aisle and stretching my legs across the aisle. The guy who was in the back row, wasn’t lying down across all of the five seats but was simply sitting in the middle of them looking around. If he wanted to sit up and look around, he had so many other choices, why did he have to take up the entire back row!?!

The bus left Serbia and I got another passport stamp. Then we passed into Bosnia and Herzegovina and I got another stamp. Shortly after crossing into Bosnia and Herzegovina around 2am the bus stopped and the guy in the back row collected his belongings and got off the bus. I quickly grabbed my stuff and hopped into the back seat where I slept until 9:30 am when the bus stopped in Mostar and I was told I would need to get off the bus and wait until 10am, for another bus to take me the rest of the way to Dubrovnik. There were also two other Americans making the same trip to Dubrovnik and we chatted for a while and they gave me a delicious sandwich made by one of the American guy’s very distant relatives that lives in Serbia. I so very much love free things.

The bus ride from Mostar to Dubrovnik was extremely beautiful with hills/mountains and lakes/sea. The weather was raining on and off but it was really beautiful and it looks like an amazing place to come for a summer to relax and enjoy.

I ended up getting to Dubrovnik around 2pm, which ended up being 15 hours, just slightly more than the 8-10 hours I would told it would be.

My hostel is a family run place and when I walked up to the hostel, the mother was out front hanging laundry and said “I think this is the place you want to be, go ahead and put your stuff on any bed in that room” Then I went and checked in upstairs and the father and son checked me in and the dad gave me a map and then drew all over it showing me places to go and drawing all of the bus routes. They were all really nice and I’m looking forward to my time here in Dubrovnik.

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