Crystal got up at 06:30, but Justin slept in until almost 07:45.  Crystal did yoga again while Justin was sleeping.  We got packed, then went downstairs a bit before 09:00.  The van headed out of town to the west, on a highway going towards Zagreb.  On the way out of town we went past the building that we thought might have a skybridge, and sure enough it did.  We never would have figured a building built during the Yugoslav times would’ve built something with such a unique design.  Tito connected Belgrade to the other capitals during his reign, wanting an intermixing of citizens to create a “Yugoslav” republic as opposed to a conglomeration of 6-7 disparate ones.  Yugoslavia means glory of the south(ern Slavs).  Yugoslavia had never been communist prior to after WW2, and it never really took off in the 40 years after the war. 

Yugoslavia, largely because of Tito, wasn’t under the thumb of the USSR as much as other countries behind the Iron Curtain.  Many people took off to the West as soon as communists “won” elections in 1950s.  Because there was an open border, people from other Iron Curtain countries would come to Yugoslavia and then to the West, so anyone wanting to visit Yugoslavia got vetted up and down.  The highway to Zagreb was mainly through farmland.  Serbia is one of the top producers of raspberries and other fruits and vegetables – we had no clue prior the trip.  At Kuzmin, Drago turned south towards the Bosnian border.

We got to the border just after 10:30, and saw a Yugo (the first one we’d seen in forever), but Justin didn’t want to take a picture right at a border crossing.  It took less than 6 minutes on Serbian side; perhaps we inadvertently bribed the border officer?  The woman took a bunch of chocolates that Drago had put out for us – literally handfuls and handfuls – and even asked for a plastic bag.  On the Bosnian side of the border we sat at the checkpoint for a while, maybe because of a shift change?  In total we spent just over 30 minutes at the borders.

Once finally in Bosnia we had a short drive to Bijeljina for lunch.  It is an ethnographic city (a fake city designed to mimic the historical culture) - sort of like Dineyland, or Vajdahunyad Castle in Budapest.  At lunch Andy and Alan discussed being in Vietnam, and also Germany in the late 1960s.  It seemed like they might’ve been in same place at same time on a couple different instances.  And Germany sounded a lot better than Vietnam.  A wild turkey watched us all meal, hoping we’d drop something for it.  Eventually it got some bread, but not from us.  We walked around the village for maybe 5 minutes after lunch.

We got bot back in the van before 13:30, and discussed the Franz Ferdinand assassination.  Andy had been to the Military Museum in Vienna (where we’d seen the vehicle and his bloody uniform) as well.  We were looking forward to piecing together the car and uniform from the museum with the bridge in Sarajevo.  Andy recommended that we check out “Guns of August” by Barbara Tuckman, regarding the various reasons for the start of WW1. 

We got into some hills as we proceeded south.  We were almost hugging the Serbian border (the Drina River) as we headed south, and we saw several turn-offs going to border crossings.  We passed by a scenic area where the river really widened out into basically a lake (maybe by Devanje?), and then kept going uphill (on the M19 we think), until we reached a crest at around 1200 meters.  We stopped there to use the facilities, but the guy at the rest stop was pissy about us being there, and wanted to charge a fee for using the restroom.

We headed down into a valley, through some forest and farmland, eventually arriving in Sarajevo just before 18:00.  There weren’t really outskirts of the city – we were winding through mountains and valleys, we saw a sign welcoming us to Sarajevo (and calling out its 1425 days under siege), and then we were in downtown in about 5 minutes.  Our hotel, Hotel Europa, was right in the middle of downtown.  For such a large hotel, we were miffed that there was just one elevator.  We took the stairs, but they reeked of fresh glue for new carpet.  We had a huge room facing out to the west, but didn’t stay in it for long.  We had a bit of free time until dinner, and we’d been in the vehicle all day, so we wanted to get out and about. 

As soon as we dropped off our stuff, we walked over to the Princip (Latin) Bridge to see the spot where Gavrilo Princip had assassinated Franz Ferdinand.  If not for the plaque, you’d never know this was perhaps the most consequential places on the planet.  We got some drinks at the Viking Pub on the south side of the river.  We had read they took credit cards, and that was true, but only with a minimum purchase, so we “had” to purchase another round before paying.  We took a short walk back to the hotel to meet the group for our dinner.  We walked a bit east into the Ottoman portion of the city.  We were 30 minutes early to dinner, so the group of us went to a local bar/café.  Justin and Peter were engrossed in a football match on the TV, only to realize after about 15 minutes it was the wrong match.  The score and the colors of the teams was identical, but it was a meaningless Italian league match.

We ate at Dveri for dinner, which was coincidental since it was one of the 3-4 restaurants we’d put on a short list to eat at.  We were supposed to have a local expert named Omar join us, but he didn’t show, and we never quite figured out why.  Instead we had a good conversation discussing everyone’s worst travel stories - North Korea, Mongolia, and Turkmenistan all were included.  Comparatively, ours was perhaps the most tame…thankfully.  After dinner we walked back to the hotel, only to find out that there was a concert outside, and basically right outside our window.  Even the windows closed, it was unbearably loud, plus it made the glue smell worse.

Crystal was exhausted, so she tried to sleep anyway.  Justin was pissed, so he went for a walk.  He asked what time the music would stop, and was told 00:00, so he decided he’d just walk around for two hours until then.  Justin walked up to the Yellow Fortress, a panoramic viewpoint just above downtown on the east side.  On the walk up to there, he passed by a large Islamic cemetery.  After coming back down towards the river, he walked all over Old Town, and then decided to hit up a bar, but almost all were closing for the night.  He eventually found one that was taking last call, but it didn’t take cards, and we hadn’t taken out any Bosnian cash, so he gave up and went back to room right at midnight.  Inside the room, the comforter on the bed was too short (for him), which was weird given how tall everyone is.  It just wasn’t his night.  Crystal had gotten to sleep without issue, so apparently it was hers.