You Can’t Always Get What You Want
The customs agent scowled at my passport, confused. I was concerned for a moment, but suddenly he looked up and grinned at me. “America!” He used the word like a greeting.
“America, America, America,” he sing-songed to himself, strolling off to have the booklet stamped. My entrance into Bosnia was auspicious, but Sarajevo, however, turned out to be more challenging than I expected.
Not being a major tourist destination, while an attraction, also means that nothing is set up for visitors. No tourist office in the bus station, no maps for sale anywhere, and no one speaking foreign languages. I wandered out and managed to find the main street, which had become famous as Snipers’ Alley. From there, I had written down complex tram directions to the train station, but couldn’t figure out how to buy a ticket. I finally decided to take a taxi, as I wasn’t positive which direction to go anyway, without considering how difficult it would be to take a cab with no common language. I eventually drew a picture of train tracks for the driver.
“Ah, Bahnhof!” He exclaimed in German.
“Ja, ja. Bahnhof!” I nodded excitedly at the word for train station, and at being fortunate enough to have had German at school.
But, apparently this was all the German he knew, because it was followed by a sentence I didn’t understand. I decided he must mean there were multiple train stations, and so told him I would be continuing on to Belgrade.
“Belgrade?”
“Beograd.” I tried again.
He nodded this time, but began yammering again with a touch of German here and there. I managed to piece together that he was telling me there would be a layover between here and Belgrade. I knew, but thought the train would be more comfortable anyway. There was no convincing him of this though.
“It’s ok, es ist ok. Ich weiss, I know. Bahnhof, bahnhof.”
He decided I had not understood and began waving people down on the street asking if they spoke English. He stopped in front of a high school and waved some of the teenage boys over. This did not bode well.
“Hello, how are you, what is your name,” they chanted, taking turns coming to the cab to gawk at me before getting into a snowball fight. Finally the driver waved over some women who explained what I already had gleaned from him, that there would be a wait between trains.
“It’s ok, I know, I want to take the train.”
“No, bus. Bus better”
“No bus. Train.” As I listened to yet another explanation of why the train was not an acceptable option for me, I gave up and agreed to be taken to the bus station.
“Is very nice. Better. Waiting, nice cafe. Chai. Chai?” the driver explained in broken German.
“Tea, Tee.” I answered, not feeling up for a vocabulary lesson. My suspicions that the bus station would be a higher fare than the train station were allayed when he took only a portion of the meter. As a very young woman traveling by myself, I’ve grown used awakening the protective instincts of the people I encounter.
The trouble was though, that I was now really unsure where of I was, and wasn’t planning on just taking the next bus out before seeing the city. After the dilemmas of buying my ticket and getting my suitcase in the left luggage room, I set off to return to the city, which I soon realized would be impossible on foot, despite my hesitancy to hail another cab. Finally I came up with a solution. I opened my notebook of sites to visit and picked out a mosque name, having realized that something like ‘history museum’ wouldn’t do. The driver understood it immediately, and I was on my way to the center.
Comments (1)
Am delighted that you find the goodness of people in your travels. How wonderful to learn of the kindness of people even without language. Keep on traveling and keep on sharing your travel writing. I like it!!