THERE'S NO NICHE IN NIS

Nis

Thursday 27^th October

After last night’s drinking there was a steady flow of hungover people making their way through to the lounge, including Graham who had no recollection of ever leaving the hostel last night but did remember quite clearly waking up covered in lipstick on the floor of the lounge. It was a very slow packing up process, trying to figure whose clothes belonged to who from the floor that would make any parent cry. Victor quickly realised we would not make the 12.30 bus so didn’t even bother to rush us, after sad goodbyes and promising to add to the boys conker collection for the international Conker Tournament we made our way to the station to head to Nis. Leaving no time to buy snacks meant food was the first stop after the bus for Victor and as we wandered into the main street – the most run down, peasant filled, stereotypical Eastern European street - we realised we were in the land that only serves slabs of grilled meat.

An interesting taxi ride later we arrived at the hostel owned by a doctor but with the elderly father left in charge who only spoke Serbian or German. The hostel is what Fawlty Towers would have been like had it been run by Manuel instead of Basil. The doctor rang to speak to us from the hospital to tell of us great places to get dinner while alarms were going on in the background. Bex’s basic German skills were put to the test and Victors birthplace on his passport caused issues for the old man before attempting to call us a taxi which failed as he kept typing wrong numbers. In the end we caught a bus into town and ate in the old baths in the fortress where the waiter would only address Victor at the table – not us girls! This suited us as he had to order for us and ask for anything else we needed meaning less effort for us.

Friday 28^th October

We decided to stay in Nis another night but in another hostel. To not offend granddad we told him we were leaving the country so he helpfully caused chaos by telling the taxi driver to take us to the station instead of us heading to the address we told the driver. After a nice long drive round Nis we finally arrived at the new hostel and the driver was so apologetic he insisted on carrying VICTOR’S bag, neither of the girls! to the door and we learnt this hostel was again run by a doctor and a wife with a withered arm.

Time to tourist starting with the Skull Tower and continued the tradition of signing the visitors book complete with each other’s email address. 

Then took a long walk through a construction site, down the side of a highway to reach some ruins that completely underwhelmed Victor – BALEX were entertained by recreating Time Team. 

Back at the fortress we met up with the school trip who we had trailed behind at the other sights and took our 3^rd Petite Train of the trip round the fortress as we couldn’t be bothered to walk – BEST PETITE TRAIN yet as it had a rocking horse in one carriage and a cage which we guessed you could put the naughty children in. 

 

Alex’s voice attracted lots of puppies that were hiding in a wall which she spent a few moments after we had escaped the group of schoolkids we had got trapped in.

Back at home the rakia was brought out (kept with the cleaning products under the kitchen sink alarmingly) and the Mexican from our room joined us. The desk and chair in the lounge allowed us to do our Eurolines sketch of ‘no, I cannot help you – go away’ while Victor and Mexican ploughed through the Rakia. 

By midnight we headed out to a bar behind a theatre we had been told about and 2 gay dogs escorted us the way only breaking from gay sexing to follow moving cars like Eclair in Salviac! Suddenly 2 Serbian boys out of nowhere appeared and started to beat up Mexican – unprepared to lose Victor we formed an unplanned Wolfpack pose round him until thankfully 2 other nice Serbian boys arrived and got rid of the dickheads. We decided to give up on the night and returned to the hostel and took advantage of Victor’s drunkenness to find out who the girl was he hooked up with on Croatia Sail!

BELGRADE

Belgrade

Sunday 23^rd October

After a last breakfast in Sarajevo we taxied to the station to catch the bus to Belgrade. We had to pass a beggar and her child to get through the doors who then followed us round for a while, outside there were more beggars and tramps but we justified not giving anything as we are also homeless and have no money so really people should give us money.

Despite there being a toilet on the bus it was locked and every roadside one we came to was just a hole in the ground – Bex refused to use these prompting Victor to take on a very bad English accent and state ‘I am not a barbarian’. 8 hours later as we arrived into the land of Cyrillic letters, which became Victor’s new obsession and chat up line, we took the shortest station to hostel commute in a long time. Praise was given to BALEX for booking a hostel so close then quickly taken away again when we realised the hostel was on the 5^th floor! Millions of steps later we were greeted by Borat who gave us beers before Bex threw her passport at him and yelled TOILET – she had been holding for 8 hours at this point.

A trucker style café provided dinner where an old man held up a whole chicken and a young lad with a monobrow tried to serve us, we didn’t have too much time to stay in the weird place thankfully as we were being taken out by the hostel staff. They took us to a bar in an apartment block which contained many odd characters. One Serbian man, who claimed his mother was Australian, told us about his ex Miss World wife and how he lived in the best apartment in Belgrade before making up Chinese cities and continued to offend Victor. Another guy had lived in London and had obviously worked hard on mastering the cockney accent which mixed with Serbian is an odd combination.

Monday 24^th October

Today marked the start of our attempts to make a walking tour, something that took 3 days to make one. As we realised we had got up too late and were hanging round the hostel figuring out what to do for the day 2 new playmates arrived – Darren and Brad – who were on a similar childish level as us. Bex started the job hunt for her return while Alex, Victor and the boys headed into Belgrade to wreak havoc. The boys held a conker fight in the fortress ground and a gypsy attached herself to Darren for a good 5 minutes until Alex tried to free him and got slapped. At the hostel I got to know Sladjana who really should be a private detective with her crime solving skills.

As the touristing team returned the rakia was brought out and the chaos began when 5 people tried to get ready in the one room and although we had only all been in there a day our stuff was already merged. We were taken to another bar by the hostel staff, this time a Jazz bar in a communist building. We took our seats at the bar with the boys and left Victor with Marina.

Alex and Brad cleared a space near the band to create a dancefloor before we attempted a tequila shot which was a HUGE fail – Bex spewed within seconds which distracted Alex who forgot to close her mouth so hers dribbled down her chin. In the toilets a few minutes later, where Bex had run to, Alex arrived with the leftover tequila for her to finish.

Some cabaret dancing up the stairs and posing in the toilets we returned to the bar to inform Victor of the plans for the rest of the night. Darren and Bex (Team England) attempted to leave the bar ahead of Victor and Marina but got lost in the communist building for a good 10 minutes and ended up finding the door just as the others were leaving.

We all piled in the room to see the glorious sight of Brads arse and super drunk Alex and very unhappy other roomies. Alex interrupted Victor in the toilet to present him with a nutella glass full of all her money and bank cards asking what she should do with it. Team England took on the chips/crisps challenge with Brisbane.

Tuesday 25^th October

All of Green Studio Hostel woke up with a hangover today and couldn’t access the shower room which had all toiletries due to the super long showerer at the hostel. Confident we could make the walking tour today, despite running late, we set off still getting ready unsure where to go so decided to catch a taxi. Darren and Brad decided to race us and set off down the street in the opposite direction with no map while we arrived at the meetpoint to see a protest in full swing but no sign of the boys or the tour. We watched the protest for a while using facewipes and gum to look less hungover before searching out a breakfast place.

We found an awesome breakfast place from a tourist magazine, which the owners didn’t even know they were in, and had the best food in ages at bargain price – eggs, smoked salmon and fresh juice. On the way back to the hostel we found a chemist and made our second best purchase of the trip: The LOVEBOX!!!

Alex took the chance to check her blood pressure and her abnormal for most but normal for her caused alarm at the pharmacy and concern that she was receiving therapy for her problem. Continuing our delayed journey back to the hostel we saw the gypsy who tried to claim Darren yesterday but didn’t have the nerve to take a picture of her in case she got one of us.

We were being taken out once again by the staff, I think as a cunning plan to just get us out of the hostel for a few hours but it worked, to a Gun Club where empty bullet shells were laid out on the tables.

Luckily we arrived in time for happy hour and kicked off the night with a beer, the boys weren’t feeling as good and took a while longer to get back on the alcohol. A new American traveller from the hostel had joined us tonight who we had initially thought was Eastern European as she was wearing jodhpurs and looked like a stable girl causing BALEX to talk in olde English about horses and stables.

While the boys nursed their first beer BALEX out in a sterling effort with the Vodka and Orange and quickly ran out of cash but this didn’t stop us! Seeking out cash to borrow we found Victor with a girl so hit up Brad & Darren for money so Victor could work his magic. Seeing Victor with the girl led to the creation of the VICTORIOUS DANCE for when he gets lucky – mainly involving circling him chanting VICTORIOUS. At around 10 we went to the toilet (as seemed to be the pattern for tonight we went together) and returned to an empty bar but we still stayed until they turned on the ugly lights as a final hint to leave.

We left doing practice Victory laps round Victor until Alex stacked it and then all were distracted by a van with the back open allowing everyone to jump in. Staggering home, stopping for a brief tour of an abandoned building we called it a night.

Wednesday 26^th October

Given our last few unsuccessful attempts at making to walking tour we had asked to be woken up by Sladjana, who helpfully also provided a snooze function. By this point it was hard to tell what belonged to who on the floor so getting ready was a challenge but finally we made it to the meeting point on time! Quickly learnt how the horse is the focal point of Belgrade, that everyone meets at the horse and couples have their first date meeting at the horse – too many horse stories had made BALEX lose interest so we wandered in search of food 10 minutes in and lost the tour group. Not too bothered by this we set off on our own tour – a bakery tour of the city – taking in another protest and homeless stand, and trying to squeeze into small holes.

After deciding against going to see the albino kangaroo at the zoo we went to sit in the fortress to work through our selection of baked goods and drinks convinced the tour group would make their way here at some point and we could join them then. 

Our wait wasn’t a peaceful one starting with a dog on a walk who smelled our food and wouldn’t move so the owner had to drag it away; still laughing at that a young guy approached us asking us if he could ask us a question – what was the time – which we answered. This guy then did a lap of the park (while BALEX were trying to one jacket to shelter from the wind) only to return to us asking us another question: did we want to have sex with him. Alex engaged in conversation with him which caused confusion (did he want to have sex with us or for us?) and sent him on his way just as the Wolfpack arrived in sight but too late to protect us. We temporarily rejoined the tour but again lost interest fairly quickly so agreed to meet at the breakfast place who we regaled our propositioning stories with and warned that more of us were on the way for brekky. Again another glorious breakfast then nap time to prepare for another night out.

Watching us getting ready was like watching 2 specials being reintegrated back into the community and having to get themselves ready for the first time as we couldn’t find vital things like shoes, clothes were everywhere and the whole hostel was involved in searching for things. Finally, after a pancake run (Pancakes to Darren are what eggs are for Victor – a daily necessity) we were good to go to dinner with most from the hostel, including Croatian guy who seemed to know more about our travel plans than we did.

Tonight there was a huge group to go out with which Darren celebrated by accessorising his outfit with beads and led Brisbane to step into teacher role doing head counts at every bar. After using a flooded toilet we moved on to a cocktail bar where we made friends with the owner  who made us super strong cocktails and provided Victor with a lesson in Eastern European girls. Dancing at this bar was challenging as the dancefloor was the stairs and not getting left with Graham to carry was the other challenge as at his point he was a dead weight and needed propping up!

After leaving the bar in very high spirits we intended to go home after some food but got distracted, fell over some tram lines and just as the tour guide said earlier in the day – found ourselves at the horse! We held an evening walking tour gradually making our way to the hostel and found Graham passed out on the sofa in the lounge – one glance at each other was all it took for us to run to the bedroom and search for a permanent marker then make-up. Kissing him all over to leave red lipstick marks and lovehearts all over his face our work was done – especially as Borat told us to go to our rooms (after helping us get Graham off the sofa) as we think he was trying to hook up with horse girl.

SARAJEVO

Sarajevo

Thursday 20^th October

Grandma took us to the station to catch the train to Sarajevo bright and early where the gap from station to train was more of a challenge than the sailing boat in gale force winds. We made it to a cabin which we shared with an elderly man who Alex bonded with during the journey, despite a very solid language barrier, when he got a bit teary as we passed through one part of the countryside. This was the start of confusion of whether we were Swiss and could speak German due to my Swiss hat and Victor’s Swiss shirt.

As we left the station we found another Brit & Aussie travel team who thought we were joking when we said we were headed for McDonalds. We learned at this point to just sit and wait at stations for someone to collect us as minutes after buying a phone card a man from the hostel arrived. All of our packs dumped and fed at McDonalds we enjoyed a coffee where the waiter looked genuinely concerned at our summer clothing we were all sporting and he scared us into hitting up the markets for cheap winter clothing. For under £30 we were all decked out in winter clothing and felt prepared for the snow that we kept being told would arrive and also for the walking tour where we met back up with Brit & Aussie or Christian and Dan and also a Kiwi who was straight off the Flight of the Concords set. We learnt a few interesting facts such as ‘don’t judge a book by its cover’ came from here when a priest hid an important book in another’s cover so the wrong one was confiscated and saw where Archduke Franz Ferdinand was shot. We merged wolfpacks for dinner and enjoyed a good spot of veggo ragging before heading back to our separate hostels to get ready to go out to the Slogga club. Bex bailed on going out but Alex and Victor went to meet the others at Club Slogga and returned with, as always, a good story the following morning.

Friday 21^st October

After a coffee run drunky Alex staggered through the door still drunk from the night before rambling something about running away from the club and bouncers escorting them to ATMs. After a while we got sense from her and it turned out the club owner had bought Dan drinks all night, thinking he was gay, when he hit on him and Dan turned him away he demanded payment for all the drinks. Alex decided this wasn’t right so with a diversion team in Dan ran away, everyone else quickly following. The next morning leaving them at the hostel fearing for their lives in case they would be hunted down. Leaving Alex to nurse the worst hangover of her life – she couldn’t speak apart from to yell milkshake in Lou Little Britain style – we headed off to find a barber’s for Victor and to do the War Tunnels tour.

Our search for a barbers coincided with prayer time so we made our way for some coffee then to the mini-bus to take us to the war tunnels near the airport where everything was smuggled through during the war. Bex didn’t need to even duck down to stroll through the tunnels and could probably have high fived the ‘watch your head’ sign. Back in Sarajevo we found a barber and gave instructions of make him look like Maddox Jolie and give him a Mohawk! The barber was absolutely crazy and offered to dye & cut our hair if we brought the dye for him!

We returned to collect Alex to have dinner at our usual place though it was much quieter tonight as the boys had headed onwards. Afterwards we went in search of bars and found a PIRATE BAR then searched out a shisha bar. On our walk home we found a pile of clothes and the tramps that we realised we are decided to come back at 4.30am to collect them when nobody would be around – Victor heard 4.30am and giggling and assumed we would be doing something to him at that time and we didn’t deny or confirm leading him to get paranoia and wound up and threatening to sleep naked….not sure how this would stop our pranking skills!

Saturday 22^nd October

OUR 4 MONTH ANNIVERSARY!!!!!!

To get to the hostel you had to pass the door to the cosmetics market so it would have been rude to not have a personal care day on our anniversary, as well as cake! After a celebratory breakfast we headed to the CM and came away with straightners, hairdryer, RUBELLA HOLIDAY hair dye and lots of other discount goodies.  Using the bathroom in the hostel was a challenge due to the man who took lengthy showers then dryed his hair before styling it within his turban. After his wife kicked him out of the bathroom Alex dyed her hair and we trialled the new products then headed out for cake and a stroll.

Victor had gone on ahead to market, Bex went for coffee and Alex went to look for charms for the bracelet all agreeing to meet at the shisha café later. Bex met some Turkish men who said they would see her in Istanbul while Alex had been a near victim of pickpocketing but seeing the beggar woman in a poncho (an impractical cold weather item as the breeze comes up underneath)  follow her for a few streets meant she was not unaware. Alex broke out the teacher voice to lecture the woman on earning some money instead of stealing while checking through her bag to check everything was there before walking off – amazingly the woman stood there for all of this and didn’t say a word!

We attempted to drink to celebrate the anniversary while Victor ignored us and read his book (apparently our voices sound similar to an airplanes drone when we chatter away so it just becomes background noise!). By midnight we were so hungry so set off in search of a kebabery but everything was closed apart from our usual place which had a full orchestra in swing for some event that we weren’t allowed to join and had to sit downstairs instead.