Hey everybody, since I last talked to you I made the trip to Slavonski Brod, Croatia and spent a couple nights hanging out with my buddy Tin to celebrate his birthday. The ride over to Slavonski Brod from Vukovar was all on the Pannonian Plain, so the landscape was flat with a lot of farm fields. It reminded me a lot of Ohio/Kentucky actually.

Upon arriving in Slavonski Brod on Thursday evening, I had a chance to do a little exploring around the town before Tin arrived from Pula.

Once Tin arrived, we went to the river house of his former teacher, Ivica, and relaxed there for the night and had some great conversations. Ivica was a defender of Croatia during the war of Croatian independence and Tin is a history major in college, so I got to learn a great deal about the conflicts in the balkans by talking to them. That is a topic I’m very interested in, and being at the river house was a great atmosphere and a great change from the hostel and apartment routine. I even got to sleep in a hammock outside, which was awesome!

In the afternoon, Tin took me on a walking tour through the city and told me a lot about the history there. He’s a smart guy, he knew something about practically every building in the city!

After walking around, we parted ways for a few hours to rest up for the evening. Tin hadn’t even been home to see his parents yet after 8 months of being away in Pula, so while he did that I just hung out at my hotel and relaxed. In the evening, we met back up with the plan to get a little dinner, have some drinks in my room, and then head out for the Friday night at the turbo-folk club. Turbo folk has a bad reputation with some people around the balkans, but I enjoy the melodies of the songs – even though I don’t understand any of the words. I’ve had more than one person say to me that if I could understand the words, I’d hate turbo folk too haha. Anyways, Tin was up for humoring me with a night of turbo folk, and we both had a pretty good time there!

On the way home, we came across a little kitten that followed us all the way home. I felt so bad for it because it was a good little kitty and really wanted to come in my room, but obviously I couldn’t take it. I think a kitty this friendly won’t be homeless for long though.

This morning, I stopped by Tin’s place to say goodbye. He’s a great guy-we are going to keep in touch and I’m sure I’ll see him again someday!

After parting ways, I set off for Bosnia to see my other new friend Mickey who I met in Belgrade last week. He’s originally from Zvornik, Bosnia and he told me he’d be home this week if I wanted to come by and hang out in his hometown. Since it was generally on my planned route, I said sure! Getting out of Croatia, however was a nightmare. There were so many cars that it took me 2 1/2 hours to get over the bridge into Bosnia. It was the worst border crossing experience of my life and was a total bummer!

After I finally got into Bosnia, it was smooth sailing for about an hour until a cop on the side of the road pulled me over with a sign. I was not speeding, so I had no idea what the problem was. When I pulled over, I found that he spoke basically zero English, but was able to make out that he wanted me to turn my lights on. Evidently it’s a law to have your lights on at all times in Bosnia. I thought that would be the end of it, but he then wrote on a piece of paper “15 euro” and showed it to me. No ticket, just him demanding money. I only had a 10 and a 20 euro bill, and he took the 10 and sent me on my way. I believe that’s corruption, but I guess it goes with the territory.

The part of Bosnia I drove through today was mostly Muslim, and I saw a lot of mosques from the road:

After the police encounter, all was fine. Since I was going through the city of Tuzla on my way, I stopped there to have a very quick look around.

After wrapping up in Tuzla, it was a short ride to my hotel in Zvornik. The place is nice, although there is a Serbian wedding going on downstairs and I can hear the music in my room on the third floor! But for $25 a night, it is really nice.

Right now, I’m just resting up and waiting to hear from Mickey about what we are doing tonight. He just arrived from Belgrade today as well, so he had a couple of things to take care of before he could link up with me. Tomorrow, we have a full day of sightseeing planned, which I’m pretty excited about.

That’s all I have for now, so I will talk to you again soon!