The Orient Express

Yesterday I took my first big train trip!!! I always wanted to travel by train. It seemed so romantic and exciting and classic. The route I took is the last remaining functional part of the Orient Express... so it was even more interesting and intense when considering the historical significance (everything seems like that here- it is interesting and enjoyable with no information or background, but if you know what things used to be or how important they were in world history, you are reeling from the significance).

Well, the train ride from Zagreb (capital of Croatia) to Sarajevo (capital of Bosnia-Hercegovina, BiH) was 9 hours long, partially because we stopped a lot of places along the way... and partially because they kept stopping the train to check everyone,s tickets and passports. This is because of the nature of the areas we were passing through, since we went from the Croatian border (Croat territory) across in to the Serb part of BiH, then in to the Muslim area of BiH. So everyone in each place needed to make sure that all was well with our documents. It got to the point where (because I did not know what they were asking for each time, ticket, passport, etc) I actually tried to show my passport to a guy who was trying to sell me vodka on the train! He laughed very hard........and I did too.

We passed through the Serb part of Bosnia-Hercegovina (Serb Republic, Republika Sprska, R.S.), with a stop in its capital, Banja Luka and several cities I had read so much about because of the loss of life and violence toward women during the war. I was happy not to get off the train in those places, though they are quite safe now. Serbs use cyrillic letters (like Russian does) but things are pronounced similarly to Croatian and Bosnian, which use the Roman alphabet (like English and other Romance languages). It was kind of discombobulating to look at the cyrillic letters as the train passed by stations and towns.

This is the Serbian Cyrillic Alphabet
А а Б б В в Г г Д д Ђ ђ Е е Ж ж З з И и Ј ј
К к Л л Љ љ М м Н н Њ њ О о П п Р р С с Т т
Ћ ћ У у Ф ф Х х Ц ц Ч ч Џ џ Ш ш


The countryside is so beautiful, with rolling hills in every shade of green. I can understand why people could fight and die for this land. It is a very special place.

The contryside houses are small square brick or concrete buildings. Many of them were 1-story only, and had big holes in the side. Some looked damaged in the war; others were clearly just falling apart from years of use with no money for upkeep.

They make the shed that used to be in my parents backyard look like a luxury condo. We have no idea in America how the rest of the world lives, even a person like me, who has made a conscious effort not to stick my head in the sand.