Mia Smantz
My friend and I took a year together to study abroad. And after some serious maneuvering, we scheduled all of our classes so that we had school three days and four day weekends every week so we could travel to as many countries as possible.
Well, fast forward to our scheduled trip to Croatia and Serbia. We had originally planned to visit Zagreb and carry onto Belgrade, but we went over Easter weekend and couldn't purchase train tickets at the station until they opened Monday.
With the delay we could only make it just inside the border of Serbia at a tiny town called Sid. And because we were young and dumb and trying to check things off on our list like we'd actually be able to appreciate an entire cultural in two-day intervals, we decided to do it, even though we'd be turning around the next morning and heading straight back.
Well, the ticket inspector--justly--thought that sounded suspicious. He held up the entire train when he found out our plans to stay in a nothing town maybe an hour inside the border just for a grand total of about eight hours. There wasn't even a train station at the stop which was why all of this was done on the train late at night.
He called in other people from the train to question us-- in hindsight, I realize they probably thought we were smugglers of some kind.
He kept asking us, "Why Sid? Why not Belgrade?" while his buddies checked over our passports with a fine toothed comb, sometimes disappearing with them and ratcheting up our anxiety. Luckily our not, this wasn't our first or even third weekend trip. We were halfway through a thirty country list and had the stamps to prove it.
Whether that backed up our outlandish story or deepened their suspicions, I'll never know, but the same overactive imagination that makes me love writing, always did wonder whether they were worried for another reason--two ignorant American college students stopping in a dangerous area. Oh the plot bunnies I've entertained while recalling that.
It ended up being our most enjoyable stop on our journey, our at least the most memorable. They begrudgingly let us go since we kept pointing out the window across the tracks and saying our hotel was right there when they asked for the fifth time where we'd be staying.
To fuel my mind even more, our room's door was jacked up and wouldn't lock or even latch properly. After having an entire train held up on our account for an hour and being questioned, I was convinced we would die that night.
But we didn't, and come the next morning, the owner's elderly, ornery dad made a game out of offering us every kind of food for breakfast through a substantial language barrier just because it made us laugh-- much to his son's fond exasperation either breakfast wasn't supposed to be included or just because he thought his dad was hamming it up and embarrassing him.
With a server lack of souvenirs, we swore to each other that we'd get t- shirts made that said, "I ❤ Sid" to remember the time we maybe almost might've died. We'll never know.
Well, fast forward to our scheduled trip to Croatia and Serbia. We had originally planned to visit Zagreb and carry onto Belgrade, but we went over Easter weekend and couldn't purchase train tickets at the station until they opened Monday.
With the delay we could only make it just inside the border of Serbia at a tiny town called Sid. And because we were young and dumb and trying to check things off on our list like we'd actually be able to appreciate an entire cultural in two-day intervals, we decided to do it, even though we'd be turning around the next morning and heading straight back.
Well, the ticket inspector--justly--thought that sounded suspicious. He held up the entire train when he found out our plans to stay in a nothing town maybe an hour inside the border just for a grand total of about eight hours. There wasn't even a train station at the stop which was why all of this was done on the train late at night.
He called in other people from the train to question us-- in hindsight, I realize they probably thought we were smugglers of some kind.
He kept asking us, "Why Sid? Why not Belgrade?" while his buddies checked over our passports with a fine toothed comb, sometimes disappearing with them and ratcheting up our anxiety. Luckily our not, this wasn't our first or even third weekend trip. We were halfway through a thirty country list and had the stamps to prove it.
Whether that backed up our outlandish story or deepened their suspicions, I'll never know, but the same overactive imagination that makes me love writing, always did wonder whether they were worried for another reason--two ignorant American college students stopping in a dangerous area. Oh the plot bunnies I've entertained while recalling that.
It ended up being our most enjoyable stop on our journey, our at least the most memorable. They begrudgingly let us go since we kept pointing out the window across the tracks and saying our hotel was right there when they asked for the fifth time where we'd be staying.
To fuel my mind even more, our room's door was jacked up and wouldn't lock or even latch properly. After having an entire train held up on our account for an hour and being questioned, I was convinced we would die that night.
But we didn't, and come the next morning, the owner's elderly, ornery dad made a game out of offering us every kind of food for breakfast through a substantial language barrier just because it made us laugh-- much to his son's fond exasperation either breakfast wasn't supposed to be included or just because he thought his dad was hamming it up and embarrassing him.
With a server lack of souvenirs, we swore to each other that we'd get t- shirts made that said, "I ❤ Sid" to remember the time we maybe almost might've died. We'll never know.
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