Our presence in Delphi was protected, but once we left we were vulnerable. Once we made it to Thessaloniki, our system was almost infiltrated. We were able to seclude ourselves to our hotel room until we were able to depart on our train. Obviously, the 2 options we had were going through Albania or through the Balkan states. Human traffickers or communists? I’m going to have to go with communists on this one. We bought 2 one-way tickets to Belgrade, Serbia. Upon boarding our train, I was able to install surveillance cameras. This gave us ears and eyes on the inside. As we first crossed the border, the guard who was fully loaded, came and took our passports. He informed us which police station we were able to retrieve them and exited quickly. Our passports passed through many hands and ended in the expert's hands who were searching for any type of fallacy within our information. Our identities were rock solid. We sat and waited in our compartments for many hours before a guard graced us with his presence again. We were then given detailed paperwork in which we were demanded to complete. Without it, the train would not depart. In the middle of this paperwork, we were summoned to repossess our passports. As we picked them up, looks of failure and resentment were given to us by the expert. We returned to our compartment and witnessed our baggage being riffled through and dogs were brought in to search for illegal substances. We were clean and they had no choice but to let us on our way. Next stop, Belgrade, Serbia.
Just because our train began to move, did not mean the scary men with big guns would not return. As we exited and entered countries, guards came in and out demanding our passports and we repeatedly filled out paperwork. We passed through many little villages that had abandoned and rusted buildings. There were little dirt roads that ran parallel to the train tracks. Carts being pulled by mules was not irregular to see. Minus the abandoned, graffitied, and rusted structures, it was beautiful countryside. Flooding season was apparent by the overflowing rivers and small lakes that increased the waterline to the midriff of the trees. Just like Greece, it was very green. As the sun began to set, our view of the countryside began to subside and our eyes began to become weary. Sleep was not possible for many reasons. #1. There was no way I was not going to be coherent on this train. Who knows who would barge into our compartment and I wanted to stay alert. #2. Guard were constantly returning which inhibited slumber. #3. The heater. All through the day, it was comfortable temperature throughout the train. Only God knows why they decided to crank the heat. We have a temperature controller in our space, but it did not work. Weird. We were sweating profusely. If we opened the window, the blasting noise of the wheels on the tracks would blow our ear drums. But if it was kept closed, we would die of heat exhaustion. Decisions decisions. It was miserable. I had set my alarm for 5:00 because we were suppose to arrive in Belgrade at 6:00. I laid down but was unable to fully fall asleep. My alarm sounded and I gathered all of my belongings and waited. 6 came and went. 7 came and went. 8 came. We had no idea where we were or when we were suppose to arrive. Andrew went out into the train multiple times to try and find someone who might know. Failure. Nobody was around. We had pretty good attitudes the day before but now we were tired, hungry, hot, and annoyed. As we passed these minute train stations, no signs were present. I was worried we either passed Belgrade or we were supposed to get off somewhere and we didn’t know. It would not have surprised if we were not informed of such steps. Silence. Andrew was awake so I felt slightly comfortable to take a little snooze. Our train kept stopping out in the middle of no where for long periods of time. We were not happy campers. As we were discussing our situation, we decided there was no way we went through Belgrade because it is one of the largest cities and compared to the little abandoned villages, we knew we didn’t pass it. Then the possibility that we were to arrive at 6:00 at night instead of the morning arose. This possibility was valid, but worsened our moods. FINALLY we could see a city in the distance. As we got closer, we were able to decipher “Belgrade” on some trains and buildings. HALLELUJAH! 17 hours later, we were in Belgrade.
Once we exited the train, we headed directly to the ticket counter to purchase our tickets for Germany. As we approached, we observed this German man who was ahead of us in line. He asked for a ticket to Munich and was getting the details from the lady. He asked how much it was and she responded 11,000. “EUROS!” he exclaimed. “No, no, no. Dinars.” Phew. I almost had a heart attack when she gave that estimate. “Next.” It was our turn. As we were buying our tickets, she told us out train left at 10:40. According to our watches, it was well after 10:40. “What?” Andrew asked. “Tonight?” “No, this morning” she responded. Confusion. It dawned on me that there must have been a time change. Ooohhh. We had 20 minutes until our next train departed. I had to use the lady’s room where I had my first experience of peeing in a hole in the ground. I can check that off my list of things I wanted to do…. Not. I then hurried to meet Andrew and bought some eats at the store then got on our new train. As I was searching for an empty compartment, I saw one with a girl who I recognized from the train station. I decided to sit with her which turned out to be a pleasant couple of hours. We also had a Serbian man who was around 30 join us. Jess, the girl, was from Australia but she had been living in Bulgaria for several months. The 4 of us discussed politics and the Serbian gave us his view and short history of Serbia. Very interesting. Unfortunately, he was only going to the next little village, but Jess rode to Zagreb, Croatia with us. We still had scary men come in and ask for our passports, but it was not quite as intimidating because this train was WAY better than our previous one. Once we crossed into Croatia, I could observe that Croatia was more normal than Serbia. Houses were erect with people present and children playing in yards. Not everything was broken and there seemed to be civilization. Layers of stressed seemed to be shedding off the closer we got to Germany. We arrived in Zagreb later that evening and had a couple of hours until our next train, which I might add, took us directly to Munich! Yah!!! I was very anxious to get back to Germany. As Andrew and I were sitting, a man came up and asked us if we spoke English. Turns out he was from the States as well and commented on our politeness and manners. Hmm, I did not we were exhibiting such qualities but I guess we’ll take what we can get! We chatted with him for a while before he had to take off. We still had an hour before our next train would depart… the clock was ticking.
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