My favorite game to play goes as follows:<\/p>\n
I ask you a question. You answer. Repeat.<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
\u201cWhat\u2019s your favorite flavor of ice cream?\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cDo you have any siblings?\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cIf you were an animal, what would you be?\u201d<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
I collect random facts and stories about total strangers and I catalog them in my head, where admittedly, more useful information could be stored. It\u2019s an inconspicuous interview process that leads to fast friendship more often than not.<\/p>\n
But sometimes the questions are thrown back at me.<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
\u201cWhat\u2019s your favorite movie?\u201d<\/em><\/p>\n \u201cWhat\u2019s your favorite city?\u201d<\/em><\/p>\n \u00a0<\/em>\u201cWhat are you most afraid of?\u201d<\/em><\/p>\n <\/p>\n \u00a0<\/strong>If you had asked me this just four weeks ago, I wouldn\u2019t have known how to answer. [1]<\/a><\/p>\n I\u2019d like to thank the Balkans\u2019 bus service for making this question a tad bit easier.<\/p>\n So it is today, with this post, that I am, publicly acknowledging my undeniable fear of traveling by bus in the Balkans.<\/p>\n Wait. Allow me to rephrase that.<\/em><\/p>\n It\u2019s not the traveling bit that I\u2019m afraid of\u2026<\/p>\n What I am, however, is lip-quiver, frantic laughter, masked tears level PETRIFIED<\/strong> of dying in a fiery crash whilst a passenger on one of these buses, which I have been far more than my liking, over the course of the past several days.<\/p>\n A week ago today, my project partner and I boarded a bus in a noble attempt to reach Bosnia, where we were planning to shoot a story.<\/p>\n Nearly 8 hours after boarding, and a few minor adjustments in schedule (unbeknown to us), we were dumped at a bus station in Montenegro at 3 a.m.<\/p>\n And because the next bus out wasn\u2019t until 8 that morning, we spent the next 5 hours lingering around the bus station, spirits broken, bags of equipment in hand.<\/p>\n When 8 rolled around, we boarded a bus back to Prishtina with nothing to show.<\/p>\n This was not the first of our frustrating bus experiences in the Balkans, and it certainly wouldn’t be our last (in the following week we would take 6 more rides, totaling 48 hours in travel time).<\/p>\n But rather than reflect on the frustrations we experienced, I’m going to use this post to try and convey the severity of my fear, as well as it’s validity.<\/p>\n When you choose to board bus in the Balkans, you are choosing to put your life in jeopardy. Not only because of the condidtion of the roads – hairpin turns, on single lane roads, thousands of feet in the air – but because of the insanity of the driver’s whose hands you’ve placed your only\u00a0life in.<\/p>\n To put it kindly, the bus drivers are assholes. Am I allowed to say that in a school post?<\/p>\n It’s true.<\/p>\n As Meredith spoke\u00a0in direction of our driver during\u00a0the tour we took four\u00a0weeks ago, “You may not care about your life, but I care about mine”.<\/p>\n And as our driver was accelerating down the curviest of roads, only a meter separation from the edge of a cliff, I couldn’t help but think the same.<\/p>\n “Close your eyes and go to sleep. Close your eyes and go to sleep.”<\/p>\n My mantra of survival on repeat.<\/p>\n And I would close my eyes. And I would nearly fall asleep, only to be woken as we swerved so abruptly that I was sure it was\u00a0the end. But it never was. And for that I am eternally grateful.<\/p>\n I survived the Balkan bus service. I survived it once, and then seven more times, and I’m going to conclude this blogpost with 3 pieces of advice so that if you ever find yourself about to embark on a wild ride, you might survive too.<\/p>\n 1) If you’re going to take a bus in the Balkans, Don’t.<\/p>\n 2) If you’re going to do it anyway, travel during the day. The views (although scary) are incredible<\/p>\n 3) Show no fear. Once you’re on board, you’re committed to your fate. Be brave, die nobly.<\/p>\n Oh….<\/strong> and always travel with toilet paper.<\/em><\/p>\n <\/p>\n [1]<\/a> Okay that\u2019s not exactly true. I would have answered quite adamantly that I am most afraid of white glue, but considering that it\u2019s not a well understood fear, we\u2019ll skip over it just this once.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" My favorite game to play goes as follows: I ask you a question. You answer. Repeat. \u201cWhat\u2019s your favorite flavor of ice cream?\u201d \u201cDo you have any siblings?\u201d \u201cIf you were an animal, what would you be?\u201d I collect random facts and stories about total strangers and I catalog them in my head, … Continue reading “Travel with toilet paper”<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":29,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-447","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/pj.rit.edu\/kosovo\/journal\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/447","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/pj.rit.edu\/kosovo\/journal\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/pj.rit.edu\/kosovo\/journal\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/pj.rit.edu\/kosovo\/journal\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/29"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/pj.rit.edu\/kosovo\/journal\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=447"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/pj.rit.edu\/kosovo\/journal\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/447\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":449,"href":"https:\/\/pj.rit.edu\/kosovo\/journal\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/447\/revisions\/449"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/pj.rit.edu\/kosovo\/journal\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=447"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/pj.rit.edu\/kosovo\/journal\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=447"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/pj.rit.edu\/kosovo\/journal\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=447"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}