Things i did not do in the Former Yugoslavia

I will have some more serious material tomorrow, but for now i hope you enjoy this...

By virtue of my computer being very near to its imanent death, i can no longer use Microsoft Word. Thus, i have resorted to using notepad, that has no gramatical or spelling aids (i also have never read over anything that i write, this applies to school papers and the like (i am always dissatisfied with my work, so i do not submit myself to that stimilus by avoiding it altogether)). So please forgive the sloppy nature of this short story.

This short story is about a kid, who is traveling the world on a cruise ship. He takes classes when he is on the great sea, and wanders aimlessly around several ports all around the world. The chapter where we will pick up with this FICTIONAL story will be when the kid visited Croatia. This story is entirely based on fiction, and no parts of it are true. The characters names and identities are also not real so as to not create a false sense of truth.

Tommy (the main character) got off the ship in Dubrovnik with no plans whatsoever. He went into the old town with a few of his friends to have some pizza. Tommy enjoyed the pizza a whole lot because it was topped with sour cream and ketchup, it was yummy in his tummy. Tommy was searching all day for a place to go cliff jumping because he heard that previous voyages have done it, and even though a girl broke her back last year, it still sounded like a fun thing to do. So he asked around all day long, and everybody told him that it could nto be done. Tommy was discouraged, but he finally broke through when the owner of he pizza shop told him about a trail, and a overhanging cliff that was next to this mysterious trail. So Tommy found this trail, and braved the 47 degree temperature, and slanting rain and howling winds... and found the cliff. The seas were really rough on this day, and Tommy was worried that after he jumped in the water the 10 foot waves would crash him into the rocks. Tommy jumped anyway from 30 feet up and did a back flip with a full twist. Tommy over rotated on his flip, and knocked the wind out of himself and spent his first minute in the water in pure panic, but eventually found his way over to a ledge, and let the wave wash him up onto it.

Tommy and his friends went back to the ship to warm up, and to put thier finest on for a night out. Tommys friend Mikey was turning 21 on this day so they all went out to celebrate. They were lured into a fancy restaruant that offered free Croatian wine. Tommy had a great time and was very merry the whole evening long. Tommy and his friends went to an irish pub to watch some soccer, and then relazed the night away with an old norwegian couple at a tiny jazz club in the corner of old town Dubrobvnik.

On the second day of his voyage (from here, you must realize that this is entirely made up), Tommy and his friends rented a car and bought a map and decided to drive anywhere the road took them. So the seven of them piled in a vokswagon minivan and drove up the beautiful Croatian coast for hours. On the map, they realized that Bosnia was very close, and that it was winter... and Sarajevo had the winter Olympics in 1984, so they decided to find some snow skiing. SO they took a right turn, crossed the border and made thier way towards Sarajevo. On the side of the road there was a stand that sold oranges and Cherry brandy. Tommy and his friends were very thirsty and hungry so they bought 10 kilos of oranges and a bottle of heterogeneous alcohol to whet thier appetite. They drove for a while until they came across a castle on the hillside. They ate lunch in a lofted restaruant that happened to play american rap music the second they walked in the door. And Tommy, being a vegetarian, ate cheese and bread... like he did for pretty much ever meal. After thier mid day snack they exlored the castle for a long time. They accidentally missed the sign that forbode any persons from wandering around inside the castle and climbed, peed off of, and admired the beauty of the valley it overlooked. The valley overlooked a river that cut out the landscape, in the distance were snow tipped mountains, and in the foreground were grape vineyards and renaissance age crumbling brick houses. They enjoyed this very much, but soon had to make thier way to Mostar.

Bosnia and Serbia were part of the Former Yugoslavia. They fought a terrible war in the 90's that was very visible in the landscape for Tommy to see. He saw bullet holes in buildings, and bombed out roofs, and got a glimpse of the stunted growth of townships by complete infrastructure devastation. Mostar is a town where Muslims were attacked primarily. They had a stunning bridge in town that was destroyed during the war, and has been rebuilt since. The bridge served as the burial ground for the dead, where they would throw the bodies over board. The water there was a strange shade of blue, as if the human bones beneath had a dying agent in them. Tommy was very moved by the town, and the recency of the events that had taken place. Tommy was playing with his friends at Millstop Elementary when this happened.

Tommy continued to Sarajevo, through mountain passes covered with snow. Tommy and his friends found a hostel with 4 bunk beds, and a communal shower for the 30 residents there. The place was comfortable for them, and they did not pay much at all for this place. They had dinner at a fast foot restaurant that served spinach and potato pasteries, used the local internet cafe, and went to a club. The club they went to said "Cultural Arts center for the University of Sarajevo", on the outside of the office style building. But extended far back on the inside, and was packed with thousands of people. TOmmy could barely move in this place, the people surrounding him were intently listening and singing along to the country western band that was playing on the tiny stage in the middle. Tommy had a lot of fun there. Earlier this evening they met a guy on the street who was absolutely insane. He told us that he had a Psychology degree from Cambridge, and then proceeded to tell us that MLK JR. COmmitted suicide, and quoted the famous "I have a dream speech" with the N word in it a few times. He sang some Led Zeplin and Eric Clapton for them, and had some choice words towards american politics.

On the third day, Tommy and his friends woke up and had breakfast and drove out to the Olyimpic Ski Mountain. The road side was littered with land mine warnings and devastated resort hotels from a time before the war. They arrived on the top of the mountain to find one person in the entire town. The town was empty, and had tons of hotel shells (outsides standing) that had no insides. There was one working hotel, and one restaruant, and 2 appartment complexes in the village. And One person... the ski season didnt start for another day. They made their way back down the mountain, and spent the day in Sarajevo. After lunch where they communicated with locals via drawn pictures, they wandered around the streets. They went to the US embassy where they were almost assaulted for taking pictures, and talked to the gaurd for a long time. The gaurd regaled them with his experience from the war. He told them about the mountain no less than a kilometer away being lined with tanks and M16's. When asked about a famous street called sniper ally, he laughed and told them that every ally was sniper ally. He spent the hour or so with a glazed look in his eye, a look that Tommy and his friends had never really seen before.

They walked the streets for hours more, and visited the Holiday Inn (the only building that was immune during the war because it was the government and media headquarters), and tried to get into a museum... and killed time. They then went to the Wal Mart of Bosnia... Interex. Tommy and his friends foudn this place to be amazing. One of the food samples offered was a table with grain alcohol, where they poured shot after shot for patrons to try the product. They had mouse pads with explicit porn on them, and workers that attempted to pick up Ry Ry and Timmy. They sold beer in 2 liter bottles, and american flag wool socks. It was a glorious place for them. They spent the next few hours scaling the 18 kilometer mountain pass. Tommy and his friends had to get out and push the car a lot of the way because they had to traction on thier tires, and while the tires were spinning at 60 kilometers per hour, they were moving about 5. THey mixed a few games, freeze out, and car hop... where they would take thier shirts off, push the car, and then run and hop in while it was moving. They had a blast, and in retrospect, were complete idiots for not realizing that what goes up, must come back down. They then tried to find a free place to stay for the night. The town had in a matter of hours grown exponentially and there were hundreds of people there. They knocked on the Ski Partol door to sleep on the floor, no dice. Eventually a guy walked by and offered his place for free for the night. This guys name was GiGi. GiGi was an ex-olympian bob sledder that had a sweet little pad in the town. He spent 8 years living in america during the war, and called Tommy Bush's cousin. GiGi had a political converntion to attend the next day, so he gave them his appartment for the night in the hopes that they would not wreck it. In stead of wrecking it, they installed a table, and fixed some things around the house as a payment for thier stay. that night, after rissoto and wine from the restaurant Tommy and his friends went to a house party. The house party was put on by a few Bosnian 20 somethings that had a hefty supply of Rockya (plum brandy). These young adults told Tommy, and Timmy, and Matty, and Bri Bri about thier war experiences. They held nothing back and the experience was probably the best cultural experience Tommy had ever had. Two brothers told them about sneaking in via tunnels into Sarajevo while being shot at, the girls told them about being put on a plane and sent to Norway to live away from thier families. When the lights went out they told them about living without electricity or water for years. They talked about having no animocity for Serbians, and thier love of peace. They talked about media, and thier desperate desire to change thier homelands image to get people there... they talked about the glory of the resort in its day, and didnt have to explain what it has become. Tommy stayed up early into the morning listening and learning from the drunk Bosnians, and got a couple hours of sleep.

On the fourth day, Tommy and his friends Skiid (spelling?) all day long. For 4 days leading up to opening day, the snow dumped feet upon feet of white and soft powder. The ski resort only had a few runs open, but the snow was perfect, and often TOmmy fell and was burried up to his chest in snow. Tommy and his friends had coffee and cookies at GiGi's and hit the road in the evening. The process of getting down the mountain was scary for them because it involved sliding and skidding for a majority of the time. They literally slid down the mountain at a crawling pace, and amazingly escaped without accident. They then drove for hours back to Dubrovnik. The drive back was highlighted by witness of a Bosnian wedding celebration, a narrow escape with a cop from a 250 Euro ticket for a busted tail light, and getting lost in the mountains. At one point, Tommy learned how to drive stick on an Icy Road in Hercegovenia. He drove past abandoned towns that were really really eerie. Somehow, they managed thier way back to the ship at around 4 in the morning. Tommy slept until 7 for his fifth day in Former Yugoslavia.

On the fifth day, Tommy and his good friend SHortsy went to mass in the morning. Tommy had never been to a mass in another language before, and found it interesting because he knew exactly word for word what was going on, and did not feel like he missed a beat even though there was a strong language barrier. The church was inthe middle of old town, and had a door on the side that tourists would pop thier heads into, walk into the congregation, and then take flash photoghraphy during the mass. Tommy was pissed and ashamed because he realized that had been him at one or many points on his voyage. He was ashamed because it was only really sacred to him when it was him worshiping. He was sorry for all the times he made a serious occasion a spectacle. He had a vegetarian burrito for lunch and walked the walls of the city. Dubrovnik is a smallish city that has a wall around it. Inside the walls are blocks of stone buildings, and churches and clock towers galore. The town is directly on the ocean so you could jump off the walls into the sea, and survive if you wanted to... Tommy did not really want to. Tommy felt that this was the most romantic place he had ever been, and wished he could have spent it with Dava. But Tommy took tons of pictures, and met up with his friends and climbed a mountain in the afternoon. The mountain that Tommy climbed had a fort on top that has not had any preservation since the war. The multitude of Head high bullet holes served as an image of death. Loose Shrapenal and holes in walls were very intense. There was a cross on top that had no inscription of plaque, but rather just stood tall. Its simplicity and magnitude was really nice, but seemed awkward to Tommy in such a somber location. Croatia was the first predominantly Christian country that Tommy had visited, so the visible sign of the cross was something foreign to him.

Tommy spent some time on the internet talking to his wonderful girlfriend, and bought some granola and almonds from a grocery store, and boarded the ship late in the evening.

Tommy had a great time in Croatia, and Bosnia, and learned a lot.

(every part of this story is fiction and has nothing to do with the author or his experience)