Today I am leaving Rome and heading to Bosnia.  This section of the trip is both where I got all frustrated while booking it, and then even more frustrated living it.  I originally wanted to go from Rome to Puglia and take an overnight ferry to Dubrovnik.  Well today is Wednesday and guess what day of the week that ferries do not run?  Yes.  Wednesday.  So I opted to fly to Bosnia.  This was the start of several days where I watched my “Best Travel Planner EVER” crown turn to rust before my eyes.

Hotel check out is at 11:00  My flight is at 4:05.  I decide to go to the airport this early because I don’t want to be in Rome anymore. Plus my flight has changed and I am not all that sure of the new time because there is no wifi in my room and I am limited on what I can see on my phone.

There was no one upstairs when I checked out of my room. I just left the keys there.  I had to restrain myself to keep from leaving a note about YOU LYING BASTARDS. THERE IS NO WIFI HERE.

I walked downstairs and the dude who checked me in is out there!  He asks me how my stay is.  I say “there is no wifi” and he says “yeah…”  in this sheepish tone that causes me to FLIP OUT on him.  I am so pissed off,  I am yelling about how I never would have stayed here, this is bullshit and false advertising.  I basically just keep yelling at him.  He basically just keeps standing there.  I finally walk away while giving him the finger.  I am still so mad about this.  It is so irrational but I hate liars and to knowingly lie about having wifi when you don’t just really set me off.  The hilarity of all of this is that this is the first trip ever in my life where I have brought a laptop type thingy.  On any other trip to any other place I have been to in my past, I wouldn’t have even known that this hotel is a liar liar pants on fire.

PS – When I got home, I emailed booking.com to tell them that this hotel is a LIAR.  They responded letting me know they would contact the hotel.  I guess that didn’t do much because these lying bastards are STILL advertising wifi.  THERE IS NO WIFI.  I AM STILL MAD.

So anyway.  There is a train to the airport for €14 or you can take a bus for €4.  No brainer.

I walked to Termini to catch the bus.  The weather is absolutely beautiful today.   The best weather day I have seen since I first landed in Europe.  Of course I am spending this beautiful day traveling all day long.  Or rather sitting around airports all day long.

First flight – Rome to Belgrade on Jat Airways, operated by Alitalia.  It is interesting to note that it said “Alitalia” nowhere at all anywhere on my confirmation.  I only figured it out via a combo of a screen with ticket window numbers for each flight happening to be an Alitalia window.  The Jat Airways window was never open at all the entire time I was there.  Also annoying, when I was on the line for Alitalia, I asked a woman who worked for them if I was in the right line, since my ticket/confirmation said nothing about this.  She told me yes, I am Alitalia and that I could skip the line if I wanted and go check in on the other side.  Guess what happened when I went to the other side?   I was told I had to go back to where I just was.  Great.

The seats on this flight are large and slippery.  I keep sliding out of mine.  This is so stupid.  I had also picked seat 3F – right side of the plane because I naturally lean to the right when I sleep sitting up.  I am now somehow in 4A and I cannot manage to sit still because I am on the wrong side.

Layover in Belgrade wasn’t too bad.  Got to buy a carton of sketchy cigarettes for €5.  As much as I started today just annoyed over losing an entire day to travel (my own fault) I will say it ended up being a nice relaxing day.  I have not had any free day in my life in months to just do nothing.  I got caught up on writing and picture sorting. I had time to think about the rest of my trip without making a panicked mental list of what I still needed to do before leaving.  The only way today could have been better is if I weren’t an idiot and didn’t leave my zen thingy in my luggage before checking it in at the airline counter.  Then I could have had a fantastic soundtrack to my thoughts.

Just so we are clear, I enjoyed all-day-transport-day more than I enjoyed Rome.  There, I said it.

My flight from Beograde to Sarajevo was delayed by over an hour.  The Beograde airport is perhaps the most boring airport in existence.  There is pretty  much nothing open after 8:00 pm.  Finally we board, finally we arrive in Sarajevo.  Finally I get to see this awesome Roulette wheel luggage conveyor belt:

When I arrived in Sarajevo – twelve hours after I left my Rome hotel – I had a driver waiting for me.  That was cool.  As we drove from the airport to my hotel, he asked me how I liked Rome.  I told him I hated it.  I told him that there were too many people  I gestured to the empty streets we were on right now and said “LOOK!  NO PEOPLE!  THAT IS SO COOL”.  He pointed out that it was close to midnight and of course, that is why it was so quiet outside.  Oh.  Well anyway…

I am staying at a guesthouse tonight.  I am arriving both late at night and even later than I was supposed to, due to my flight being delayed.  The owner was kind enough to not make me feel like a disruptive asshole.  She showed me to my room, showed me how to use the fan, informed me that there is hot water as if this was a big deal…which made me realize how lucky I am that it would never occur to me that there would not be hot water.

After she left, I realized that FUCK I did not ask for the wifi code.  We are now on day four where I have not seen the internet.  I felt too bad to go up and chase her to her room to ask for the password so I just went to bed.