Interrail: Sleepless in Belgrade

(What happened so far...)

When I was 14 years old, my worst nightmare was not finding a proper place to sleep for the night. Before travelling with my best friend this summer, my most hardcore overnight experience was sleeping outside in a tent. In my parents garden. Very close to the door of our living room. But now I was far away from that door and that garden and it already was about to get dark.

We didn't look for a place to sleep, since being on a tight budget would mean sleeping on trains at least every third night. It was the third night. The darker it got, the more it got me worried. I knew there was no youth hostel bed waiting for me. No shower. Just a coach. Well. A coach that was delayed. For 5 hours. Since Yugoslavia was not a country offering a great service on passenger information, we didn't know it had such a delay and simply had to stay at the platform and wait for its arrival.



Sure sitting in the dirt of Belgrades main station would pay off when the train would arrive and us being the first to enter it for a nice and comfortable seat (or two) to sleep through the rest of the remaining night. At 3am the train finally arrived. It stopped at the platform No.16 and immediately thousands of soldiers who were on their first day of holiday entered the coaches. While we were half asleep on platform No.2. It was my first (and last!) night on one square meter infront of a heavily used train toilet. After all I got cured from my fear of not knowing where to sleep for the rest of my life.

Will you get picture evidence on how two young teenagers thought cool was at a greek beach? Why does it make sense to check for ants before you camp at the beach? And why Lukum?

All this, and much more will unfold as the story continues...