Country #46
Country #46
🇧🇦
Made it to Sarajevo after travelling for roughly 18 hours via a stopover in Vienna . Nothing too major occurred on my flights . The first flight was around 9 hours and I slept a bit but very uncomfortably in the exit row with the window seat and it was cold on the flight . That blanket did absolutely nothing for me and when we landed in Vienna it was blanketed with snow and was cold …. Made me think of actually unpacking my jacket but I’m too stubborn .
The second flight was a short hop after a 3 hour layover which originally was a four hour layover but the flight from toronto was delayed because they had to remove bags for people that somehow missed the flight which leads me to ask this question . How the heck did they get their bags on the plane but missed the flight ? And was it quicker to pull off their bags or just let them on ? Apparently it was 15 passengers . Anyways it is what it is ….
Landed safely in Sarajevo , cleared customs with ease then collected my bags that thankfully arrived . I have trackers in them which is good and bad because I kept trying to see if they were with me which lead me to a few nervous moments . After grabbing bags I grabbed some Bosnian Marks from the ATM and then proceeded to get a SIM card for my phone . I saw two taxi cars from a company called Sarajevo Taxi and wondered if they were legit and asked a man in a kiosk for taxi and he pointed me to them so I grabbed one and immediately noticed there is no bloody meter ! Oh no …. This dog shit piece of garbage charged me 40 marks and I said isn’t it around 20 and he said my bags alone are ten which still doesn’t add up . I paid the guy and thought whatever it’s not that much anyways and went to meet Nermin Alic who is my contact here in Sarajevo . He asked about my ride and was immediately upset because he feels these scumbags are giving Sarajevo a bad name which I comforted him by saying this isn’t the first time and not the last that a taxi driver has taken advantage of me . I should have called for a private ride because it’s way cheaper but it is what it is …
So the rink here is not the rink from the Sarajevo Olympics in 1984 but it’s on the same grounds . This is a tented rink built by the local hockey community and they take pride in it as they should . When I arrived there were kids practising and they were all having fun and I was shown the future of hockey here and they looked good ! Love seeing these kids playing the sport I love so much . Nermin told me if the growing pains and not knowing how to maintain ice and work a skate sharpener and how YouTube helped with some of that and how some expats living here have helped . The community here is tight knit and everyone pitches in the keep the sport growing . I was then taken out back to the shed which is where they leave their gear and found a spot to squeeze my stuff in . It had that nice hockey smell that only a hockey player would love . One of the fellas drove me to my hotel to avoid another taxi kerfuffle .
Staying at the Marriott Residence Inn which is decent enough . Staff were very friendly when I arrived . It comes with a breakfast but there is no bar or restaurant but my room has a kitchenette and is quite roomy . When I got to my room I crashed hard for an hour and a half then had to get ready for my ice time with the locals . Nermin ordered me a private hired ride and said he will be here in 5 minutes so I went out to meet him and waited half an hour and he never showed . Apparently the local football match had all the drivers busy so I asked the hotel to call me one and my ride arrived and got me to the rink with just enough time to get ready for the practise .
When I arrived there was local music blasting in the room and the guys were all getting ready and introduced themselves to me but my mind was busy trying to get dressed and I’m bad with names at the best of times so I’m sorry if I forget . Got on the ice and worked through some drills and then Nermin hit me in the neck with a clapper . It winded me and all I thought was yeah this is gonna look like a hickey if it bruises , how do I explain this to the wife hahaha ! Thankfully I do wear a clavicle guard that took the brunt of it so at the moment as I’m writing this the morning after there is still no bruising .
The second half of the ice time was a scrimmage and the teams seemed to be split by age groups with the younger guys playing against me but the old boys knew how to pass with less skating involved so I faced a bunch of breakaways and handled myself quite well . There was a strobe light on at my end of the rink which had me battling some shadows on the ice and I lost the puck a few times but I got used to it as the ice time progressed . The ice was a bit crispy and shaved up a bunch and when you hit the ice it didn’t feel very thick but wasn’t bad in any sense .
Again I’m sorry I’m bad with names …. The goalie at the other end of rink mentioned he’d been following me for 5 years on Facebook and said he knew I was there when he saw my stick bag in the dressing room which I thought was pretty cool as it’s like my trademark of sorts . He said if I need anything to let him know and I said yeah I need a beer 🍺 unfortunately nobody brought beer to the rink .
Nerd in gave me a ride back to the hotel as my taxi experiences have been adventurous already . Told me some stuff about the city and took me on a little side tour to show me where things were . It’s really a beautiful city and very quiet with a population around 300,000 . Crime is not much of a thing here and I was told it’s safe to walk around . He dropped me off around the corner from hotel and I went into a convenience store to grab a few beers for the room . Roughly $1 a beer in the shop sounds good to me ! Got to my room and ate my leftover pizza which I forgot to mention I bought earlier …. The place was called Proper Pizza and it is proper yum ! Stayed up a bit to try to adjust to time zone and then I called it a night around 1 am . Looking forward to the next day but happy to say I’m here :)
