That time I went to Bosnia...

I don't exactly know what I was expecting from Croatia and Bosnia, but it wasn't the scenic feast my eyes enjoyed the past few days. We left the views of Dubrovnik pretty early on Thursday and drove several hours on a big bus to reach Mostar, Bosnia. The roads were very winding and slightly uneven, especially on the Bosnian side (apparently Serbia had to redo their roads after the war in the 90s but they didn't do a very good job), so we had great adventures traveling up and around and through the rocky, hilly, and somehow still green landscape. We got stuck at the border for a while going into Bosnia because a million other Asian tourists wanted to go to Bosnia at the same time and it took an hour to check everyone's passports. 

We spent the afternoon in Mostar, which has the famous bridge you may or may not have seen before--the only one that went over the river in Mostar that was destroyed during the Bosnian war but rebuilt since then. It was super beautiful (naturally) but the city also felt slightly Middle Eastern. The town is about half Christian and half Muslim and all of the shops reminded me of movies I've seen from Turkey. There were also more children on the street begging than I was used to seeing in Western Europe and the buildings looked slightly worse for wear. 

One of the guys on our program served his mission in Croatia and he has been oozing with giddiness the whole time we've been here, speaking Croatian to every breathing soul, sassing back to the children poking fun at us, asking shopkeepers about the current political situation, and buying a dozen books in Croatian to take some of the this land back to America with him. It's been refreshing and endearing to me to see someone who fell in love with the people and land of his mission so much :)

We spent the night back in Croatia last night--Split to be exact. Another beautiful coastal city. We had a super fancy hotel with heated floors in the bathroom which just beat all. Okay, just kidding, there were fancier things than warm floors (but just barely). There was a rock concert going on outside the main city center which a few of us went to and it was great. I didn't think the band was too bad until they switched from their Croatian tunes to bad English covers of 90s rock songs. But it was definitely worth the experience :)

I have loved so many things about Croatia and am once again sad to be leaving a country, but grateful for the enlightening experiences here. My slight obsession with lettuce was also discovered here--I've bought three bags of lettuce in the last week, carrying each one around and hoping I'll find a meal that I can compliment with an extra crunch. Which apparently is slightly abnormal. But I just want to get my greens in. #girlwiththelettuce #greengoeswitheverything

 Yes, that's me and my lettuce.