You hear it all the time...”It’s the People that make your trip”. Yes it’s a cliche but it is true. At least for me.
So as my 4 months in Europe winds down and after 9 Countries, 10 AirBnb’s, at least 13 Hotels, 5 Rental Cars, 7 Train Trips, 2 Ferries, 1 Bus and one flight Athen to Paris (not counting our inbound/outbound flight here) all with a dog in tow we are looking back on some of the people that “made” our trip.
There was the 18 year old Milosc in Visegrad (Bosnia) who tried to sell us a boat ride on the Drina. He caught my attention with his note perfect, unaccented American English, He had charm in spades, highly intelligent, entrepreneurial and a great salesman. We talked for a long time and met him again. I told him he should sign up with AirBnb to lead walking tours of Visegrad and explain the history of the place and the war there. (He didnt know you could do this) Visegrad has several AirBnbs and most visitors not from the Balkan’s would be taking a tour in English anyway. He still emails us. And he bought a new laptop from his commissions on the boat ticket sales.
The Waiter in Belgrade. He was tall rugged looking with that actors 3 day beard, blue eyes and a huge smile. He was a great waiter working at a very cool restaurant called Rob Roy 1884 connected to the Main train station, which bills itself as the First “Jack Daniels Bar” in Serbia. We talked to him about the fact his government was tearing down the wonderful main train station for an office complex funded by the Saudis and Chinese. He was furious at this of course and went on a long discourse about how the corrupt government had sold out everything to Saudi and China and were even going to privatize the Bus system (another Saudi project). He had worked abroad and you could tell by his service style, He cared about his country and that beautiful old building the train station and despaired that Serbia would ever get it’s act together. Never the less he was upbeat about Belgrade and his life in general and planned to work abroad again. He was fun, intelligent and outspoken.
There was Dennis from Nigeria who we met in Lecce Italy. An immigrant of ten years residency, tall, big booming voice with a ready smile and ready to talk to almost anyone. We met as we were dodging a wedding procession through the old town. We stood and talked for about 20 minutes. He had a remarkable grasp of American politics and our political structure. America is a Great! Country he said more than once (we were talking politics) but our present situation was just too disturbing, he said. He had been to America and loved it. We laughed a lot with him and he gave us hope.
In Bar Montenegro we stayed at a small family run place called the Pharos Hotel and went to sit in the beautiful garden restaurant/bar in the afternoon one day. A young woman came out to wait on us and we ordered some beers. As it turned out Eva was the niece of the hotel owner and only 14 though she looked at least 17 or 18. This is another case of someone speaking great English learned on You Tube and the web. When we asked her if she had any peanuts or something to snack on with the beer she ran to the back and came back to us and said “Sorry no but we can go buy some” We said “Oh gosh don’t do that”. No no that’s ok she said they went to the store already I will just call them and tell them to buy peanuts. A little while later the peanuts arrived. We talked to her a lot during our several hours of drinking and dinner. I asked her what subjects she took in school and after she told me the incredible list I said “Well you must be very smart to do all of that” She replied...”Oh yes I am smart but I am lazy, I spend too much time watching videos of music”
When it came time to order dinner we asked her for a menu, she got a panicked look on her face and ran to the back...she did a lot of running to the back of the place, and when she returned she said “Well what do you want to eat?”
