Day 23: Belgrade, Serbia

Although it is only noon, it feels MUCH later, probably because Clay and I have pretty much been awake since yesterday.

The "night bus"- not really the best choice after all, as it offered no possibility to sleep. Between the random border police coming on board and checking our passports, to stops in the middle of nowhere to pick up a person standing on a country road in the middle of the night (and obnoxious people with obnoxious cell phone ring tones going off all night), it was crazy!!

I mean, we got here OK, so that was good news. And I guess, we didn't pay for a hostel, so it was cheaper in the long run.

We actually arrived in Belgrade at 5:30 this morning, which is pretty early. The good news is that the sun comes up around 4, so it was already bright outside and easy to find our way around the city.

We dropped our stuff at the hostel, even though it was WAY too early to check in and went in search of a little cafe to waste some time until the museums opened.

Turns out, all of the cafes open at 8am, so when it is 6am, that is a long time to waste. We decided to navigate the trams and buses and find our way to the super luxury Hyatt Regency, where we were sure they would be serving breakfast at an early hour.

We arrived, and the place was NICE. Super nice. In fact, the breakfast buffet was 36 dollars, so we opted instead for coffee and tea, and then splurged on the 10 dollar waffles because, well, we were hungry and wanted them.

Everyone else was making us jealous with the breakfast buffet, most likely because they were all writing it off on expense accounts. As much as I wanted to, I couldnt justify the $36 breakfast, which is twice the cost of one night in the hostel!

Anyway- after that, Clay and I wandered around for a bit in the big gardens and park, and then went to check out the National Museum we had heard great things about. Turned out it is closed, along with a bunch of other museums, for NO REASON. So, we will walk around the gardens some more and maybe try to check out some of the more obscure museums (sadly not the Tesla museum, which is also inexplicably closed).

Clay is off tonight to Germany, and I fly out tomorrow for Paris. Cant believe it is almost over!!