You never know

 
  I invite you to take a break from America, from Canada, from Costa Rica, from wherever you are, and pretend you are taking an absolutely-crazy-last minute-one-day trip to Serbia with me.
  It all started yesterday when we grabbed a cab to downtown. 
  This turned out to be a very special ride. The driver spoke good English. He also spoke Macedonian and Serbian and German. He was so friendly. I was ready to be mad at him because he was smoking while driving, but he was truly a good guy. So good that we let him drive us to Serbia today. Who goes to Serbia in a taxi?? We do. A day trip to Serbia. Very surreal.
  There are other circumstances to this last minute trip, but I think I will write about it after we leave Macedonia. It just made me realize that there is no such thing as a normal trip to Europe. Always expect things to take more time, and have a cushion for unexpected expenses. I'm just saying.
  Except for massive allergy issues - it was a glorious trip. The scenery was spectacular. And the driver didn't smoke in the car. I haven't seen so many flowers in one day in my life. Maybe at the Buchart gardens on Vancouver Island. But these ones were just weeds! My favorites were the poppies. The poppies were cool in Budapest, but here they were a brilliant neon red color. If you take a picture of a poppy with an iPad, then edit it by adding more color - that's what it looked like.
  And not just red poppies but dozens of colorful flowers in bloom, all highlighted with a green background of grassy fields and rolling mountains. Was it still the Balkan mountains? Probably. I loved how the mountains would have patches of houses that all had the same terra cotta reddish-orange roofs. It was like a kaleidoscope of a palette going by at 50 kilometers an hour. The colors would shift, and the combinations would change as we drove by. So many flowers appearing in patterns outside of my window. Red, white, beige, yellow variations, several purples, and many graduations of green. All the combinations were astounding.
  The poppies were awesome, a most welcome distraction. I took double the medicine and my allergies were killing me. My entire face itched from the inside out. My symptoms were taking turns like the colorful flower arrangements in the countryside. Those ferociously red poppies made me happy despite my sniffling, sneezing, and realizing I had forgotten to put more tissues in my purse. Ugh.
  Then we were just before the Serbian border and went through a toll. The police pulled our car over from the toll area. I have no idea why. The driver went and talked with them for what seemed an eternity. I felt completely calm, but after a while I was starting to wonder. I mean who wouldn't?? It turns out one of his documents was expired by 3 days, so they gave him a ticket. He was disgruntled, to say the least. The ticket was for 300 Euros. He explained that he only makes an equivalent of 200 Euros a month. He was kicking himself for not paying attention.
  He was agitated, but still chatty. So chatty that he kept talking with both hands while driving. At one point he put on his reading glasses and was looking at his cell phone while driving. But still I defend him as a good guy. On the way back I urged Ron to sit in the front seat so the driver would stop turning his head to talk to us. Unreal. It was a manual car, and on the way there he kept not putting his foot on the break and rolling back, and we had to say: hey, you're about to hit the guy behind you.
On the way back he kept rolling forward. At one point Ron reached over and yanked on the emergency break! The driver said: Thanks. We were waiting in line to go through the border to Macedonia, and our driver was busy looking through his phone for pictures to show us of his family and travels. The whole time I was not nervous or worried, maybe because I was too preoccupied with my stupid allergies. Besides, worry wouldn't have changed the outcome any.
  Vranje was the name of the southern Serbia town that we went to. We strolled a Serbian downtown area, on a perfectly beautiful spring day. I ate some Serbian popcorn from a vendor by the side of the street. We ate some Serbian food. She took a big bun, smushed it, cooked it, and melted meat and cheese inside. It was tasty and started with the letter P. That's all I know. I bought a little Serbian bracelet for a souvenir. We took some Serbian pictures. We went into a Serbian church and it was incredible inside. It was so intricately decorated. It just stopped me in mid stride, you know?
  Add Serbia to the countries I've visited/lived in. I'm up to 12 now.
Canada
United States
Mexico
Costa Rica
Nicaragua
Denmark
Sweden
Poland
Germany
Hungary
Macedonia
Serbia
  The last great anxious moment is when we were waiting for the cab driver to come back. We had agreed to meet at a certain place at a certain time. He was late. What could we do? We had to joke about it. "I'm sure going to miss Macedonia". "It's going to be a long walk back!".  You get the picture. Such immense relief when he showed up! We were so happy to see him. We bonded with him, and took our picture with him when we were being dropped off at home.
  Now we are back, and adventure will continue once I've rested. Man, this stupid over active immune system of mine. Pollen is not a danger, why can't my body figure this out? Ah well, another bright and blooming day at 41.6056 degrees North and 21.7453 degrees East.

Gorgeous Serbian travels.
 

A darling little pedestrian street in a small Serbian town. I LOVE the streets.

This picture doesn't even do justice to walking in and being surrounded by it 360 degrees.

From the outside, the churches don't always look like much. I'm so glad we went inside!!

Here are some more. I hope you don't mind. I like bringing my travels to life with pictures. Sometimes it's amazing, it seems too good to be true. You know what I mean?

I'm in love with the streets of Europe. There are so many textures and patterns everywhere I go. This was a perfectly adorable pedestrian street.

So old and quaint. Some parts run down. And some oddly modern.

See the contrast?? See all the reflection in the mirror panels of this building?

Ok, it doesn't do it justice, I know. But do you see the field that is full of red flowers? You can only represent so much from a moving car. Usually the poppies were spread out, not in a cluster like this.

See the sample of flowers?