After days of waking up at 5 and running to stations, I spent the morning with a calm breakfast and some planning for my next days. I finally decided to go to Zagreb instead of Belgrade. Although it interests me less, I thinm Serbia deserves a more extent and intense visit with more time in the future instead of rushing through it for one day. I booked a hostel in Zagreb so I couldn’t change my mind anymore and then headed out for a walk along the river. It took me towards the part of the city with higher buildings, the university and a mix of old and super modern…

My alarm clock rang at 5 o’clock, by the time the first call for prayer sounded from the close by minaret. I had recently found out that there was one working train in Bosnia since last year, connecting Mostar with Sarajevo and I had decided to take it. It left punctual at 6:40 and was one of the best trains I’ve ever been in. There was so much space that my feet could barely touch the footrest. Even a very tall person could travel very comfortably in this new Talgo train. It took me through incredible landscapes, always next to the river, while the sun was rising over foggy villages…

My night was rather short, it ended around 3 with the return of the drugged kids but I had to get up at 5:30 anyway to catch the bus to Mostar. I spent most of the way asleep but got woken up 4 times for border controls as Dubrovnik is basically a “Croatian Island” surrounded by Bosnia and Herzegovina. I arrived at Mostar at 11:30, checked into a hostel and got a perfect introduction to Bosnian history right away. Mostar pertains to the Herzegovina part of Bosnia and Herzegovina and although many of the Balkan countries share large parts of history, the remains of the youngest historical episode are especially…

This morning after breakfast, I left Shkoder and soon Albania, going north by bus. The ride through the usual beautiful landscape took 4 hours and gave me time to think about my ever present identity/ashamed-of-being-German complex. It had been triggered by meeting 3 young Germans in the hostel that were taking the same bus as me but is something that somehow accompanies me all the time. Hearing other people speak German does not give me that moment of attracting happiness people usually experience when meeting their countrymen in a different place (Spanish usually gives me that), it rather makes me want to change my itinerary. And having to talk to…

As planned, Vincent, Abishek and I headed off to the mountains after breakfast this morning. We crossed the river and climbed the mountain right between river and lake, choosing the “right path” on the go and talking about religion, spirituality, philosophy, travelling and life in general. Different tracks and animal paths took us higher and higher, revealing ever more of the beautiful view over the lake, river and city of Shkodër. On the way, we had various encounters with turtles (that seemed a little odd in this landscape and made me wonder how they had gotten up there), many lizards and various herds of cows, horses and goats. Every eating…

After a pretty short 5-hour-night, I stood up at 6 this morning (I had treated hours of sleep for juggling lessons, so that was a pretty good deal). Yesterday evening, a Finnish girl had told me about a boat trip on lake Komani and said that it had been very nice so I spontaneously decided to do that too. I had been planning to do some kayaking on that lake, but (same as the hiking trip I had planned) this is only possible in summer.The minibus set off at 6:30 and took us to the shore of lake Komani, heavily shaking and vibrating. We drove for two hours through stunning…

This morning I went to the bus station without any plan but knowing the name of my next destination. I had been willing to do this part of the journey by train but then it turned out that Albania is in possession of only one train and it is currently being repaired – so no train. However, the Albanian spontaneous method worked perfectly and as soon as I got close to the station there was already a guy shouting the name of the place I wanted to go. I got in his mini bus and after about 20 minutes we left. The van filled up quickly and after a short…

This morning I took a public bus (or 2) to the BUNK’ART museum in the suburbs of Tirana. Already on my way here from Macedonia I had noticed that the country is full of bunkers; Bunkart ist an especially big one that has been turned into a museum recapitulating Albanian history since 1939. The Bunker was built in 1978 by the communist leader Enver Hoxha, who was a little paranoid with foreign attacks and made it an important part of his agenda to build bunkers everywhere, train citizens on what to do in case of a gas attack and provide a gas mask for every citizen of Albania. A total…