Day 449: In Limbo

Ohrid, Macedonia – Belgrade, Serbia – Budapest, Hungary – Vienna, Austria

My bus was at 5am. I woke up at 3:30am to find an hour difference between my watch and my iPhone. After a quick googling, I found out that there’s a daylight saving time change. Technically, I could have slept another hour but I couldn’t be sure if the bus would actually arrive on the new time at the appointed site or not. I would rather be safe than sorry.

Half past three in the morning, I carried my backpacks and walked half an hour in the dark to the petrol station to catch the bus. This sounded miserable but at least it wasn’t raining. I got there to find out that the bus would indeed come an hour later according to the daylight saving time. Luckily, I could stay indoor at the convenient store at the station.

The bus pulled up at 5am and I was on my way north. All other passengers were local. The first half of the trip, I got into conversation with a Macedonian girl who majored in English. Time moved faster then. The girl got off in Serbia, and I was alone after that.

The Macedonian-Serbian border passing was a breeze, but the Serbian-Hungarian one was a bitch. I swore we were inching into it slower than a turtle. It was a massive jam. It must have taken us four hours to cross the border. I was dozing in an out of sleep.

I was told the bus would arrive at 11:30pm in Vienna. This would have been nice as I would have been able to take the U-bahn (subway) to my hostel. However, we pulled in at 3am to a snowy Vienna at 0 degree celcius. The international bus station was hardly a station. It was just a small office that wasn’t even open at that time. So much for avoiding the Albanian rains…

I resorted to take a cab and head to my hostel. It was more than 4am when I finally tucked myself in the warm duvet and got more sleep.