<div class="bbWrapper">Let's continue my thoughts on other European countries I visited last year...<br />
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<span style="font-size: 22px"><b>1. Bosnia & Herzegovina</b></span><br />
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Bosnia & Herzegovina was the first country in a long time that humbled me a lot. I was afraid to visit the country, expecting some kind of wild west situation, sketchy people, and horrible infrastructure. In reality, the infrastructure was mostly as good as in neighboring Croatia, the people were F*cking awesome (so warm, friendly, and easy to deal with) and I felt very safe.<br />
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We bought some local strawberries from a guy selling them by the road and they were legendary. You could tell right away that that's how strawberries should taste. None of that chemical/plastic aftertaste so prevalent these days in strawberries.<br />
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We drove to Mostar (a day trip classic from Croatia) and on the way back to Croatia checked out Počitelj Fortress. Later we also drove through almost the entire country (south to north) when we traveled from Dalmatia to northeastern Croatia and wanted to see more of Bosnia & Herzegovina along the way.<br />
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Mostar is a touristy town with a very interesting clash of cultures and religions. It also still bears signs of the horrible wars that ended not that long ago.<br />
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Dudes on that bridge were collecting money from tourists. Upon getting a satisfying amount, they jump off the bridge, swim back to the shore and do the same thing again. Much respect for that crazy hustle.<br />
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Above one of the many buildings in the center that clearly show the aftermath of the war (bombed buildings, shell or bullet holes).<br />
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We also went to check out a modern shopping mall to buy some locally made food (funny: we could buy healthy local vegan, low-calorie, high-protein bars while I can't find ANY in the whole United States lol).<br />
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We were shocked that smoking was allowed INSIDE. Yep, it all smelled of cigarettes and people smoked them in public areas inside the mall. The Balkans are notorious for an extreme percentage of smokers and little to no regulations against public smoking but that was still f*cked up.<br />
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Otherwise, the country has very modern road infrastructure, lots of empty space, and reminded me a little of Kyrgyzstan with its sparsely populated open spaces. The views are world-class and could easily star in a high-production fantasy movie. Like the view from the fortress below:<br />
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All in all, this country has immense potential and even though it isn't in the European Union yet, you can't really tell much of a difference when you cross the border from Croatia to Bosnia & Herzegovina. I wish them all the best and I hope the country remains politically stable (despite its challenges) and continues its growth while respecting its beautiful nature.<br />
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People speak English well (at least in tourist areas) and can even speak multiple languages (we bought ice cream from a guy who was learning Polish).<br />
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As a side note, Bosnia & Herzegovina still has lots of areas contaminated by landmines. That was a little scary as we imagined stepping on a landmine when we wanted to go piss by the road (even though obviously all the frequently trafficked areas were surely demined).<br />
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<b><span style="font-size: 22px">2. Serbia</span></b><br />
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I was also worried about visiting Serbia, expecting depressing Soviet architecture and anti-western sentiments. We did a day trip to Belgrade and later that same year drove through Serbia from the north to the south and visited Belgrade on the way again.<br />
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Both times, we enjoyed the city a lot and felt very safe there (so safe in fact that I parked my car by a busy road with all our stuff inside and we walked to a nearby restaurant - no chance I would do that in many places in Western Europe or the US).<br />
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Yes, if you want, you can find some dystopian Soviet architecture in Belgrade. In fact, we looked for it as my girlfriend likes this kind of architecture:<br />
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But that's a small part of the city. In general, the city is rapidly developing and reminded us a little of a growing, bustling Asian city. There are many new buildings, the city is green, it feels very safe. You can feel energy and opportunities in this city, even though it may be a little rough around the edges.<br />
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I'm pretty sure most people on this forum wouldn't imagine Belgrade to be like this:<br />
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English proficiency could be better, though, as people generally don't speak it well or have a very thick accent.<br />
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A note for those looking for an Eastern European wife (lol): Serbian women are also very attractive. Perhaps not as much as Croatians, and some Serbian women tend to look a little fake instead of going for natural beauty but still, not a bad place aesthetically speaking lol.<br />
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<span style="font-size: 22px"><b>3. Romania</b></span><br />
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I had high hopes for Romania due to being a relatively wild country for Europe. Unfortunately the area we explored wasn't that wild and most mountains were turned into pastures or were being destroyed by immense logging. This definitely soured our experience a little bit. We did find some wilder areas but environmental degradation was unfortunately always present somewhere nearby. Romania's caves are legendary, though - Peștera Meziad is mind-blowing.<br />
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The part that we explored (mostly Transylvania) is one of the wealthiest part of Romania and that's very telling as it didn't look that great. Even the largest city of this region and one of the largest in the country, Cluj-Napoca, wasn't really interesting to us. It wasn't super bad but it wasn't that nice - we have no reason to ever come back.<br />
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Road infrastructure in Romania is terrible and the drivers are reckless, too. I didn't feel safe driving there, particularly on the national road connecting the main cities that was just a narrow one-lane road shared by all the traffic (have fun driving behind a huge semi truck for an hour because you can't pass it).<br />
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Internet infrastructure is world-class, though: we had an Airbnb in an area where there was almost no phone reception but we had super fast fiber optic. That's the case in most of the country as Romania has one of the fastest average Internet speeds in the world.<br />
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English proficiency is mostly good from what we experienced. We were lucky to have a newly built Lidl nearby for shopping as otherwise other supermarkets were a little rundown.<br />
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As for cities, we had one surprise, and that was the city of Oradea. It was very beautiful, quiet, peaceful, and just felt "right" for some reason. Just take a look:<br />
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I think I could come back to Romania but would want to go to properly wild parks that haven't been destroyed by animal grazing or logging. I'm not sure about the country's future as it is now, though - the infrastructure needs to be improved a lot to facilitate transport and movement throughout the country. Even thinking about driving through there again makes me anxious and exhausted.<br />
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To be continued...</div>
