We started our journey today in Sarajevo bright and early today at 8:00. The boys enjoyed breakfast while the girls enjoyed sleeping through their alarm. Our guide, Taib, took us in a party bus and we drove across the countryside. We saw huge, beautiful mountains as we drove around the base of them. There were so many little villages living at the base of mountains. These villages were so quiet and seemed so far away from any civilizations. It was amazing to see the green and luxurious mountains near Sarajevo gradually transform into rockier, more pointy structures. We took a pit stop at Tito`s bunker.
The bunker was huge and was 260m underground. There were many cool sections including one that was full of typewriters to send secret messages. The bunker could hold Tito, generals, and 350 soldiers alive for a year in case of a nuclear attack, which would be a CATastrophe. It was full of heavy metal doors and looked very industrial, although it also looked like the CATacombs because one could easily get lost in this huge underground maze. There were many art exhibits in almost every room of the bunker. The one that stood out the most to everyone was definitely the wardrobe that spun around and sung classical songs. This was to symbolize the nonsense of Tito spending billions of dollars on this bunker that was never used when a nuclear attack might not have been likely. There also was a sign outside the bunker that read, ”we must build a monument to remember our futuristic past”which was very interesting.
For lunch we stopped at a restaurant and had unBEEleavably delicious lamb. The view was breathtaking with mountains, rivers, and bridges. We walked around and saw an old train and train tracks that were destroyed by retreating Partisans, led by Tito.
After another drive we finally arrived at Mostar. We toured with a woman who raised her family here during the war. She told her story and a lot of history of this area. For example, Mostar literally means bridge keepers, which is fitting because there are so many bridges and they are very famous. We walked around the city and saw a lot of the architecture. Some significant buildings that saw were, the Mostar bridge, cathedral, minarets, and a giant 70m cross on top of a mountain. On the bridge there were some old guys in Speedos who would jump off if you paid them enough. Finally we came back to the town are shopped for souvenirs and looked around at all the shops. There was a dog who came up to me and he put his head through my hand which was really cute. The teachers were very mean (edit: cautious!) because they didn’t us pet him or any of the other dogs even though he wanted it so badly.
Dinner was great, we had fish, pasta, beef, and really really good cheese. There were many bee puns at dinner and this was a CATalyst to the whole group becoming good friends. This was the first dinner in which we were all talking and laughing with each other. At dinner there was a bee flying around and Tom ranted about why he doesn’t like bees and different ways to kill them, his most ingenious way was by training the cats that were hanging around the restaurant to eat bees if they got to close, and also saying that they have no reason to bee here, which led to everyone continuously making cat and bee puns. After dinner we made a bee-line to the ice cream stand and then hung out by the river and skipped stones. In conclusion it was a pretty BEEutiful day and I`d say Bosnia is the Bees Knees. I cannot BEElieve we are going to BEE leaving so soon.
By Mason S., photos by Dr. Jones