Serbia

The busses in Serbia don't have strings to pull (at least, the one's in Novi Sad don't... perhaps Belgrade is different.  Anyways you have to sort of make eye contact with the driver to get him to stop.

I went to Serbia for what is rated the best European music festival... Exitfest.  It's held in a fortress in Novi Sad.  My friend from University hosted me, although her parents didn't speak English.  I had read that Serbia uses the normal European outlets, but the one in my room looked a little funny.  I gamely tried to plug in my iphone charger anyways and this is what happened:

Basically there was  a loud comic book noise (BANG or POP something like that) and all the power went off.  My Serbian mom came running in yelling Serbian things.  I felt ridiculously stupid.  Apparently I could have died so it's a good thing that didn't happen.

Speaking of my Serbian mom, she was in the midst of trying to learn English. My favorite sentence of hers?

"My daugher... very.. lazy."

It's sort of crazy how you can get a feel for who someone is despite speaking almost none of the same language.  My host mom was really comical.  We bonded when she gave me a ride to the airport, by singing along to Avicii.

The music festival!  Very muddy.  Eat Sleep Rain Repeat.  Some of my host's friends actually snuck their way in through the tunnels under the fortress.  Which sounds freakin scary to me.  This was my first music festival.  I had never really liked edm before this, but when everyone is happy-dancing all over the place I guess you will too.  And I did.

 Yayyyyy Dance Arena!!!

 Fireworks, first night, main stage.

The sun is coming up.. still dancing.  This is during some Drum and Bass.

Favorite bits of the festival:  Stromae.  He comes out on stage wearing his Papaoutai outfit and the crowd just goes crazy for him.  Beautiful talented man. Here's that song.

(Other favorite bit) Second or third day of the festival my friend lent me some shoes for the rain. They were too small.  Fell apart.  She thought it was hilarious and nearly peed herself laughing.

Walking home, 7 AM ish.