Written While Traveling Through the Bosnian Countryside

We spent the night in Zagreb, it looking pretty grim from the train station but then evolving into another gorgeous but larger city with wide pedestrian malls and stunning buildings. The hostel was not as nice as the last but any port in the storm-we slept well but were glad to move on-we are now on a train to Sarajevo into more pensive territory-the rivers are a beautiful green and all the buildings of concrete block with red tile roofs. At the borders our passports were checked numerous times as were our tickets-we imagine that our checkers wonder what this odd American family is doing on the trains so far off the beaten tourist routes. Many of the villages we are passing on the train appear no different than they might have 100s of years ago-true farmers untouched by the modern world-yet the cities are very modern with touch screen menu boards, price scanners in the stores and everyone with a cell phone. There does appear to be either abandoned or bombed out buildings along our path and the officials look at us with suspicion- lots of uniforms of train and custom officials with interesting logos and hats. Our ride should be 8 hours but the efficiency of the trains seems to have fallen off a bit but we are trained to be on time as earlier the trains left on time with little. Among the mundane wonders of the trip so far is the strong water pressure in the showers and the unusual but attractive cars.