Stranded in Serbia...

Ok, so, we are currently in Serbia with no luggage, no AC in the midst of a huge heat wave and intermittent power, and no way out of the country. Clearly we've been having a lot of fun. Sorry this post is so long, you know how I am, I blog while everyone else takes care of important things...

We got up bright and early, 6AM, took the metro to the terminal, jumped aboard our train to the airport just as it was taking off, and arrived safe and sound about 1:45 before our flight. Then things got hectic. We showed up at the ticket desk for Jat airways only to find that we were not in the computer. Apparently the clerk Tina talked to on the phone at Jat airways did not put us into the computer. We had reservations to get to Belgrade, which had been automatically canceled due to the our supposed inability to confirm, despite Tina's assurance from the clerk that nothing more needed to be done. After an appropriate amount of frustration, venting, and speaking in Serbian, we were told that the only way we could get on the plane was to go to another desk and have them re-book our flight. They gave us the lowest price available for the flight, so it ended up only being an additional $30 or so, but time was rapidly running low. Andy and Tina stayed at the desk to get tickets, I took the baggage over to the counter, only to find that they were closing. I begged the nice Italian lady to keep it open while Tina and Andy finished signing something and sprinted over. I was hesitant to give up my bag until I was sure that we were going to be in Serbia. Eventually, at 9:52, Andy and Tina got our tickets (the flight started boarding at 9:50, left at 10:20). They ran over, the paper-work took way too long as the exasperated lady behind the desk checked our passports and said "You have to run, you know that right?". Tina, thinking out loud, noticed that there was no way we were going to make it through security in time. Andy and I confidently stated that we could make it.

As soon as we were released, each of us grabbed a third of the tickets/passports/receipts/papers on the desk and we started running for the terminal. We got to the security checkpoint and Tina charged ahead, running past people waiting in line. Meanwhile Andy handed out tickets as we passed in adjacent lines and I kept shouting "Mi scusi at the confused masses". At one point we lost Tina, only to hear a flurry of italian swearing from ahead (we knew this language pretty well after experiencing Roman traffic). Looking ahead we found Tina somehow at the front of the line but we were scared to pass the angry passengers. We looked at each other, and the lady behind us pointed at the railing next to us and said "just go" so we "just went" and arrived at the x-ray screening. We explained the situation to every English speaker in front of us and got to the front of the x-ray machine. At this point it was past 10:00 and we were very concerned, so I dumped everything metal into my backpack, dropped it on the machine, walked through the metal detector, and immediately started sprinting for the gate to try and delay them. I got about 40 yards when I ran into another, larger line for passport control. I found some people who spoke english and explained the situation, and showed the time on the ticket to everyone else, and the people there (Italians seem incredibly helpful in general) all let us cut to the front of the line. Thanks Italy! When Andy and Tina arrived we waited for the lady at the booth to finish, she took just about forever, and then I went through, and started sprinting again (it was like interval training in track).

It was now 10:15, I assumed the doors were already closed and our baggage was on our way to Serbia without us, but at this point we had to keep trying. I followed the signs to C33, took several turns, ran up an escalator, and dodged people and luggage at every step. I turned one last corner and ran into a dead end. I did the dear in headlights and screeched to a stop, then realized that C33 was a remote gate that needed a bus stop to get to. I turned around to see my travel mates making the same realization that I had moments before. I told them "ok, now we're cutting it kind of close". The train came, the doors stayed closed for what felt like hours as our means out of Italy were slipping away from us. Eventually we got aboard, got there, got out. 10:18 we were sprinting around the corner and ran into C33. Against all of our expectations, Jat airway's bureaucratic incompetence was solved because they were also experiencing delays, so we made it onto the flight (of course I was picked to have my bag searched, adding insult to injury). We boarded the flight covered in sweat.

After that things got really hectic...

We landed successfully, and left the plane to the terminal. Serbia had a good first impression, the airport was full of natural light. However, as we tried to use a bathroom, we realized this was because the power was out. We got through customs fine and waited by the baggage claim. There were three conveyor belts moving, some were labeled Dubai, some London, some had blank screens, but none were labeled Rome. Andy took the right belt, Tina the center, I the right. We heard an official say the bags were "all mixed up". The lights kept flickering on and off as power came and went, backup generators turned on and off, and emergency lighting couldn't make up it's mind. About this time Tina got a call from her mom, apparently she was concerned because the news said that Serbia was experiencing a terrible heat wave and the use of AC was setting records on Serbian power consumption. As a result, the grid couldn't handle it and this was causing the power failures. We held on hope for our bags for several cycles of the belts turning on and dying, then realized that our luggage was probably still in Rome (there's no way it moved through the airport as quickly as we did).

Tina talked to the lost luggage people in Serbian (in the dark) along many other upset passengers. Apparently the power outage wreaked havoc on their system and they were inundated with lost baggage and had no way to track where any of it was. They could not promise they could find it in the 4 days before we (hopefully) left Serbia, so we were forced to give them an address in the USA (and only one address, due to the rushed checking, all the bags were in my name).

So, to make a (very) long story short, we are all incredibly stinky, and likely to remain so for several days, if not longer. We are still trying to figure out how to get on to Istanbul (I was in favor of a 24 hour train ride through Bulgaria, fortunately it won't come to that).

In the meantime, Serbia is great, a very different experience than the tourist-infested locations so far, and we have our own personal guide/translator (although Andy and I are rapidly improving our Serbian). We are looking forward to enjoying a new cultural experience in this former-Yugoslavian country.