September 22, 2024
Miles: 54.47. Total: 7,058.
After a tearful sendoff, I steered Louise toward Serbia. Despite weather reports warning that a flooding Danube would be nipping at my heels, the skies were clear and the Danube was still sliding well within its banks.
Because I got a late start, I didn't pfaff with many photographs. Vukovar was the site of a dreadful siege and massacre during the Yugoslav Wars, and so I stopped by the shell-pocked water tower, memorial cemetery, and shepherds' shrine. And then I lit out for Novi Sad.
At the Serbian border, I paused on a terrifyingly rickety bridge to sing "Happy Birthday" to my mama.
I reached Novi Sad after dark, and the city was bumping. Families and friend groups lined the Danube beach on the way into town and continued to flow through the city's streets. Serbians are a tall and swarthy people, and so I felt like I was swimming in a sea of supermodels. This is not a bad feeling.
Novi Sad is Serbia's second largest city, with a long history stretching back to the Stone Age. Its current incarnation feels decidedly eastern European, with a melange of modern skyscrapers, Soviet bloks, and classic wedding-cake buildings, planted hither and yon in underlit and rubbly streets. In places like this, I always wonder that more people aren't on crutches, healing ankles broken on crumbling curbs and unmarked trenches.
But I am a soft American, after all, and the contentment of the people around me suggested I could just keep my Yankee opinions on infrastructure to myself.
Meanwhile, a guy at the Lidl bike rack asked me where I was from. When I told him, he saluted me. And several times riding to my rented student apartment, cars stopped to let me cross intersections, even though I didn't have the right of way.
And so now I love Novi Sad. That's really all it takes for me: a single conversation and benevolent driving. Please keep this in mind when you see a cyclist. A simple hello or kind traffic move may be the difference between them loving or hating a place.
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