A day of icy roads in a bus to Zaječar, Serbia

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Today is the 100th day of the trip! Masayo and I had planned to spend it checking into a nicer-than-usual hotel, maybe for a couple nights. However, today we ended up going to Zaječar, Serbia, which isn’t big enough to have the kind of hotel we were thinking of.

My BG was an unfortunate 230 when I woke up at 7:30, which isn’t surprising as I felt so bad last night. We had breakfast in the hotel again, but I didn’t eat any meat. It seemed strange, but I felt I didn’t need any. My body was urging me not to eat any today.

When we checked out, the hotel owner smiled and gave us a DVD about Kraljevo as a gift. How nice!

We walked to the nearby bus station, which we knew pretty well by now, and found our bus to Niš, where we’d have to find a connecting bus. Unfortunately, though, it turned out that we didn’t have enough cash for the tickets. When the guy came around to collect the money, I told him I’d have to stop at an ATM later. He seemed cool with it.

On the bus I checked and had rocketed up to 305 for some unknown reason. I took a shot without food to get it down. We soon stopped at a station in some town, and Masayo jumped off and ran to the ATM we could see from the bus. We paid and felt like we could relax the rest of the way to Niš.

We got to Niš a few minutes late, and found that we had missed our connecting bus to Zaječar. But the next one was in an hour, so we sat in a large, roomy cafe they had and waited. We got coffees, and we each got a sandwich. Masayo ate hers there, while I waited. My BG was still 209.

We got on the bus to Zaječar, and the rain continued as we climbed higher into the mountains. I wondered if the roads might be icy; it was cold. The rain became snow, but the roads seemed ok. Anyway, the driver was very careful, for which I was grateful. After a while I took a shot and ate the sandwich.

We got to Zaječar at 4 pm, and it was raining. However, we had passed right in front of our hotel on the way to the station, and knew exactly where it was. We walked right to it and checked in. They were professional but not particularly friendly. Oh well, who cares — we’d made it!

The first thing that struck us about the old but cozy hotel was its elevator: you had to open the door manually (it swung out), then you opened a pair of doors (that swung out) to get in. You had to close them all manually and press the large metal buttons, and the thing jolted into action. Every time we arrived at our floor, we waited for the doors to open before suddenly remembering that we had to do it ourselves! Masayo said the hotel made her think of an old Soviet hotel.

My BG in the room at 5 pm was 213 — I have begun to realize how regularly I underestimate bread around here. I took a small shot and then fell asleep — and it turned into a two-hour nap. Body still needed rest from the nausea last night.

When I woke up it was dinner time, and we elected to stay out of the rain and go to the hotel restaurant downstairs. They had a daily special, where you could choose from two set meals for about $3 each. One was moussaka, which I ordered, and Masayo ordered the stuffed paprika — but they were out of that, so she got the moussaka too.

They had two singers in the restaurant tonight, a man and a woman, singing to prerecorded accompaniment. It sounded like Serbian pop love songs. Anyway, the moussaka, which took the form of meat and potato slices, with bread and a cabbage salad, was really good. And what a deal, at $3! We split a large bottle of carbonated water for $1.

We went out to a supermarket for supplies (water) which was right behind the hotel. It was all working out so well in Zaječar. I got a beer too, since it was a lot cheaper than the beers in the mini-bar.

But what about my BG? A long nap after a day of high BGs? Sounds like a recipe for disaster. But I had taken a bigger-than-usual shot for dinner, and at 11 pm I was a cool 155. Excellent. I left it alone, took my daily Lantus, and went to sleep.

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