Take The Bus, It's Slower (Reflections From My 5 Weeks in Southern Europe)

On my last day in southern Europe I had to take a FlixBus from Trieste, Italy to Zagreb, Croatia in order to catch my return flight the next morning to Halifax, Nova Scotia, Canada. The bus ride was 4 hours long through the eastern hilly part of Italy, through Slovenia and then into the western side of Croatia.

When I got on the bus, I said hello to the woman sitting next to me and started talking about Trieste and how long I was there. When I told her I'd spent 30 days prior living in Zagreb and Zadar in Croatia taking an A.I. program for software development school, a man next to me chimed in and we started talking about his hometown Rijeka which is in the western part of the Dalmatian coast of Croatia.

Sven was his name and he lives in Berlin, he said that he was going to start a mountain bike tour company in his hometown of Rijeka in the coming year. So he was visiting his town to scout some trails with his friends and go camping. Rijeka was a bus stop along the way to Zagreb, Croatia which he was excited to return to.

Along side of Sven was a retired woman in her 60's who was also travelling solo and bicycling across Europe for something to do. She told us a story about how she would take her bicycle to a big city and sleep on benches in the park to save on accommodation costs, then in the morning she would go to a big hotel and ask to use their showers and buy breakfast from them and then continue on.

Lea, the woman whom I sat next to on the bus ride from Trieste to Zagreb was a medical student and she was travelling with her sister Mood, who was also a medical student. They were from a small town in France and were travelling around hitch hiking through Slovenia, Italy and Croatia.

The 4 hour bus ride went really fast as we all learned about each others lives and what brought us to this moment on the bus. The retired woman said something that resonated with me. We were talking about what kind of people like to travel and explore, take long bus rides, sleep in hammocks, stay in less than desirable accommodations (benches), take long flights to far away lands and struggle with non-luxury travel.

She concluded that people who say "Just Do It" are the people who live like this.

No wonder the 5 of us had met on this FlixBus at this very moment.

We were those people.

Take the bus, It's slower

I got Lea's instagram and sent her a message after we arrived in Zagreb. Lea, Mood and I met up for Indian food and had some drinks.

I learned about their home town where they grew up, what they did for fun as kids, what French people did for customary family dinners and what petanque was.

The sisters told me about why they both ended up in Medicine (and it wasn't about the money). They just want to help people. And in France, the pay for doctors in hospitals is actually not that much money so you better be in it for the right reasons.

They told me about Petanque, a commoner game played with metal balls. You throw a small red ball and then players throw a bigger ball and try to get it as close to the small ball as possible. Golf is for rich people in France, but this game is for everybody. Players wear bowler hats and drink this type of sugary liqueur. The game is dominated by retired people, which is similar I imagine to lawn bowling here in North America.

Lea said something really cool when we were out for drinks. We were talking about how when you travel with a backpack, nothing is perfect, random shit always happens that ruins your plans, you end up figuring stuff out in the middle of a foreign country where you don't know the language, you just need to go with the flow in order to survive.

Travel forces you to be present, which is why I love it so much. It makes you feel totally alive and in the moment.

She said something that summarizes this article perfectly. She said "Take the bus, it's slower". Slow busses take a long time. You are forced to contemplate your situation, you have a chance to talk to strangers and practice interpersonal skills, you get to see the country side, you stop for food in small towns, you almost get left behind when you are late at the break stop, you have authentic connections with strangers in about 5 minutes just by travelling by bus.

My favorite memories during the 5 weeks

My international artificial intelligence program through Nova Scotia Community College - NSCC and Algebra University in Zagreb, Croatia was an amazing experience.

My instructor Boris Agati? is a blockchain software developer and entrepreneur.

His blockchain module was among my favorite topics we covered. This module inspired me to plan out a global bitcoin crowdfunding platform idea that I will continue to code up this coming school year in my IT - Programming education with NSCC in Nova Scotia, Canada.

I spent 3 weeks in Zagreb, Croatia, 1 week in Zadar and also 1 week in Trieste, Italy. Along with learning with my 75 program mates, on weekends I took short trips to wakeboard in Maribor, Slovenia and visit the parliament building in Budapest, Hungary.

I also decided to take one week solo and head to Italy after the school program to visit the closest Italian city I could find, Trieste.

The learning was fun, but the people that I became so quickly connected with during such a short period will be my favourite memories from this experience.

Each country had a group of students that formed friend groups in their own nationalities. The french hung out together, the germans hung-out together, the Mexicans hung-out together, the Americans hung-out together.

I just floated around and chilled with everyone.

I met friends from Brazil and went wakeboarding in Maribor, Slovenia. Then I had a friend group of French, Germans and Americans and took a trip to Budapest, Hungary to go clubbing till 7am and see the amazing parliament building which was lit up at night along the Danube river with a boat tour.

After the school program I went solo to Trieste, Italy for 1 week and met a Dutch guy named Joost who was in the same 12 bed dorm room as me. We became friends and I quickly landed in another big friend group of Dutch and Germans.

We often grabbed some bottles of wine and went down to the harbour. We would sit on the docks and drink wine till the wee hours laughing and bullshitting about wether it is suicide or not when a male black-widow spider is killed by the female mate after sex. Would that be suicide or would that be known? Or maybe the male wanted to die but thought hey, why not get laid at the same time.

Backpacking teaches interpersonal skills

Travelling solo in hostels forces you to be outgoing. I've travelled all over the world and you just don't get the same travel experience when you keep to yourself.

Every city has churches, monuments, sight seeing, buildings blah blah blah. Who cares... every city has those things.

Travelling isn't about going around and clicking a photo of some rocks and stone that some old people made in the 1700's.

Those things will be around forever long after you die.

Long after your name is just dust in the wind.

Travelling is about making genuine authentic connections with complete strangers and laughing till you piss your pants while you drink wine and watch the sunset on a random dock in Italy.

If you take the genuine situation like the docks above...

There you are with strangers who are now friends. All because you shook someones hand and started talking. Or said "Hi" to the pretty girl sitting beside you on the FlixBus.

There you are 10,000 km away from home. In a sea of people.

In a sea of buildings, businesses, people walking around with their daily lives.

In a sea of millions of people who have their own problems and goals and who are living their own realities.

Continents separated from your home. In a web of trillions of possible chance scenarios.

So far away from what you know, but one thing remains the same. People are the same everywhere, you can meet insanely cool people anywhere in the world as long as you are open to it.

And somehow you have found yourself in this sea of chaos having genuine authentic connections and laughing with strangers till 2am sitting on a dock in Italy drinking wine and watching the sunset.

That is why I travel. You are absolutely living in the moment and that is a truly beautiful thing.

Some pictures from my 5 weeks

Take the bus, it's slower,

Justin Bishop

IG: @ jbishphoto

Email: [email protected]