Posted on 02/11/2015 12:07:20 PM PST by not2be4gotten.com
Belgrade, Serbia:
So on Sunday, February 8, 2015, as an American, I was arrested and detained by the Belgrade transit police. So now I have a criminal record in Serbia.
Here is what you need to know.
When you get to Belgrade, you need to get a tram fare card. We got 10 rides per card, around $6. So when you get on the tram, you swipe your card and it subtracts 1 fare from your card. It is a very cool system. The problem is, when you swipe your card on the trams, we don't know where on the little computer screen it tells you how many more fares you have left. We just don't know, it is all gobbledygook. The only way we know of to tell if there are no more fares left on the card, is to get on a tram, swipe the card and if the screen flashes red, instead of the usual green, we know to buy a new card. This is all we know. We can't take our card to one of the little vending, kiosk, to find out how many fares we have left, because we do not know how to ask that question in Serbian and none of the kiosk people know how to speak English, because if they did, they would have better jobs and would not be kiosk vendors. Does this make any sense?
So Sunday, I jump on the tram, swipe my card and the little computer screen flashes red and gives a mournful beep, indicating no more fares left. And how lucky am I that a transit cop lady is standing right next to me, watching this happen. She immediately turns to me, decides I am a stupid american (baseball cap?) and says, in perfect English "Give me your passport, or I will summon the police." OMG!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
The jail cell, late that night, was chilly and damp, with a smell of vomit and urine, my prison smock smelled like an old garbage pail. The reflection of my fellow prisoners, off the damp floor, seemed to betray the fact that they were sizing me up, especially the 2 really big guys...
No... But this is what immediately went through my head...
I handed over my passport. She said "The fine is 2000 Dinar." While looking into my wallet and finding only 1500 Dinar, I explained to her that there is no way for me to know if there is no more fares left on the card, other than scanning it, on the tram and seeing it fail. She said "No exceptions!" I showed her how much money I have and offered to pay her in American dollars. I always carry $1000 American, just in case of an emergency (which will typically get you out of most anything), it is one of our rules.
She says "No!" She then continues "At the next stop, I will get off with you. You have 5 minutes to come up with 2000 Dinar, or I will keep your passport." We get off at the next stop. Luckily there is a bank, with an ATM, right across the street. I withdraw the money, give her 2000 Dinar (a little less than $20). I get my passport back and now all is well.
God bless Serbia!
That has to be a weird feeling. And you know, seriously. Who knows the effect it had. That late 20s woman might have been a 6 year old hiding at night in terror. And in the morning coming out to see a govt building down the block blown to smithereens. All she knows is “the Americans” did it.
That was a dark chapter in our history. On behalf of Kosovo, home of pimping, dope, and Al Qeida in Europe.
I had not considered this. It is not out of the realm of possibility.
One never knows. Glad you missed the cell. And thanks for the tip.
Did you get a receipt?
Yes...
Not any worse than Paris! I was on business and had two laptop bags (bandolero style) and a small wheeled suitcase.
Ran my subway ticket and got through the first set of stainless bar room doors but one laptop strap got tangled on the turnstyle immediately after.
A couple of subway cops saw me wrestle through the turnstyle and had me up against the wall within a second of making it through. Neither spoke English and could only say “No ticket, no ticket” over and over.
When I could get my hand free, I showed them the darn ticket. After examining it like it was a counterfeit $100, they waved me on like I had been obstructing rush hour traffic.
Miniature bureaucrats are the same everywhere.
Did you go to the Nikola Tesla museum?
“We just thought it would be interesting. “
What, couldn’t get a flight to Syria?
We got part way up, and a policeman started yelling at us. Of course, in Chinese, so we had no clue what he was saying. We stopped and came down off the escalator. He walked over to a panel, lifted it up, turned a switch to make the escalator run backwards, and started it now going up! He smiled and waved, as we went up the down escalator.
LOL...that was my first thought as I read this account!
Now, there is corruption everywhere. And there is corruption, and there is Corruption.
There are certain things I pay attention to, and certain things I don’t. Up until a few months ago, I was completely unaware of the ubiquity of dash cams in Russian cars. When all that video of the meteor came out, I was kind of surprised that there were so many variations of the video.
I wondered “What the heck...it seems like everyone drives around with them over there!”
And then I became aware of the Crazy Russian Driver videos all over the Internet. (FR probably pointed me to them)
Turns out, things are so corrupt that if you don’t have video evidence of an accident, the other party will have already paid off the authorities and you have to just suck it up. So a lot of people have them because of corruption to protect themselves and their property.
But I will say, we found the videos wildly entertaining...we concluded, after watching hours of this video, three things:
1.) Russians are incredibly crazy and incompetent drivers who have no idea of defensive driving
2.) There are a huge number of completely sh**faced drivers on Russian roads
3.) If there are traffic laws, they are neither observed nor enforced (unless **someone** needs some money)
I was so curious about this whole Crazy Russian Driver thing, that I had to ask a female Russian physican I know if it was true, that it is as crazy as it appears.
Without a second of hesitation, she stated flatly that it was every bit as insane on the Russian roads as it appeared in these videos. And she wasn’t smiling or laughing, even though she clearly could see I found it humorous.
I thought if there were as many dashcams here as over there, we might see equally crazy stuff. But I put about 25-30K miles on my car and have had the good fortune to drive through many states, I have never, NEVER seen anything approaching what appeared commonplace on these videos.
I watched one video of a street in a small town where you could see three women standing outside a shop facing each other in an intimate circle of conversation, as traffic went by.
A car flew through the intersection and plowed into another one, T-Boned it, a pretty violent and noisy crash.
30 yards away the women in the background barely paused and glanced before resuming their conversation! It is either some deep seated mental remnant of the Soviet state that you don’t pay attention to things that don’t involve you, or this kind of thing happens ALL the time!
My eyes! How can I ever un-see that?
I have to tell you...she was kind of a “legend”, apparently there have been many iterations of this woman on this particular wall in Naples since the US Navy had a presence there after WWII, all named “Humpty Dumpty” by the sailors.
I had seen her so many times on the bus to and from Fleet Landing that I didn’t even notice her after a while.
Over the years, I completely forgot what she looked like, but I always laughed remembering the sailors talking about Humpty Dumpty”.
Then one day on Free Republic, the subject of liberty in Naples came up, and some one posted a picture of her they had taken, and I nearly fell out of my chair when I saw it! It WAS her!
The Nikola Tesla Museum is 2 blocks away from our place. You do not have to go there to figure out how much this man has been scrubbed out of American history. lol
After what Clinton did to Serbia, you’re lucky they didn’t just kill you.
We have been here a month and to a person, everybody has been extremely nice to us. It is unbelievable how many Serbians speak English...
There is starting to be more information, and interest, in Tesla here. The internet played a large role.Tesla’s contributions to science/industry/engineering were massive.
“Let the future tell the truth, and evaluate each one according to his work and accomplishments. The present is theirs; the future, for which I have really worked, is mine.”
Nikola Tesla
The joys of traveling in a foreign country.
Our Egyptian cab driver nodded off while driving and we were headed for a palm tree. The front seat passenger woke Abdul by thumping him in the chest and grabbed the wheel in time. Abdul said he worked four jobs.
We told him that if he didn’t stay awake on this one, he wouldn’t have to worry about the other three. No tip for Abdul.
Abdul’s antics pale in comparison to Italian cab drivers though. Had one that took us through a train tunnel to avoid a traffic jam. Using the brake is a sign of weakness. The accelerator and horn rule the day.
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