A terrible hostel that had roadworks going on outside, throwing dust up into the air and through the windows constantly, huge bug bites that swelled my feet and ankles and a distinct lack of good food. Yep, these are my only memories of my time in Novi Sad.
I don’t normally like to say that I “disliked” anywhere. Sure, there have been places that I have definitely liked less than others, but I have normally spent so little time in them that I don’t like to tarnish them with any sort of brush without having delved further past the surface.
I spent a total of six nights in Novi Sad and that was six too long. It wasn’t all the city’s fault, I definitely take some of the blame. After having carved out a routine for myself in Belgrade, I made myself feel guilty for spending too long in one place and decided to look for buses to neighbouring Novi Sad, a town I had read was pretty and a polar opposite of Belgrade. Turns out that polar opposite wasn’t what I really wanted.
We arrived at the hostel we had booked for our first night to find a musty-smelling, old-fashioned bedroom, dusty kitchen and no atmosphere. After spending an uncomfortable night in that bed, we decided to leave and find different accommodations. We looked online for late deals for other hostels, something we normally have good luck with, but at such short notice there were very few on offer. We eventually found a hostel that could accommodate us for a few nights but only if we slept in a large dorm room which we would have all to ourselves. The dorm overlooked the street, where major roadworks were taking place into the early evening every day, meaning that we had to walk through a thick layer of dust to get out into town. By the second evening one of my feet and ankles had swelled to a worrying size. I tried taking antihistamines but they had little effect. After Googling my symptoms (which is never a good thing to do) I was convinced I had West Nile Virus. A worried Scott rushed out to the pharmacy at midnight where he was told that I should carry on with the antihistamines and wait it out. They said it was probably a mosquito or spider bite. Awesome.
Each evening I would hobble out of the hostel through the dust in search of food. Each night, we were disappointed by the selection, It seemed to consist mostly of fast food chains or over-priced versions of restaurant fast food. We found ourselves eating at the same pizza place three times while we were there because we couldn’t face going anywhere else.
The town itself was too quiet for me after the bustle of Belgrade and although boasting an extremely pretty main chrurch and square, there was little else to the town that I enjoyed. I spent my week there locked away in my dorm room working and eating pasta or cereal from the local supermarket (when I wasn’t eating pizza – my liefstyle was really healthy). After the six nights were over and my ankles had returned to a normal size, we hot-footed it (pardon the pun) back to Belgrade, where we stayed for another two weeks, just enjoying having a multitude of food options and a myriad of streets to explore.
The lesson I learned from this whole affair is that I should never listen to what others’ opinions are of a place before I go and that I should never leave a place that I am really enjoying just because I feel guilty staying there for too long. Belgrade was one of my favourite places of my time in Eastern Europe, and I prefer to remember that fondly, rather than dwell on my nightmare time in Novi Sad.
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