from the street to the palace!

For some reason I just had to go away from Beograd in a rush! So I arrived in Niš late at night and quite unprepared. I wanted to find a hostel or bug someone on the way to convince them to let me sleep at their place, but that didn't work. (I was damn close to sleep in a student’s dorm though).
Most of the streets where already empty and the few people I met could only speak Serbian. I also had no idea where the hostels could be found.
I quickly decided to find a place to sleep...on the street! Well...on the street might be exaggerated, I am not crazy after all. The temperature was around 0°C and it would surely drop a bit more during the night!
I walked around in Niš for a while to check on some places I could stay for the night or some homes I could squat. The result of this little walk was quite astonishing. I actually had to choose a place, because the possibilities seemed limitless. Let me tell you: it’s a heaven for squatting and outdoor sleeping there.
At the end an abandoned house with no windows was my big preference. I could hear anyone that would come inside the house, see the shadows on the ground floor from my spot on the first floor and there was an easy escape route in case it needed to be.
Some other places where better I think, but I am always paranoid that someone will steal my bag during the night so I prefer to have a save spot with a bit less luxury than a nice spot with a bad ending (I even attached myself to my bag when I slept). The floor however was a bit cold, and since I don’t have a mattress I did another round in the city searching some carton boxes to make a bed from. It was a fruitless search, I always see carton everywhere and now I needed it, none to be found. Oh well, that is how Murphy’s Law works I guess.
Realizing sleeping will cool me down I dressed myself up more then I needed at that moment and went to bed.
You can all pity me or laugh with me, but the experience was a lot better than you might expect. I could have slept well if the stress factor of being seen didn’t wake me up every hour. But then again, thanks to that I remember all of my dreams. And it is funny, they ALL had something to do with either me freezing to death or having a miracle solution where I get a real bed to sleep. My subconscious wasn’t enjoying the experience as much as I did I think! I learned that my sleeping bag is not fit for sleeping outdoors in the winter and that I need much much warmer pants! I am sure I will do better next time!
I stood up quite early, sneaked outside of the house and I smelt the most fantastic thing you can imagine. Pure extasy and happiness in odor form. People that enjoy the smell of fresh bread in the morning will understand me maybe, but that day the smell was even better. It gave new hope, new strength, refreshed my joy and made me laugh at my silly night. That smell gave me more deliverance than any old preacher in front of a church could ever do. That is Religion! That feeling is why men invented bread! That was …giving me a lot of water in the mouth also, so I jumped into the backery.
While enjoying my breakfast at the river I bumped into a man. Without thinking I uttered a “scusi” (it happens quite often I say that in Italian, I don’t know why). The man must have noticed I wasn’t Serbian and asked where I can from, so I started to explain him my whole story (not that he asked for it, but I did it anyway). He was a nice man, mid 50, so I was going to try my shot at finding a place for the next night. I asked him very stupidly: “Do you think I would succeed in convincing you to let me stay at your place for a night or two?” He answered that he wasn’t from that city neither but… (He stopped talking for a few very long seconds there)…that he was staying at a hotel where he had one spare bed in his room.
A confetti explosion happened in my head! A roof! A shower! A shower once more! Warm water! I think my smile was larger than my head at that moment. The hotel seemed the kind where they think overpricing everything is the new cool, but that wasn’t my concern at that moment…I could drop my bag somewhere and take a shower! That was all that counted!
One day on the street – the next in a fancy hotel, and all for the same price…I really start to like this country!