Last time I left for Serbia I was so unprepared and unaware of the mistakes I was making. This time, I hope that I will be a little more savy. These are some of the mistakes I made and what I plan to do to avoid them!
On my last trip, I had my Mom, Dad, and sister take my husband and I to the airport. My mother was so nervous that that she didn't shut up the entire time. Not that she is ever quiet, but it was even worse than usual. My sister was awesome. And Dad was just dad. I was so happy to have them there, but it was so stressful. Next time I will have to have just one person take us to drop us off and make it quick, painless, and no hesitation... like ripping off a bandaid!
Next, I must make sure I have got a copy of all the paper work for the trip. Last time, in all the commotion, I could not find the itenerary I had printed out. And when we went to the Passport readers... apparantly my passport is a bit difficult to read. so we had a hard time getting our travel info. :(
Adding to the stress of leaving for six months and my mothers nervous conversation our luggage was way too heavy. We had to take a ton of stuff out and give it to my family. We would have had to pay $300 extra to take it all.
After that, they asked for my Visa since our tickets were for more than a 3 month stay in Serbia. I told them we had trips planned outside of the country. That was of no consequence. The only thing that may have helped was our marriage certificate. With all that crap I did remember to put in our luggage that made it too heavy. I had forgotten to bring that. I will be sure to take all 3 of our marriage licenses, the original, the US Hague treaty stamped one and the Serbian one. No question about it we are married!
I will also see if we can have tickets and receipts for a trip we plan to take outside of Serbia.
For next time I will remember to ask my mom if we can use one of her farm friends large scales to avoid issues with the luggage.
Our next issue was with security. Milan got picked for a "random" search and trust me, it was thurough. They went through everything! I am sure it was because he was so frustrated from all that we had been through, that he had a look of a terrorist on his face. He hates to smile anyway, but at this point he was probably looking down right angry. I saw the security officer looking our way repeatedly, and when we got to the front of the line. He asked Milan to step aside, went through everything, practically sexed him with the metal detector,and frisked him. It was nerve wracking, even though I knew there was nothing to fear.
Next time we need to make sure we are both in better spirits to thwart Milan's mean face!
That is all I can think of for now. I am tired and need a break, I am sure there will be more to add to this blog so, To be continued!
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