Spring Roadtrip and its Cultural Shocks

In our spring break, 14 friends and me did an roadtrip through 3 countries - Croatia, Montenegro and Bosnia. 

In each country I experienced some cultural shocks, some were little some bigger. 

Lets start with Croatia:

The first days of our trip we stayed in different citys in Croatia while it was rainig a lot. Also the temperature was quite cold. So we stayed in our Airbnb's most of the time. The houses there don't have a real heating system, only air conditioniong, also the water was after 5 min in the shower totally cold. 

Another thing that lead to a kind of frustration was the food. As I experinced before in my life, the croatian food is not really tasteful. 

Montenegro: 

The biggest issue here was the infrastructure and the hygienic standards. 

The sreets were in a quite bad condition as the restrooms too. 

We had difficulties driving in the cits without traffic lights and people who drove aggresively. 

Bosnia:

In Bosnia we had the worst experience of our life with the car. Really dangerous roads along the mountains without any safety precautions.

But the most frustrating and scaring thing was to see all the tracks and remains from the war, bullet holes and ruins everywhere. The country is really poor and everywhere you look you can see tons of trash, in the nature as well as on the streets. 

Another big issue of the country we could feel is the bosnian Mafia and its influence. On the border strange people came on to our car and wanted money from us, they said we should follow them and they will help us to avoid the queue. We were a little bit scared because we heard about those things which are businesses runned by the Mafia. 

But all in all we had a great time and as we learned these cultural shocks helped us to grow and improve our patience and strength. In most of the situations we did all we can do to handle the problems. Many times we started to laugh and took the situation with humor or we started to talk to locals to feel more comfortable. 

This trip was one of the most valuable experiences I made in my life, I am thankful or that.