A Friday morning bus debacle

I'm sitting at the Rijeka Central Bus Station, waiting for my 12:30 bus to Pula, Croatia. I was never supposed to end up in Rijeka today, but here we are!

I look forward to writing you a lengthy Optajia, Croatia blog, following my Trieste dispatch. But this was a must tell in the moment, plus I have the time to write.

I checked out of my boujee hotel this morning, and walked across the parking lot, it literally could not get any closer, to the Optajia Bus Station. I was booked for an Autotrans bus to Pula. I'm heading down there to stay with a woman named Jane who I met on Couchsurfers. I will work in her garden for a bit in exchange for a free room. Looking forward to writing that blog when the time comes as well!

I asked the first Autotrans bus I found if it was headed to Pula. He said no and directed me to the other platform, where I could expect my bus to come. I walked over there and minutes later a bigger Autotrans bus arrived. It was 5 minutes before the scheduled departure time. "I bet this is my bus!!" I thought to myself. I even checked the sign on the front of the bus and sure enough, it read "Pula," right on it!

I boarded with my big backpack in tow and the driver looked a little confused. I confirmed, "To Pula, yes?" and he nodded. He said I could just keep my bag on the seat next to me. I went to scan my pre-purchased ticket I even had downloaded to my Apple Wallet and it wouldn't scan. Directly on the ticket, he was looking at it read "OPATIJA to PULA." We attempted a second scan, to no avail. He said it was fine and just encouraged me to sit.

I got comfy with my bag in the seat next to me and tuned into the long-awaited season three finale of the White Lotus. I took a tub last night in the hotel and watched 4 epiodes until the wee hours of the morning.

As we got on the road, I was directionally adept enough to know we were headed the wrong direction. At least the wrong direction for me. I figured maybe we needed to get on a highway or something and had to head east to go west kind of deal.

Well 30 minutes later, we pull into Rijeka and the bus driver says "Rijeka!" looking at me to get off like everyone else already had. I said "No, I'm going to Pula," and he scratched his head and sighed. In that moment, I already knew I'd fucked up big time.

He said, "No this bus is to Rijeka," and I shared with him the sign said Pula. He pulled out the sign from the front of the bus and showed me how it said PULA to RIJEKA. Pula was on the sign because it was the origination of the bus, not the destination. I showed him my ticket and it all began to make sense why it didn't scan, etc. He shared there would be more buses to Pula and luckily, we were at the central bus station, so I had a couple companies to choose from.

I disembarked, in the absolute wrong destination and felt mad at myself. Surprisingly, I kept my cool, though. I knew I needed to get somewhere else and there was no sense in freaking out. I went to the ticket office of the company I'd just fucked myself with and they said, "Yeah, you made a mistake and you have to buy a new ticket." The next bus to Pula was with a different company, around the corner. I went in to their ticket office and they said there was a bus at noon. Unfortunately, it was a minibus and my bag was too big. This was a little incomprehensible for me, but a policy is a policy. There was a big bus coming later, at 12:30 that I could get on. I booked my ticket with them and paid €15.80 in addition to the €13.30 mistake I'd already paid for. They shared there would be a €1.50 charge for my luggage too. The manager of the office came out and apologized and thanked me for understanding, and I responded, "Of course, it was my mistake — we call this the cost of doing business!" We all had a laugh, I thanked them and took myself on a walk around the block.

I was half a beat away from crying when I realized this is just how it goes. We mess up, we figure it out, we make it work.

If the biggest thing I'm upset about today is the waste of money, then I've been effective at managing my emotions and dealing with those so-called mistakes.

I took the extra hour-and-a-half and sat at an outdoor cafe, next to the bus station. A constant stream of cigarette smoke wafted my way the duration of writing this. A warm welcome to the Balkans.

I feel silly for this mistake as it could have been avoided. And I think mistakes like these make me feel naive at times, like I'm not cut out for this. But, onward ho! I'm now on my new bus to Pula and will take with me all the lessons I've learned this go around for the future.