Again, the date was approximate - I thought it would be around 10th or 15th, then around 20th, and now that I've reshot the pages of my diary (51 years after they were written)... well, it's 26th. Okay.
The train started from Novi Sad at 9, and arrived to the twin station in Sarajevo at 17:00. The stations are identical, same blueprint, same color of marble for the surfaces. While I sort of remember one of them from before (which one? mm... good question), seeing both of them in the same day was a bit of a shocker. Ah, no, it was a bus... so the train stations confusion happened at some other time.
27th. the tests. We actually had the morning off, which we used to buy the rulers which we won't need (why? I mean why buy at all?). At noon, lunch at "kod Amerikanca" ("at the American's"), which I completely don't remember. The rest... I didn't write down, just promised to myself that I will, specially about the girl from Ruma, which I also don't remember at all. Probably one that would talk with me long enough.
This was more of an ekskurzija. Same scenario like the one couple of weeks ago in Senta, just this time I had a more interesting geography to explore. I remember Pop trying to sing "Salamanda palaganda" from Tyrannosaurus Rex (he got it somewhat wrong, but I discovered it some thirty five years later, when I finally had the song on my disk).
The dorm where we slept was, I guess, for high school students who attended schools which didn't exist in their places, and this was the end of the year so it was vacated. The building looked rather old, but that's because the façade was all dark grey - the heating fuel was coal everywhere, and there was lots of industry around, and the buildings were sooty. The weather was not quite nice, not quite rain. It was raining the day before, and somewhat during one of the nights, but during the day it was fine, not too hot, and not too humid. Some guy from Novi was the main source of fun, he'd fill his mouth with water and go spray hoever opened the door in the other dorm room. Then he'd repeat that with the door across from theirs, then open again and be pelted with flying pillows and blankets, which he brought to our room, along with one shoe. Later it was all delivered back, with an ouch in the further corner, from the shoe. When that quieted down, Bukac was the funny guy in our room (he'd just say "idi pišaj pa se stišaj" - go pee and then calm down - to pretty much anyone, most often to Morava, whenever there was a lull in the chat)
Discovered Baš Čaršija and Mrkva's ćevapčići joint, which I'll keep visiting the following years whenever I can. Don't remember much of what tape I made, perhaps none (quite possible that they didn't have the lab at all), so it's possibly tests alone. Or they screwed up in the lab... I really don't remember what happened, I just remember seeing what I had on the spare tape I made on sunday, when we were killing time with a little trip to Vrelo Bosne (the sources of the river Bosna, nice park with lots of rivulets), because that reel stayed with me and in my archive. And the last few scenes I shot from the bus, trying to catch the city lights of Koševo (nothing much came of it, the tape was only 18DIN and the lights were few). I think I didn't win any medals there. But I learned the ropes, and there was still the next year.