My way trough the Balkans

There it was: the most gorgeous and yummy-looking strawberry cake I have ever seen. She looked at me and said something while she was holding a plate with a piece of cake. I understood she was telling me to take it. I didn’t know who all that people were, neither their names, but I was sure they were having what it was a usual family evening snack. The garden was beautiful, with lots of colorful flowers around the gazebo, a still smoky barbecue and a small dog barking as if he also wanted to join them.
The chattering around was quite loud and I still felt quite shocked and confused about the events of the last hours.
Just a few weeks ago I decided it was time to visit Belgrade. At that moment I was living in Romania doing volunteer work and it felt like the right and only chance I would’ve had to visit Serbia. Now, looking back, it sounds kind of silly, but at that time it was like I would never visit it otherwise.
I decided to hitchhike there, just like a little joke to myself, becoming that lonely backpacker crossing Easter Europe I always dreamt of. Everything went pretty smooth until I arrived to the first city after the border. Once there, I started to walk trying to find the road out. I asked a few people but no one there seemed to speak a word of English. I ended up trying to hitch a ride for three hours in three different spots, none of them the right one.
Finally, I found a guy who spoke a bit of English and leaded me to what it seemed a pretty quiet road. After crossing a small bridge as told and wait for 5 minutes, a young boy and his father stopped. In the very same moment I entered to their car, the father started talking to me in Serbian and handed me over a ham and cheese croissant. The son, seeing my confused face, told me that he was greeting me and that I had to eat the croissant. I told them that I wasn’t hungry, that I was fine and they didn’t have to be worried. But the son repeated to me that I HAD to eat the croissant or he would take it as an offense. I did so and they started to tell me that the father wanted to visit his girlfriend and her family and asked if it would be fine for me to have a stop on the way. I couldn’t say no after all their kindness (and the three hours waiting). So I ended up there, surrounded by a bunch of strangers speaking an odd language but with the warm feeling of being at home.
Since the moment I got into that unexpected car, I knew that crazy trip was definitely the best decision I could ever take.