"Where....precisely....do you....want......to go?"

Using a 15-year-old Bosnian Serb girl on her cell phone as a conduit, I was having a conversation, in English, with another 15-year-old Bosnian Serb girl whose face I could not see. I had gotten on my bus in Travnik, BiH, that afternoon, bound for Banja Luka, the capital of Bosnia-Hercegovina's breakaway Republika Srpska region. And I had gotten there, to Banja Luka, without a hitch. But the first place the bus parked didn't seem to be the end of the road; no one was getting out. Must be one more stop until the main station, I figured, staying put, waiting to follow the herd.

I didn't realize until much later that the herd wasn't heading for Banja Luka at all. No, the herd was heading out to the countryside, ready to graze.

Remembering the trouble I had had with the Cyrillic alphabet during my first stay in RS -- a brief jaunt through Trebinje en route to the Croat-Muslim town of Mostar -- the destination placard I saw propped against the front windshield of my bus from Travnik brought a sigh of relief to my lips: B. Luka - Some Other Word That I Can't Remember. I wouldn't have to stress about deciphering any Cyrillic road signs, since my destination was the bus' destination. When the engine stopped, I would get off. Simple as that. I could read my book in peace.

And that's what happened. I read my book in peace until the bus stopped, then I got off. But the simplicity had vanished -- I wasn't in Banja Luka. That town had passed me by long before. I was within spitting distance of the Croatian border, surrounded by blackness, at the bus station of Some Other Word That I Can't Remember.

Turns out that word didn't mean "bus station," after all. It was the name of the next stop after Banja Luka, and it was 45 minutes away.

I had messed up, and it was due to that error that I was having the conversation with the anonymous Serb girl who was younger than my little sister, through a translator I had tapped on the shoulder to ask where in the hell the bus was heading, as I began to notice that the bright city lights of Banja Luka were rapidly fading into the background.

Once she phoned her English-speaking friend, who instructed her to ask where it was "precisely" that I was trying to go, I answered in an exasperated tone: "Banja Luka."

When you admit to a quad of 15-year-olds that you have overshot your destination by a good 20 minutes, with a good 25 minutes to go until you have a chance to try and loop back, you're going to get the same 15-year-old-girl reaction, no matter where you are in the entire universe.

Giggling. Lots and lots of giggling.

Amazingly -- and this really has been something that has never ceased to fascinate me -- we were able to communicate with each other despite absolutely no common ground in language. They told me how many minutes away the bus' final destination was with their fingers. They told me I'd be able to get a bus back to Banja Luka from there with arm motions. And one girl even asked me if she could come back to Texas with me with words I didn't understand.

And everything was gravy after that. I waited for an hour and a half for the return bus to Banja Luka -- the last one of the night. I knew when to get off this time. And I even met a girl on the street fresh out of her English class who personally walked me to the cheapest hotel she knew of.

But the lesson has been learned: Never assume a word you've never seen before means "bus station," unless you're trying to mack on some cutie 15-year-olds who speak no English.