Intro

So I have safely completed my 13 day journey through the Balkans (or at least a few countries) and did not manage to write a single entry during the actual trip. I did, however, keep a journal which I wrote in regularly so as not to forget the details of the trip. Given that I averaged less sleep than during final exams, a lot happened and I had so many amazing/absolutely bizarre experiences. I think I will write a separate post for each country/city I was in and post them periodically so as not to overwhelm anyone who decides to read the blog. I will try to give my overall impression of this region of the world, as well as share anecdotes that were unique to my trip. Because I traveled with my friend Andrew from Tucson, who shares my passion for photography, we were able to spend a lot of time simply photographing various landscapes, cityscapes and people. I will post some of those too. Read at you leisure and I will try to keep things fairly short and interesting!

Belgrade to Freiburg, Germany

Day 14, 2.28.2009 We woke up around 10:30 am and ate breakfast in the common room. The receptionist told us that there was a big soccer game between Belgrade and a big rival. He said opposing fans throw rocks at each other when they see each other on the streets. Sure enough, on our way to the airport on the shuttle we saw dozens and dozens of riot police deployed throughout public spaces in the city, especially at the train station where the other team would probably be arriving at. There was also a group of hooligans waiting at the station surrounded by the police. The shuttle bus showed some weird onboard entertainment, basically a slide show of various scenes at the airport and then volcanoes and the cosmos. We got lunch at the airport and the waiter asked where we were from. When we told him America, he said “Ahhh! Our enemies!”, but then laughed and was really nice to us. I experienced one last bit of Balkan inefficiency at the airport. I had to check my bag, which I had not indicated when I bought my ticket. Instead of paying at the ticket counter, they had to hold my boarding pass while I had to go to the bank in the airport to authorize a money order for the 10 Euro fee. The bank accepted Euros, but only bills. I had exactly 10 Euros, but apparently I needed about 10.20 Euros. The 20 cents had to be in the local currency. I tried to explain that I was told I could pay in Euros and that this didn’t make much sense, but he insisted I pay the 20 cents in the local currency, which I simply did not have. Eventually I had to bum it off a mother and daughter standing behind me in line, which was getting longer and longer. Finally, we got on the plane and flew back to Germany.

Belgrade

Day 13, 2.27.2009 Surprisingly enough, we woke up by 10am and went to visit the huge church, which is undergoing major renovations. It’s hard to describe the vast scale of the church and renovations, but the cost must staggering. A few people were in the church and each stopped at various podiums in the middle of the church (one huge space, without interior doors) devoted to different saints with a wooden statue of a crucified Jesus in the center. Although the church was quite majestic, it was located in a quite rundown part of the city. Lunch was probably the best street food I’ve ever had. No surprise that it is a form of meat in bread. It is called Pljeslavica and is kinda like a burger, but a larger patty and served in a flat bread with spice and döner kebab toppings. Really mouthwatering. Only $2 and huge. We walked around some more and got coffee to wait out the rain and eventually returned to the hostel. We were playing chess in the common room, when an older man walked in. He was a 66 year old Egyptian  man whose claim to fame is that he has traveled to 150 countries in his lifetime. He had lived and taught economics in the USA for 40 yrs, where he had marital problems and tries to be out of the house all the time. He took a somewhat checklist approach to his travels; for instance, he traveled to Kosovo in the hopes that it will definitively be a country so he can add that to his list. He also seems to get ripped off a lot in his travels and he had trouble ordering at a food stand, something that I figured someone who had visited 150 countries would be able to figure out how to do. Still, he has been to some amazing places and had an interesting perspective on the world, obviously. He also seemed to have a weird thing going about prostitutes, because out of the blue he mentioned that in all his travels he had never gotten involved with prostitutes. Later, when we all went back to Buckos Pizza, Andrew was describing something, saying “And there were so many (Andrew forgot the word here)” and the man suggested “whores?”. We returned to the hostel and started in on the rest of the shlivovitz and were getting ready to head out when the receptionists’ friends all showed up. We ended up hanging out at the hostel chatting with them for a long time and didn’t head out until 12:30. After trying to find one club and failing, we went back to Tramvaj, but didn’t get there until around 2 am. The band played American pop music. We also talked with a group of people in their 30s (see photo), and took a nice group portrait with them. On the way back to the hostel, we heard some trance music coming out of an alley and decided to check it out. It turned out to be a small, underground club in an apartment complex. We stayed until it started to clear out and then headed noisily back to our hostel, "singing" and "rapping". We continued this outside the hostel until the receptionist came out and told us “All Belgrade can hear you!”. He thought it was funny though, luckily. We were wound up because it was our last night of the trip, but at least that was our only obnoxious American moment. Everyone’s allowed one or two of those, right?

Belgrade, Serbia

Day 12, 2.26.2009 After arriving in Belgrade, we found our hostel and got a good (and very cheap) meal at a bakery down the street. I got a mozzarella and tomato sendvič (sendvich). Walking around the city, you immediately notice that many portions of the sidewalk are roped-off. A tourist guide explained that many of Belgrade’s old buildings are in horrible shape and are crumbling. Bits of the buildings will randomly fall off and can kill people if they happen to be in the wrong place. I also took note of the public parking system. Cars park on the sidewalk, which is problematic because one car then clogs up the high volume of foot traffic. Alternatively, people park in the road and then leave their emergency flashers on until they return from their shopping. By the Republika Trg (a crowded shopping/meeting up place), there is a wide street devoted to parking, but people just end up parking each other in. I saw someone standing by their car honking trying to get the attention of whoever had parked them in…I don’t know what the plan was though, because he was parked in by at least a dozen more cars. The main pedestrian shopping area, called Kinez Mikaelov, contains scores of name brand stores such as Nike, Aldo, etc., as well as nice cafes. This part of the city stands in stark contrast to other more rundown areas of the city. It is also weird to see these emblems of capitalism (Nike, Lacoste) housed in the old communist downtown. Popcorn vendors were everywhere. At the far end of the pedestrian zone is the old fortress, with a collection of WWII artillery and tanks from the various participating countries. Inside the fortress is a nice park and a nice view across the river to New Belgrade. We got lunch at a restaurant called “?”, a traditional Serbian tavern that has been in operation since the 1800s. We ordered beer, bread and beef goulash. Other choices included calf’s head in tripe and “glands”. We enjoyed a leisurely meal there. The people at the table behind us were speaking in Spanish about the presence of the mafia in Belgrade (something we had already heard about). As we got up to leave a man at the table asked where we were from and what we were doing in Belgrade. The diners turned out to be Spaniards working for the Spanish government and living in Belgrade doing cultural work (not exactly sure what). They told us that they thought we were Spanish (because of the way we looked…not the first time that trip people thought I was either Spanish or South American). We went to the other room to get Turkish coffee and play chess. After starting our game, we were told that chess playing was not allowed (a continuation of the ban on card games?). Back at the hostel we chatted with Boris, a 19 year old bar tender from Montenegro (which he still considered Serbia, by the way). He was doing a similar trip through the Balkans. As we were playing cards, two plain clothes police men came into the hostel and requested our passports and asked when we had arrived in Belgrade. They kept reassuring us that we had nothing to worry about and that we were “free citizens of your own country”. Apparently the hostel had not been keeping accurate records of guests. The police looked through the hostel’s records for close to an hour. Finally we asked for our passports back and went out to do some night photography and get dinner. We got dinner at Buckos, a little pizza restaurant with an ordering window in the wall. We had seen people lining up to get pizza there earlier in the day and figured it must be good. We ordered a whole pizza and two Russian salads. The girl taking our order looked confused but complied. We did not receive any salad, but didn’t bother to complain. When we finally opened the box, we saw that two of the pieces had been smothered in Russian dressing…their idea of a salad I guess. We had not been eating many greens lately, but this Serbian innovation was nonetheless quite tasty. We ate at the base of a huge statue in Republika Trg. After I sat down, Andrew informed me that I had sat down in a huge pile of spit. Looking around this was one of the filthiest locations I have ever seen and not fit for a picnic. The square, however, is the main meeting point for people of all ages in the city. We got back to the common room to play some more cards and drink our bottle of 2 dollar Shlivovits, which packed a punch. Around midnight we headed out to a club called Tramvaj. The sign, however, does not say the name of the club, but rather “donuts extra”. Inside the doorway is a storage room for coats and a sign reading “wordrobe unnecessary”, although they required you to remove your coat and pay for the use of the “wordrobe”. The band was a quartet in their 40s and played a mix of American rock songs and Serbian rock. My favorite was the heavily accented rendition of CCR’s “Proud Mary” which the singer sang as “proud marysss keep on rolling…”. There was also a funny old guy dancing around (Peter, don’t get angry at me for making fun of old people in clubs). We headed back home around 3am.

Kotor to Podgorica, Serbia to Durmitor, Montenegro to Belgrade, Serbia

Day Eleven, 2.25.2009 If you could not tell by the title, this was a long day. We had breakfast again at the usual place. I had a little mishap with the toilet, aka they neglected to put any sign or give me any warning when they saw me go into the bathroom that the water to the building was turned off! I will spare you all the details, but after a week on a traveler's diet in the Balkans, we had to leave the restaurant rather quickly after paying. That aside, we were on our way to a national park in Montenegro called Durmitor. We had to take a bus to Podgorica, Serbia (not the nicest place we had been) and then catch a smaller bus to Durmitor. We crossed some incredible snow covered mountain terrain on the way and herds of cows and sheep were roaming on the roads. After a few hours in the bus (longer than we had expected), driven by a gregarious man who took many phone calls while driving inches from the edge of a ravine, we arrived in the ski resort town. It was fairly dark by the time we got there, and had no place to stay. We were having doubts about making it to Belgrade in time to enjoy the city and catch our flight home in a couple days. We stopped in the little bar at the “bus station” to find out the following day’s bus schedule. We asked if anyone spoke English, and an old man (they were all old in there) said he did. We thought we were in luck. It soon became clear that he just wanted to show off that he could basically count to 10 really fast in English, and that was about it. We tried to indicate that we wanted to take the bus, and another guy kept saying “avio Belgrade, avio Belgrade”. We gathered that “avio” was a plane. Another guy kept making sleeping motions with his hands against his head. After my glasses had defogged some (but the room was still completely smoky), I noticed that every man in the bar had at least 3 full shot glasses in front of them and 3 empty ones. Clearly their info was no good. We went back outside and luckily there was a younger couple who could actually speak English. The girls made some phone calls for us and we decided that it would not work out to ski so we ended up hopping right back on the multi-hour bus that we had just come on. For the first 45 min of the trip, we were stuck behind a huge snow plow. We finally got back to Podgorica. I got my luggage out of the back of the shuttle, only to find the top of my pack was open; everything had fallen and scattered in the trunk. I picked everything up and the driver gave me a couple very sympathetic pats on the back. Dinner at the station (all the restaurants had closed minutes before we got there) was some bread and cheese left over from lunch, plain peanut butter and a handful of almonds. At around 10:30 pm, we boarded the overnight to Belgrade (12 hours after we had boarded our initial bus) and arrived in Belgrade at 6:30 am. I was kept awake after around 5 am though because some lady’s cell phone kept ringing to the tune of “We Wish You a Merry Christmas”. Keep in mind this was February.

Kotor

Day Ten, 2.24.2009 Today we explored more of the mountain that we had climbed the side of the day before. We made it as far as we could up a little river gorge, then turned around and used the trail all the way up the mountain. The trail used to be cobble stone all the way up, which is incredible given the rough terrain and the length of the path. At the very top of the mountain was a tiny, old church and graveyard. It was not in any of the guidebooks or tourist literature, but was nevertheless one of the coolest things I saw there. (see picture). We thought we were completely alone, and we basically were except for one random guy who walked by (I don’t know possibly where to) and a couple of cows and horses. We spent a while photographing the area. There was also a huge pit/basin at the very end of the path, but it was surrounded by rounded mountains. Hard to explain, but it was on a vast scale. One of the best places to hear your echo I have ever been. We headed back as it was getting dark and got dinner at the same place as the night before (which is also the same place we had breakfast).

Kotor, Montenegro

Day Nine, 2.23.2009

We caught a bus from Dubrovnik to Kotor. We were treated to some onboard entertainment. An older Croatian or Montenegrin man was upset that the radio on the bus was broken, but he was determined to have music one way or another. He told us that he was a “little singer” and proceeded to serenade us for a bit. The scenery was incredible; lots of skyrocket junipers growing on the hillsides. We drove along the coast of an enormous fjord with snow-capped mountains surrounding it.

An old man at the bus station approached us an offered us accommodation in the old city and took us to our room. The old city is like a smaller version of Dubrovnik, but in slightly less pristine condition. Very charming. We got burgers at a fancy restaurant/bar built into a corner of the city wall. Hard to explain, but pretty cool.

Along the waterfront are a variety of boats, ranging from tiny fishing vessels to multi-million dollar yachts owned by wealthy Russians. Andrew and I then scaled the side of the mountain overlooking the city. (see picture). Andrew was singing something and way down below some old man heard him and started singing back in a kinda false-operatic style. Dinner was another nice restaurant, with dinner entrees ranging in price from 3 Euros (really good local specialties) to hundreds of Euros for a kilogram of crab or lobster. They also had free internet, which was weird for a fancy restaurant. We got coffee and spent hours there and apologized for staying so long. They told us that things were different there and not to worry about how long you stay. As the man we rented our room from would say “Nema Promleme” (not a problem) or “dobro, dobro” (good good).

Dubrovnik, Croatia

Day Eight, 2.22.2009 We caught a bus from Mostar to Dubrovnik. The ride took us along the beautiful Adriatic coast. The coastline reminded me of pictures I have seen from the coast of Italy or Spain. We took a 20 minute smoking break after only an hour. Also, due to the geography of the Balkans, we passed in and out of Croatia and Bosnia multiple times, and had to get our passports checked each time. It seemed highly inefficient. I was pretty exhausted still and sleeping on the bus. Andrew woke me up to get out my passport and as I was holding it out and the policewoman got to me, I abruptly fell asleep. Luckily she thought it was pretty funny. We arrived at the Dubrovnik bus station, which is about a 10 minute bus ride from the old city. Our room was inside the old city, down a tiny little stone alley. The size and intactness of the old city was amazing. The wall stretches almost 2km. We walked around and ate lunch under a statue in a city square. While a major tourist destination during the summer months, Dubrovnik was almost completely empty while we were there. It was kind of eerie, but unique at the same time. We continued walking around. About half the city is devoted to restaurants and businesses and tourist shops, but the other half is still residential. It is amazing that people are living in stone houses/apartments that are the original. (see pictures). The only comparison I can make is to the old city of Jerusalem. Carnival was going on, so one square of the city temporarily filled up with locals bringing their children in costumes to the festivities. We walked out the back side of the city to the ocean. Although it was still cold out, two old men in Speedos were happily swimming off some rocks into the ocean. Walking back to our hostel, we ran into Andrew's friend, who we were not supposed to meet until the next city. He had met another traveler in the meanwhile, who was traveling the world for a year, but happened to be half Croatian. We all climbed a hill to catch the sunset over the old city and then got coffee and ice cream before bed. There was supposed to be live jazz at the café, but the people there were more interested in watching the soccer game than playing or listening to the music.

Mostar and Blagaj, Bosnia

Day Seven, 2.21.2009 After fresh French toast made by Majda, we went on a tour with her brother, Bata. Usually this tour costs around 30 Euros, but it was free because it was the winter and the first tour of the season. Bata was a big guy, speaks excellent English and is hilarious. He also genuinely enjoys giving tours in and around Mostar, loves backpackers and wants to open a larger hostel in the future. Pete, the girl from Holland, Andrew and I piled into his old Orange truck/van, which he then proceeded to rock back on forth to ensure that we were all adequately awake. Our first stop was to the top of the mountain overlooking Mostar, with a huge cross overlooking the city. Bata explained in detail the history of the area, as well as the logistics of the fighting and the various factions. It is too complicated to fully explain, and I forget some of the details, but basically Serbs were fighting Croatians and the Bosnians in Mostar were stuck in between. He showed us where a concentration camp had been set up for Bosnians and he explained how soldiers would pack dynamite into tires and roll them down the mountain. If they hit enemies, good, if they hit their allies, just as good because they could blame it on their enemies and incite more hatred. Bata also told us his own story. He ended up moving to Sweden to escape the violence and remained there for 10 years. This was where he learned to speak English as well. Although the war is over, there is still much tension between the Christians and the Muslims there. The city is divided roughly in half, but the population is still mixed on both sides. One side won’t serve the other’s beer and hospital care is sometimes refused to people living on the “wrong” side of the river. We then drove to a little town called Blagaj. En route, we saw the signs of an economic revival, including upscale car dealerships and furniture stores and a Home Depot type store, but the vast majority of the population is still living in poor conditions. The main attraction in Blagaj is an old Dervish house. (see picture). Bata again explained the significance of the house and its history as a place where various factions throughout history have gone to meet in a calming environment to try to come up with solutions to problems (this was taking place hundreds of years ago). The house is under a mountain and a river flows out from underneath the mountain. The river does not come out the other end, so there is a large source of fresh water somewhere in the mountain, but expeditions sent in have not been able to located it. We had lunch at a nice restaurant on the river (more Ĉevapĉiĉi), but even cheaper. 2.5 Euro at a fancy restaurant on the river! We returned to Mostar in the evening and did some night photography. Bata really led an amazing tour. If anyone reading this blog is ever in that part of the world, try to track him down. He knows so much history and is wants to explain it all.

Mostar, Bosnia

Day Six, 2.20.2009 We caught the 6 am train to Mostar, which is supposed to be one of the most beautiful train rides in the area. Unfortunately, I drifted in and out of sleep for the duration of the 2.5 hr trip. (see picture). I did manage to wake up long enough to see the most dramatic scenery, lakes and mountains that rival the Swiss Alps in size and magnificence. The train was old and a gift from Sweden. Throughout the Balkans, trains and busses have been donated by wealthier countries around the world. The train stopped at every little village, and locals used it as regional transportation. They also smoked a lot on the train, which was pretty unpleasant, but by this point I was completely used to it (not to mention too tired to really care). We met Majda, the woman who owned the hostel we were staying at, at the train station, as well as an English guy named Pete. Pete had just moved into a hostel in Sarajevo for a couple months. He makes a living correcting English travel and business literature printed in Europe to make it sound less foreign and more proper. This allows him to work on the move and live and travel whenever he wants. Majda was extremely friendly and made us all hot drinks when arrived. Although no food was included in the 10 Euro price, throughout our stay she made us little meals and breakfast. We set out to explore the city. The old town is charming, with a famous bridge over the river. However, this town was the site of extremely heavy fighting and makes Sarajevo look very intact. There has been no money to really repair buildings, so many are left destroyed and abandoned. Lunch was more Burek, but this was some of the best food I have ever tasted and incredibly inexpensive. I won’t bother trying to explain how good and flaky and warm it was. We got coffee and made our way back to the hostel for a nap and dinner. We went to an Irish pub for a beer with Pete and a girl who was staying there. (I am now convinced that every Irish pub I go to was opened by Desmond!). The girl was from Holland and was conducting research for her anthropology thesis in a little town outside of Mostar. The town was tiny, she said, but drew tens of thousands of pilgrims annually. Her thesis was about pilgrimages and she explained some of it to us. The pub itself was weird. It had some of the standard features of n Irish pub, like signs all over for Guinness and an extensive beer menu, but they didn’t actually serve Guinness, nor most of the beers on the list. The also had signs for Corona and Heineken, but in an Irish theme. They didn’t quite get it right. Went back to the hostel for the evening.

Sarajevo

Day Five, 2.19.2009 First thing in the morning, we found ourselves another hostel and redeemed our free “breakfast” from the previous one. Lukewarm soup and lukewarm tea. After checking in, we walked up one of the hills surrounding the city to the cemetery. (see pictures). The houses are kind of sprawled about on the hills, with little alleyways connecting them. From the cemetery, the whole city is visible and the snow had stopped momentarily, so we got a nice view. After descending the hill, we checked out the Ashkenazi and Sephardic synagogues before getting lunch at Željo again. The Sephardic synagogue was the older of the two (as the Sephardic Jews were the first to arrive in the Balkans and Sarajevo due to the Spanish Inquisition), and had been destroyed and rebuilt many times. We got some coffee and were told we were not allowed to play cards again. We then walked through a street known for its copper artisans and merchants. Had I had space, I definitely would have bought a small item, although some of the pieces were massive. We got coffee at another café, this one catering to a hipper, college age crowd. By the way, most people in Bosnia drink Bosnian Kafe, which is basically the same as Turkish coffee, with the coffee grounds left in the coffee to settle to the bottom and served with Turkish Delight. It was now time for round two at Fehim’s apartment. We arrived, expecting coffee, but he had bought a lot of food this time. By food, I mean meat. He had Burek, a meat pastry, as well as just hunks of dried beef and beef sausage. It all tasted good, but we had already eaten dinner and he would not accept that I was not hungry. He kept making gestures as to how skinny I was. It was at this point that we realized he maybe thought we were like his children or something. It was hard to tell what was going on with the language barrier. Andrew and I each had to take a trip to the bathroom to make some of the food disappear out the window. We mentioned that our next stop was Mostar. Turns out, Fehim has a house there as well and was going the day after we were! At this point, the whole situation was pretty weird to say the least, but we made tentative plans to meet him there. When we tried to leave, he seemed reluctant to let us go and kept offering more and more food as an incentive to say. When we finally managed to leave, he gave us each another strong, grandfatherly hug. (see picture) On our way out for the night, the guy at the reception desk asked where we were planning on going and then suggested a different place that was more happening on Thursday nights. It was a club called Sloga. When we got there, hundreds of people were milling about outside and there were cops all over. One police, in full uniform plus a black ski mask grabbed Andrew and pushed him back and yelled something. We asked people what was going on, and the general consensus was that someone had probably brought a weapon into the club. Eventually we found a group of kids our age who we began talking with and then went with them for the night. We got late night pizza pastries with them and then ended up going back to the club. The guy spoke some English and German and one of the girls spoke English and Spanish. The club was gigantic (see picture) and played a mix of Bosnian and American songs. They played another, more electronic, version of Tequila. Must be a popular song there right now. Many of the young people there don’t drink alcohol, although it is certainly served. We finally left around 3:30 am and exchanged some contact info, then headed back to the hostel to sleep until 6 am.

Sarajevo, Bosnia

Day Four – 2.18.2009 On the train ride from Zagreb to Sarajevo, the extent of the damage from the war was evident; many of the houses in the countryside and the outskirts of Sarajevo were so damaged as to make repairs impossible. Houses were missing roofs and riddled with bullet holes. We got off the train and the old man who helped with our lockers was at the train station and had apparently taken the same train as we had. He invited us to coffee at a café right outside the train station. We decided that it would be interesting, so we tried to tell him that we were going to go get cash, but he did not understand and so as we walked to the office to get money, he followed. We sat down at a table and after an awkward amount of silence I asked if he spoke any German, and it turned out he spoke very broken German, so that is how we ended up communicating. He explained how during the war his family had moved to Slovenia and he visits his wife there every ten days. His name was Fehim and at the end of coffee he invited us to dinner at his house. He seemed to be a bit lonely and not 100% with it. Also, he did not properly use pronouns, so it was hard to tell who was supposed to bring the food. We went back to the station to arrange for a hostel and someone came to pick us up. The hostel was one of the most decrepit spaces I have ever seen, and fairly dirty to boot. We spent the afternoon walking around…it snowed nonstop for the whole time we were in Sarajevo, but it was beautiful and peaceful. It was neat to see Ottoman architecture and mosques, etc. covered in snow, because I typically associate Islamic architecture with warmer climates. We got lunch at a restaurant called Željo, which serves Ĉevapĉiĉi (pronounced roughly Chebabchichi) and a yogurt drink to wash it down. These are basically little sausages fried up and served in thin bread with mustard and onions. All the meat in Bosnia is beef, lamb or chicken, although many people seem to be more culturally Muslim than religiously. Headscarves were as rare as in the US (except at the mosques) and the people that we talked to were not religious for the most part. The restaurant is apparently so popular in Sarajevo that they have opened another branch right across the street. We stopped by a cool little store that sold every spice and nut imaginable, as well as sweets like Turkish Delight, which we bought some of to take to Fehim as a gift. Our next stop was the Tunel Museum. This is a museum dedicated to the 800 meter long tunnel (and the people who built it) that was constructed during the fighting as the only safe way to get people and supplies in and out of Sarajevo. The museum is in the man’s house who headed the project, and is visited by many famous people who go to Bosnia. John McCain and Daniel Craig were two names that caught my eye. Probably more interesting than the museum itself was our trip there. You must take the city tram to the end of the line (about and hour from where were) and then a bus to the end of that line, and then walk a ways. The bus stopped earlier than it was supposed to or something, but as we were walking around without knowing where to go, a young guy from the neighborhood approached us and showed us how to get to the museum, which turned out to be still about a half hour walk away. After he realized how complicated it was to get there, he ended up walking us the whole way there and then just dropping us off. All the Bosnians we met were extremely nice and helpful. This guy had gone at least and hour out of his way to help us for nothing in return. The residential area we walked through was the most damaged we had seen and was the front line of the fighting in Sarajevo. (see picture). There is also a huge NATO compound in the area and it seemed to be staffed by mostly Italian soldiers. It is hard to explain how massive the compound appeared and they also had an airstrip with planes taking off. Back at the hostel a question I have had for a long time was finally answered: Why are there Irish pubs in every freakin’ place in the world? Answer: Desmond, an Irish guy with a bad attitude and propensity to place “fuckin’” before every other word, goes around the world building Irish pubs. He helps secure the proper permits from the government and find a suitable place to build them, then helps out during the building process. When he is not actively working on a project, he is traveling the world and scoping out new places to build Irish pubs. One would think that you’d be quite happy doing this for your job, as well as interested in other cultures (although maybe you’re just more interested in transplanting your culture), but Desmond was grumpy, ignorant and extremely culturally insensitive. We mentioned that we were going to go see the old synagogue in Sarajevo, and Desmond responded with: “There are too many fuckin’ synagogues in Sarajevo. The population isn’t even religious. They’re just being built by Saudi Arabia”. This man has traveled the world and is in his 40s and doesn’t know the difference between a mosque and a synagogue. He also quoted Reagan as saying: “Tear down this fuckin’ wall.” Finally it was time to go to Fehim’s house for dinner. We found his apartment, which was just one room. There was a small kitchen at one end and a sitting area with a TV in the other and no bed. He had prepared some soup for us and then gave us money to go to a nearby store to buy some more food for dinner. We talked and ate and he turned on a weird American horror movie. We found out the he was (or more likely used to be) a gynecologist with a practice in Sarajevo. Dinner finally wrapped up and we left with a big, strong hug from Fehim. (see picture). We went out to Club Jež in the old town. The club was packed and the DJ was playing Bosnian trance music (some of which we later found out is known as Turbo Folk). The DJ alternated with a local brass band which played traditional sounding songs, but very upbeat and all the young people knew all the words. It may have been newer than I thought. They also played a Bosnian rendition of Tequila (by the Champs), but with an eastern European sounding solo by the saxophonist. We got a quick bite to eat at a late night restaurant and then went to back the hostel. I tried to be quiet when I got into bed because everyone else was asleep, but when I lay down I somehow snapped the cheap mattress in half. Observations about Sarajevo: · In the graveyards, the vast majority of the people were killed around 1996, apparently when the fighting must have been worst there. This is a bit of speculation on my part.

Ljubljana to Zagreb, Croatia

Day Three – 2.17.2009 We woke up and ate breakfast with our Australian roommate and then left to walk around the city one more time and take pictures. We found the open air market, which sells mostly fresh produce and clothing. An old lady with a sparse veggie stand approached us and asked where we were from and Andrew got a picture with her. (see picture) We also bought a bag of the best dried apples I have ever had, which lasted for the next week or so. Got to maintain your health. We ate Döner for lunch, but there was definitely something weird about the restaurant; to begin with there were tinted sliding doors that were closed and extremely hard to open. There was also only a tiny kitchen space and no sitting place, but lots of space behind the kitchen and a back room. We had already talked about the idea that the restaurant was a front for some other less-than-legal business, when a man walked in and handed over some money for two packages wrapped in white paper and then left very quickly. At the train station, we saw a big guy with a shaved head with “Skin Head” embroidered in large letters on his jacket. Our train was delayed, and we ended up running into our Egyptian roommate again, who was with a friend from Zagreb, our next stop. She was complaining that Slovenia was “the worst country in the world” and “what a stupid country”. On the train, she explained about all the tensions that exist between Slovenia and Croatia, largely having to with EU membership and wealth disparities. She and the border police who was checking passports on the train later shared a joke about Slovenia, which are apparently quite popular in Croatia. Many of the jokes have to do with the small size of Slovenia, for instance: “If you open an umbrella in Ljubljana, you poke the eye of a person in Zagreb” and “If a tourist lies with their feet in the water off the coast, their head reaches into Italy.” I’ll let you be the judge of the actual comedic value of these jokes. Another interesting thing to note is that, although she spoke excellent English, seemed to have some money and was well-educated, she had never been to the US because it is too hard to get a travel visa. We encountered numerous people throughout the trip who said the same thing. It’s a shame that these English-speaking citizens of other countries cannot feasibly visit the US and learn what it is like. We arrived in Zagreb, but only had 3 hrs until our night train to Sarajevo, Bosnia. We wanted to leave the station to get something to eat, so we decided to put our packs into a locker. After depositing the coins the locker didn’t open and an old man stopped by to see if he could help. He spoke absolutely no English, so all communication was done with hand motions. He explained to the man in charge of the lockers what happened, but the man said there was nothing that can be done. Eventually we stored our packs in the guy's office and headed out into the blizzard for a few dozen meters to the underground shopping mall to get dinner. In the mall, we saw the same old man who had helped us with our lockers walking around aimlessly (this chance encounter is important to the rest of the narrative because this old man plays a key role in our travels…stay tuned!). We bought some beer and a whole cooked chicken and brought it all back to the station to eat it. Two security guards informed us that we could not drink beer in the station (although there were no signs to indicate that). A little later, the same guards walked by smoking cigarettes in front of a sign that clearly indicated smoking was not allowed. This was a theme throughout the Balkans…I have never seen so many smokers in my life! I have traveled in Europe before, but western and central Europe just don’t compare at all. It seems to be a significant part of the culture, with a pack costing less than $1.25 and smoking allowed almost everywhere. We finally boarded our night train and eventually fell asleep. Observations about Zagreb: · Some people speak English, but not nearly as many as in Slovenia · Making out in public seemed to be a major activity · Did not seem to be any other backpackers in the train station and we seemed to be something of a spectacle · In the station, we sat next to a member of the Croatian Olympic bobsled team

Bohinj, Slovenia

Day Two – 2.16.2009 We woke up at 730 am and caught a bus to Bohinj, an absolutely beautiful lake surrounded by mountains and forests. The ground was covered in snow and most of the lake was frozen, enough to walk and slide on. The bus ride itself was quite interesting. We passed through the residential areas of Ljubljana, which are basically just fairly rundown apartment complexes, a sharp contrast from the downtown. Once out in the countryside, we passed by many farms and little farm houses, with unique hay storage racks that apparently are famous. We also passed through tiny towns, with cobbled streets that the bus could barely scrape through. The bus also passed through Bled, a tourist town with an iconic castle on top of a cliff overlooking a lake. At one point, we passed by a small town and some kid with a shaved head heiled the bus (James- This was no underground Hitler). Once we arrived, we walked around the lake, ate a picnic lunch, slid around on the lake and took pictures. Other people were cross country skiing and pulling children in sleds. (see pictures). We spent a couple hours walking around the lake, then caught a bus back to Ljubljana and cooked dinner at our hostel. That evening, we went out with our roommates and one of Andrew’s friends from school. One of our roommates was an Australian doing extended travel and the other was an Egyptian pharmacy student. We went to a bar downtown called (English translation) Skeleton Bar. The bar, obviously, was skeleton themed, with skeletons all over the place and creepy pictures. The bathroom was behind a fake bookcase and was not labeled. It was a cocktail bar and seemed expensive, but each order actually came with two drinks. Andrew, his friend and I all decided to order drinks at random (I picked one called Zofkin Zvarek just for the name). All the cocktails we ordered were about $5. They arrived at the table and tasted really sweet and went down incredibly smoothly. We all exchanged looks and finally came to the conclusion that, in fact, we had all just ordered plain juice for $5. The Egyptian student ended up buying us real drinks and it turned out, although he didn’t tell us explicitly, that he did some sort of recruiting for Egyptian tourism and pharmacy school or something. When we left Ljubljana the next morning he asked for everyone's’ email address, for some sort of database…explains why he spent around 40 bucks on drinks for us the previous night and why he had hundreds of Euros in his wallet.

Freiburg to Ljubljana, Slovenia

Day One - 2.15.2009 After spending a few great days in Boston, I boarded my plane for Frankfurt. I didn’t sleep a wink on the flight (but did manage to eat half a box of marzipan candies). I landed at 630 am and took trains to Freiburg, a small city in the south of Germany where Andrew studies. We spent the day hanging out in Freiburg, and climbed Schlossberg, a smallish mountain in Freiburg with a panoramic view of the city and the Schwarzwald. I met some of Andrew’s friends at dinner, including one of his teachers. We went out that night to a bar, with his teacher (who was a really nice and interesting guy). We finally headed back home around 4 and went to bed at 5. The next day we took a series of trains to Ljubljana and arrived there the following morning. We got off the train at around 615 am, and I immediately regretted not bringing my down jacket – the rest of the trip I wore about 5 thin layers that still left me feeling pretty cold. We arrived at our hostel, close to the train station and the downtown, which was a converted prison but made into a very nice and comfortable hostel. In a courtyard by the hostel is a huuuge art compound, with a bunch of graffiti (the artistic kind), as well as sculptures and other random stuff. (see photograph, cause its too hard to explain). The rest of the city is also full of weird public art and graffiti art (there was something going on called Stylz Wars II, an unofficial graffiti art contest of sorts). An example of the public art is in a park, where there is a fake plastic trash bag by a real trash can. The downtown is pretty small, but charming. We spent the day walking around. Along the river through the center of town there was a flea market set up. People were selling everything, but there definitely seemed to be a weird Nazi theme going on, which I wrote about in my first journal entry, but kept noticing throughout the city and country. Two stands were selling Nazi pins and stamps and had portraits of Hitler displayed, not for sale. We went to a pub for lunch and ordered sandwiches and beer and were playing some cards. The waiter told us that playing cards in restaurants was illegal in Slovenia, but we thought he was joking….we continued to play throughout our hour long lunch and he didn’t mention it again. Throughout the rest of the trip, we were told multiple times that playing cards/chess was not allowed in restaurants. Apparently the waiter wasn’t joking and we had blatantly ignored him and conducted our illegal game for more than an hour in front of him. We climbed up the hill to the Ljubljanski Gard, the city’s castle and then returned to the hostel and made dinner, etc. etc. and went to bed. Other observations about Ljubljana: · Compared to other places in Eastern Europe I have been, the Slovenians we interacted with all spoke English pretty well. · Definitely a weird Nazi streak going on with the graffiti and items for sale