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?
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?
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