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.