October 2, 2016 by Rae

A Walking Tour of Sarajevo

This morning, I took Neno’s free walking tour of Sarajevo. This was a really interesting tour as I got all the answers I wanted about Bosnian history. Neno remembers the war of ’92 to ’95 quite well since he was seven to eleven years old at the time and his family spent all 44 months in Sarajevo. But I’m betting ahead of myself.

The tour starts in front of the National Theatre at Susan Sontag Square. I had no trouble finding it even though it was off my map of old town. En route, I passed a few things of interest, like this clothesline. Can you imagine a city or even suburban town in Canada or the US permitting this?! For all we think we are forward thinking, we are incredibly short-sighted.

The hills on the other side of a river looked like a Hollywood backdrop, they were so beautiful.

Don’t they?!

I wish I knew more about these ruins. There is a dearth of signage in Sarajevo, something Neno brought up. Part of the reason is that there are disputes about who should pay for signs.

Sarajevo comes from two Turkish words, Saraj, palace or seat of assembly, and evo, valley. As I said in another post, I find that Sarajevo’s position in a valley is unusual. It definitely limits its growth.

Here’s the National Theatre:

I was surprised to see Cyrillic. Neno would later explain to me that there is a part of Sarajevo, where the airport and East bus station are located, that is called Republika Srpska. It is a Serbian part of BiH and almost autonomous (think of Quebec in Canada, an example Neno brought up, not just my interpretation!). They favour the Cyrillic script while the rest of BiH favours the Latin script.

Neno started with a really comprehensive history of BiH. Surprisingly, it was a much easier narrative to follow than that of Bulgaria! In a nutshell:

The Ottoman Empire ruled here for 500 years, from the end of the 14th century to the end of the 19th century.

Austria-Hungary then came in for 40 years, which is when Sarajevo was modernized. Streets were widened, structures like the National Theatre were built, tram cars came in, street lighting was installed, etc.

After WWI was the first Yugoslavia, which was considered a period of stagnation. The capital was Belgrade and Sarajevo was neglected. There are no examples of Art Deco buildings in Sarajevo like you can see in Belgrade because there was barely any construction during the ’20s and ’30s.

After WWII came the second Yugoslavia, under the dictator Tito. Older Bosnians today think fondly of the ’60s and ’70s, remembering them as being more prosperous times. Tito died in 1980 and things went downhill over the next decade and a half, with the member states of Yugoslavia declaring independence one after the other.

The Siege of Sarajevo, “the longest siege of a capital history in the history of modern warfare” was started by the leadership of Republika Srpska, the Serbs, one of many ethnic groups in the area. They were vanquished by the Bosnians and Croats. The siege lasted 44 months, almost four years.

Neno comes from a mixed marriage, a Bosniak (Muslim) mother and a Serb (Orthodox) father. His father insisted on staying because Sarjevo was his home and, besides, there was no way the war would last more than a week… The family lives in “Communist blocks” about three kilometres from downtown on the eighth floor, so they rode out the war living in the basement of the building with their neighbours. Notice the tense I used at the start of that last sentence. It was not a typo. Neno still lives in the building in which he rode out the Sarajevo Siege.

He promised to tell us about how they got food and water later in the tour, so I will hold off on that, but said that they kept warm and cooked using firewood, essentially cutting down all the trees in their neighbourhood, then moving onto the furniture and books. He went to a makeshift school in the basement and his mother still put on a full face of makeup and nice clothes every day to go to work. Life went on.

Our first stop was one of the “Sarajevo roses.” These are spots where mortar shells hit and which have been preserved by residents who feel that such little memorials are more significant than any statue. Neno poured water on it to make it stand out more. We are right by the National Theatre here. People died here.

Looking up to the hill where the bombings originated. It’s where the bobsled track from the ’84 Olympics is located. Which reminds me that Neno said that from his experience, people know Sarajevo for the Olympics, the assassination of Franz Ferdinand, and the Siege. I was rather ashamed that I did not know about the Olympics!

A very powerful message on this sign…

This is the older and largest Orthodox church in Sarjevo. It was recently renovated thanks to money that came from Greece (before its economic collapse).

This statue was a gift from Italy after the war. The man is naked, so there was a lot of fuss made about it, similar to The Victor in Belgrade. Shortly after the statue was installed, someone put red pants on it!

People play with this massive chess set every day, rain or shine.

Here is the only synagogue in all of BiH. It was originally built by Sephardic (Spanish) Jews and then Ashkenazi (German) Jews joined it later. BiH has a very small Jewish population, only 700 people, and the synagogue is barely used. The last wedding in it was 60 years ago!

Next to it is the “ugliest building in Sarajevo,” an unusual piece of Communist architecture dating to the time of the Olympics. It is called the Parrot! Amusingly, rent in this monstrosity is a bit more than in the lovely Austro-Hungarian flats across the river because the view is better on this side.

Now, we get to the good stuff that made me so happy I took a tour. As it turned out, the assassination of Archduke Franz Ferdinand and his wife Sofia was NOT on the Latin bridge, but right at the corner of what is now the museum and what was then a café. Neno explained how it all went down and I could not help but think of the assassination of JFK.

The Archduke, in an open motorcade, came down the road in the direction of this museum towards city hall. Members of the Serbian Black Hand group were positioned in two places to assassinate him. The first group left off a hand grenade that injured people, but did not kill the Archduke. The driver sped off and the second group did not get its chance.

The Archduke had his meeting and insisted on canceling lunch so that he could go to the hospital to visit the wounded. However, he forgot to inform the driver of this. So on the way back towards the hospital, the driver started to turn right here at the museum, which, again, was a café… where Black Hand member Gavrilo Princip was despondently pondering the failed coup. The car stopped and the assassin was able to kill the Archduke and his wife, which was the triggering factor for World War I. There is a definite sense of fate/destiny in the tale.

Because Princip was two weeks shy of his 20th birthday, the age of majority, he was only sentenced to 20 years in prison, rather than death as were the ones who made the initial attempt. He died four years later of tuberculosis.

We then moved on to the oldest mosque in Sarajevo, also recently refurbished, this time with money from Turkey. There are about 200 mosques in Sarajevo and the vast majority of Sarajevans identify as Muslim, although not all are practicing.

We acquired a mascot on our walk. Can you see the plastic tag on the dog’s ear? This dog is a stray and that tag indicates that s/he was sterilised. The stray dog issue dates from the war and they are dealing with it through sterilisation. This dog was incredibly sweet and just about everyone on the tour adopted it!

Here’s that oldest mosque again:

And here is the largest Roman-Catholic church in Sarajevo, with a Franciscan monastery next to it. All are welcome to worship here. Neno identifies as agnostic and says that he comes here on Christmas Eve with his Muslim friends to enjoy the service!

Across from the church is a beer brewery.

This beer brewery was critical during the war as it sits over a large spring of good drinking water. This is where Sarajevans got their water during the war. Food came from the UN, which had a protected landing strip at the airport. Neno said his parents never had to pay for food, but it was very basic and they couldn’t afford anything on the black market. He recalls that some months after the war, his mother traded her gold earrings for the first chocolate he’d had in years and that it was the best chocolate of his life. The lesson he learned there was to appreciate the little things as they can be the most precious.

There is a pub next to the brewery and I will make a point to have a pint there!

Continuing on, he pointed out buildings that still have shrapnel damage.

We went on to the oldest Muslim cemetery in the city.

It’s kind of hard to see in this picture, but the slope of that parking lot was enough that I was seriously concerned about that van tipping over!

This is an ancient Ottoman road that led to Constantinople/Istanbul!

This is the oldest road in Sarajevo:

The Muslim graves show the head and feet, with the head pointing towards Mecca.

Here’s city hall:

This is the Spite House. Eminent domain of sorts of practised to get the land on which sits the city hall. One owner said that he didn’t just want money, he wanted his house moved brick by brick across the river. It was and is now a restaurant!

Our tour ended here and Neno gave us a map of eateries to try out in Old Town. I headed off in search of a bathroom and then lunch! A bathroom was surprisingly easy to find and cost 1KM to use. I was going into one of these stalls when the attendant yelled out, “No!” to me and then made a motion of “go around the corner.”

Where I found this. Personally, I would have preferred to squat and have toilet paper… 🙂

I found one of Neno’s recommendations for ćevapčići, Bosnia’s answer to the kebapche. I was the only tourist, no one spoke English, and the menu was entirely in Bosnian so I’m going to take his word that this was an authentic eatery! I pointed to the five-piece (kom) ćevapčići and asked for water. Unlike last night, when I got a bottle of water, I was brought tap water here (which was fine!).

Lunch underwhelmed me even though it was really tasty. I love the bread and the little sausages were actually more flavourful than kebache, but I could have used a little sauce, even if it was just ketchup. It was a cheap filling lunch after a long walk, but not something I’d want to eat regularly. I thought that maybe I forgot to ask for something to go with the ćevapčići, but as I wandered around after and saw heaps of people eating it, I saw that that wasn’t the case. This is just how you eat it.

It was a little late in the afternoon for coffee, but I was in the mood. So after wandering around for a bit, I sat down at a cafe and ordered Bosnian coffee with a piece of hazelnut baklava. They had tons of different kinds, from Nutella and other chocolates to all sorts of nuts. I like pistachio the best and that was 2KM, which I was going to pay, then realised I’d never had it with hazelnut, which was only 1KM. So I decided to try something new! Like at lunch, pointing at the menu (which did have English) worked.

The coffee is simmered in this pot. I know I drank it wrong, but it was really good! I prefer milk to sugar in my coffee, but had the sugar for authenticity’s sake. Be careful as you drink as there is a lot of sludge at the bottom!

This is just what was in my cup and there was more in the pot. I poured some back into the pot to show on the cup walls how thick the sludge is.

I had a headache starting at this point and work to do, so I headed home for the afternoon. Now, I’m regretting not getting stuff to make dinner at home as it is pouring and cold outside. I think I’ll go through the pantry here and see if I can cobble something together!

It was a very informative day and I don’t feel nearly as emotionally drained as I would have expected. I’m hoping my tour tomorrow is a go, but I haven’t heard back. I think I will wander down to their office tomorrow morning and see if I can join the tour…

October 1, 2016 by Rae

Finding Dinner in Old Town Sarajevo

Yes, two posts today! 🙂

I headed down the hill around seven in search of dinner. I thought I might be in the mood for sushi, but the day had gone from torrid to frigid and I was no longer in the mood. I wandered into Baščaršija Square and combed its alleys for what felt like an eternity looking for dinner. It was rather like my first night in Sofia, where I had a hard time getting service. It didn’t help that I wasn’t committed to any place I tried. I really didn’t know what I was in the mood for and everything looked “fast foody” and boring, like Serbian and Bulgarian food, or was pizza and pasta. I’m actually getting a little tired of the Balkan pizza diet!

After some time, I was just done and ready to head home to have peanut butter toast as I was getting a hunger headache. As I orientated myself, I passed a little restaurant called “Minder” that had a really cosy decor and menus on the table outside. I picked one up and a second later, a girl came out and, in English, asked if I needed help with the menu. The food list was very similar to a dozen other food lists I’d seen all evening, but she was the first friendly face I’d seen all evening so I said I would eat at her establishment.

The Bosnian-language menu was bigger and more elaborate. I saw from it that they had a large and small “chicken fillets” portion. I knew from seeing enough pictures that the “chicken fillets” were grilled chicken tenders and that appealed to me as I’m just about done with all the overly processed sausagy offerings each country has had. The girl explained that the small portion has salad and the chicken, while the bigger one has salad and rice. I haven’t had rice except at home in Malak Izvor or in sushi in ages so that was very appealing.

My expectations for dinner were really low. So maybe that and my hunger combined played tricks on me, but, DANG. I could not believe how good this was! The chicken was actually marinated to have some flavour. The rice was exactly like Mexican chicken broth rice, which I adore. The salad had cabbage and two kinds of peppers in it, plus cucumber and tomato, and it had a dressing! The bread was chewy and yummy. The only way this would have been better is if the mayo had been sour cream and the ketchup lutenitsa. A very funny case of my not knowing what I was in the mood for and being directed to exactly the right place. With the tip, dinner was only 9KM (7CAD)!!!

I rather felt like I was in a souk. Well, I guess I was…

I’m having a hard time resisting all the textiles and especially scarves that I’m seeing!

It’s been an emotionally difficult first day in Sarajevo and I expect the next few will be just as hard as I join tours and learn more about the history of this city. So I’m putting myself on a light sightseeing schedule, especially since I do have work to do. Now, to see if I can get to bed early. Or maybe I’ll learn to sleep through the muezzin’s call?

October 1, 2016 by Rae

An Afternoon Wandering Around Sarajevo

It was a very late night and I didn’t get to sleep until around midnight. I woke up around 5:45AM to the sound of a muezzin leading the adhan (ezan in BiH), the call to prayer of the Muslims in the city. It was so beautiful!

I listened for a bit and it lulled me back to sleep. I managed to sleep until about nine when the child upstairs woke me up. I checked my emails and there was one from a client who has been very quiet the last few weeks asking if I’d mind “cleaning up” some files that came in late in the day so that they’d have them by their morning. There are advantages to my working during their night!

First, though, I had to figure out breakfast. I had buns from Belgrade and some of my Greek peanut butter from Bulgaria on me, so that was food sorted. Coffee was trickier since there wasn’t a single pot in the apartment!

This is what I ended up using to heat water!

Here’s a quick tour of the interior of the apartment. I don’t feel comfortable doing the exterior since I didn’t realise last night that this is a private residence (owners or long-term tenants are upstairs). It just feels too invasive.

I love the floor in the entrance and the pink wall, which is also in the living room. Almost the same colour as my dressing room at home!

From the entrance, you can access the kitchen and then the bathroom on the right, or turn left to go towards the other rooms.

Here’s the little kitchen. The table there makes it difficult to use the stove and it appears there are two fridges. But it’s functional and clean. There was an American lady living here for three months, so she left behind a lot of food, like pasta, still in the packages, as well as seasonings. So if I want to cook, I’m in better shape than I was in Belgrade, where I had to buy salt. Behind the door is a bank of drawers with utensils in them. Not the best layout, but it would be my dream to have a house with a kitchen like this in its own room with a door that shuts!

When I saw my driver this morning (I think that he is a tenant of my host) who lives upstairs, I asked about a pot to make hot water. There was a lot of miming involved because he did not understand me. Finally, he said that he got it and that he would put something in the kitchen. He understood! That’s a Turkish coffee pot at the top (what I used to make hot water in Belgrade), and a decent size pot if I want to make pasta. I don’t mind the discolouration, that’s old enamelware for you.

The pink wall in the hallway.

The bathroom is pretty good and has tons of storage, but the location of the shower head is really unfortunate. I was unable to avoid spraying the floor last night, so it was a very quick in and out shower!

I am going to ask if I can use this washing machine before I leave!

Looking down the hallway to the rooms. My bedroom is on the left, the dining/living/spare bedroom/office is at the end.

The bedroom has too much furniture, but that gives me some surfaces to spread out. 🙂 The bed is terrible, two hard single beds pushed together. It was cold last night, so I added the blue and white duvet, which I found in the armoire in the hallway, and was then comfy.

And here’s the last room. A table and hard back chair are actually not that great for long typing marathons, but fine for a couple of hours at a time. The futon is terrible. I think comfortable furniture is a Canadian/American concept…

The far wall of this room is hideous, but I love the bedding on the bunk beds! The two rooms have numbers and keys, so I think that they are sometimes rented separately with shared kitchen and bathroom space.

Needless to say, this place feel huge to me! I’m not crazy about having the family upstairs since the child cries a lot, but it’s fine for five days. The location isn’t as good as I would have hoped since I’m at the top of a super steep hill and there doesn’t appear to be any restaurants or shops immediately around me. Thankfully, I’m in great shape from all that Bulgarian hiking, so I shouldn’t have a problem going up and down a few times a day. I’ll be going back out later to find dinner.

So I put in about two hours of work this morning and have another two or so to do by the end of tomorrow my time. I was finally about to shut down and think about tourism around one. I did some research about tours and booked a walking tour for tomorrow morning and sent in a couple of requests for half-day driving tours. My first choice was booked solid for the week and I’m waiting for my second choice to get back to me.

Then, I set off to orientate myself and find some lunch. This is the first place I’ve stayed booked through Airbnb that had a map, which was really appreciated!

Here are some Bosnian Marks. The 5KM coin looks like the Canadian toonie! Some of you might recognise the change purse I bought in Mérida (I only showed it off on Facebook). Love it!

Looking down my street towards Old Town.

Sarajevo orientation tip: don’t bother using the minarets. They all start to look alike after a while!

One of many, many cemeteries in Sarajevo.

When I came home this afternoon, he was awake and very happy to have a bit of a scritch around the ears!

This is a main street in Sarajevo. Very busy and there are no sidewalks. Thankfully, the traffic is in just one direction. So I can always get home, just not always the most efficient route. Even with the map, it’s really difficult to orientate yourself since there isn’t a ton of signage and all the streets go off in odd directions.

Coming into the heart of Old Town, Baščaršija Square, Sarajevo’s old bazaar built in the 15th century.

Like in Belgrade, the pedestrian walk lights are not synchronized to get across a whole boulevard. You have to wait for one green light, cross to a median, then wait for another green light.

This car decided to park right on the tram line and the tram was only just able to stop in time!

This is a famous fountain in Sarajevo, Sebilj. There are replicas in Belgrade and St. Louis, MO. It was built in 1753 in a pseudo-Ottoman style. The pigeons took off just after I took this picture and it was like a scene in The Birds. I’m lucky that none of them crapped on me!

Walking around this square, it is easy to get disorientated as there are so many little alleyways. I wandered randomly, eventually taking out 100KM from an ATM and being rather annoyed that it came as a single 100KM note!

This little dog is paralysed and is still able to move easily thanks to this contraption. Can you imagine how much his parents love him?

I found this lovely fruit and vegetable market that reminded me of Mexico.

Here’s a fish shop. In this part of Sarajevo, the signage is all in Latin letters. Where I landed yesterday, near the airport, there is a lot of Cyrillic. My research tells me that using Latin letters is huge part of Bosnia’s identity as being European, as opposed to being aligned with the East (ie. cutting ties with a Communist past).

Outside this mosque, I found a restaurant called Two for Tea that had all my comfort foods on the menu, hummus, tabouleh, and falafel!

I ordered the Moroccan tea. So lovely! I loved the spicy (as in flavourful, not hot) tea with the sweet honey. The little cookie was really good too!

And lunch! The hummus and tabouleh were spot on and incredibly wonderful. A party for the tastebuds! I was disappointed that like Bulgarian falafel, these were a little flat considering how good the rest of my plate was! I would have preferred pita, of course, but that bread was delicious and I may have had a few bites drizzled with the honey from my tea as a dessert. No, I did not eat that entire basket of bread!

Lunch was 10.50KM, plus a 2KM tip. So reasonable! I asked the server if he could break my 100 note (I had 15KM left from yesterday, but didn’t want to give up my change if I had to!). He visibly blanched and said, “Euro?” I said, “No, marks!” and he laughed with relief and said it was absolutely not a problem.

I wandered some more and was impressed that Sarajevo does not shy away from its recent bloody history. I didn’t go in. I just wasn’t in the right head space for that yet.

Standing on the spot on the Latin Bridge where Archduke Franz Ferdinand of Austria was assassinated, precipitating the First World War. Talk about feeling the weight of history!

Couples leave locks on the bridge.

Another bridge.

I headed up this pedestrian street towards a cemetery.

And emerged into a neighbourhood of recently built houses.

Terminating in a not so recently built house.

The tour of the cemetery was shattering. So many graves of so many lives that started in the early ’70s and ended in the early to mid-’90s. Such a waste. This was a war that happened in our lifetimes, not in some far off past so that we can pretend we are so much more civilised than our ancestors were.

There was music coming from a nearby mosque that really added to the ambiance. I’m not ashamed to say that I wept.

The first line says “from nest to the stars” and the second “wife and daughter.” Fuad is a man’s name (Arabic for heart), so I believe that second line is a signature rather a description of the person buried.

There was a sort of fortification at the top of the cemetery, with a lot of people heading up there, so I decided to check it out and found an astounding nearly 360 view of Sarajevo.

This is yet another cemetery.

These are the steps I took to come up to the viewpoint.

I was ready to head home after this and thought I could use my map to plot a route that would avoid my having to backtrack and go back downhill. That plan failed and, most of the way home, I realised I had to go back down to a shop anyway to get bread and coffee!

I love how the newer houses are built in the old style.

Old Vratnik Fort entrance.

These neglected tombstones are across from the cemetery I visited.

I finished my afternoon by finding a tiny shop where I was able to get the coffee and bread I need. Hopefully the coffee is good! I was disappointed I wasn’t able to find Tchibo in Belgrade.

My first impressions of Sarajevo are that it is really lovely and that the people are kind and welcoming (with many speaking good English!), but that its tragic recent history is still very present. I will have lots more after my walking tour tomorrow! Now, I’m off to find some dinner.

September 29, 2016 by Rae

A Final Day in Belgrade

I got extra work so I needed to work harder than expected today. I actually got started early and so I was able to break at 10:30 to go to the bus station. It’s only about 1KM away, but the walk there, even with a map and GPS, is very difficult since pedestrians get routed through alleys and parks. The route by car is almost three times as long! It’s actually brilliant that Google takes pedestrians off road on the shortest path, but dang am I glad I gave up and took a taxi when I arrived or I’d still be lost! It would have also sucked to go up all those stairs with my suitcase. The walk there will be easier.

En route, I encountered a group of Syrian refugees in a park, all young men in their prime, another generation lost to hatred and ignorance. You can go to my Facebook if you want to read more.

I stopped at a cafe for a coffee on the way back. This is a luxury that, really, I don’t want to afford on a regular basis back in Canada and the US as an espresso can be as much as $4 and a cappuccino can be $5 or more. In Bulgaria and Serbia, you can get an espresso to go for less than 1CAD and it’s about 1.50 to 2CAD in a cafe with a token tip. I like my own coffee very much, but the experience of sitting in a square to people watch while sipping an espresso is a quintessentially European experience, even luxury, that I really love.

It was almost noon as I got home and I was hungry, so I went around back to Caribic Pizza for a slice to go. There’s another pizza place almost right next door, but their slices look terrible. Caribic, a chain I’ve seen all over the parts of Belgrade I’ve explored, has some original toppings and a really good crust. For lunch, I had a choice of a slice with ham, cheese, and mushrooms or their “Mexico” slice, which had seasoned ground beef, sweet bell peppers, jalapeños, and cheese. You can imagine which one I picked. I can’t believe how much I’ve missed jalapeños! Pizza by the slice is another way that the Balkans have spoiled me. Even the worst pizza by the slice I’ve had here has been better than the best I’ve had in North America outside of New York City.

After lunch, I touched base with my host here to let him know when I’m leaving and with my host in Sarajevo to let him know when I’m arriving. I’m so glad to be going to another apartment. I will very likely be stopping over in expensive Dubrovnik, Croatia, for a couple of nights and they will have to be in hostels.

Here are some shots of the view outside my fourth floor Belgrade apartment.

Looking to Dečanska (where the red car is on the crosswalk). Dečanska becomes Braće Jugovića across Makedonska (my street, behind me) and has a couple of fast food places, including pizza, as well as a tiny convenience store with a very nice couple running it. Skadarlija Street terminates in Braće Jugovića.

Looking kind of east down Makedonska.

Looking kind of west down Makedonska towards Republic Square. You can see a building in the background that is not parallel to the one in the foreground. It sits in Republic Square. I was that close!

The apartment was noisy, especially when the garbage trucks go by (which they do several times a day!), but the noise was usually a dull roar I could ignore. It didn’t keep me up at night, wake me up in the morning, or cause me trouble hearing my audio.

After my afternoon work, I started to think about dinner. I wasn’t in the mood for sushi (no, I’m not ill) and have figured out that Italian is a safe bet in the Balkans. A quick Google search later and I was at Ottimo, just off Studenski Trg (kitty corner from the ethnographic museum), on a very quiet side street. I was so happy to be comfortable sitting on a terrace at the end of September in just a tee shirt. The weather continues to be a blessing!

I ordered a glass of wine that seemed rather stingy in its portion (especially compared to last night) and perused the menu. The specials of the day were in Serbian only (thank you, Google Translate), but the menu had Italian, Serbian, and English. I was really surprised that I felt like lasagna. It’s just not something I order when I eat out and, in fact, I’m pretty sure the last time I had lasagna at a restaurant was at Gertie’s in Dawson City some six years ago! As it turned out, lasagna was a special of the day, 50% off, so I guess that was a sign from the universe!

The portion was insane (I ate about two thirds of it), with lots of meat and a decent amount of cheese, plus homemade noodles, Béchamel sauce, and a hearty tomato sauce. It was really good, but would have been excellent if the temperature had been consistent. Some bits were tepid at best and others way too hot. With the tip, dinner was just 800RSD (9.84CAD)! Wow! But, remember, that was a special of the day. I just got lucky. 🙂

I really should start on my packing tonight, but I can’t seem to face my suitcase. I will have plenty of time in the morning. I’ll breakfast here, pack, then go out to get a food and drinks for the bus ride before coming back for my bags (most shops are tiny and you don’t want to bring luggage in them if you don’t have to!). My final stop will be an exchange place to get some Euros.

Thus ends my urban Serbian idyll. It was very good! 😀

September 27, 2016 by Rae

A Belgradian Miscellany

It was a bit of a rough start today after going to bed way too late. A have a client that is huge in terms of its importance on my portfolio. It’s not, say, Apple, but I say the name of this company and people have the same reaction as if it were. So when they informed me that they needed to formalise our relationship and sent me a bunch of forms last night, I felt it was imperative that I fill them out right away to show that I might be a one-person outfit, but I’m serious and I have all that information on-hand.

So I finally got up around nine this morning and didn’t get out the door till past eleven. I got as far as a cafe, where I enjoyed an espresso before setting off to find a post office. I passed this sign asking a question I’ve asked myself a million times…

I found the post office easily behind the National Museum. There was no English signage and several queues, so I popped some of the sign text into Google Translate until I found one that said something like “registration for letter mail.” I was rather impressed by the look of the post office, being much closer to what you find in Canada and he US than what I found in the UK and Bulgaria. While waiting for my turn, I Googled “postage stamp” and learned that it’s the same as in Bulgarian, marka.

The clerk spoke English and said that I had to buy a stamp at the “post shop in the hallway.” I went back out and noticed a small kiosk-type thing. I went to the cashier and asked for a stamp (Marka, molim), showing my postcard. She took a glance at it and went, “Ha, yes!” She found a stamp and put it on the card for me. The cost was only 75RSD, about 0.90CAD. She then started to gesture from the card towards outside and I realised she was trying to tell me where to mail the card (there were boxes out front). Wow! What great service! Who would have expected Serbia to have a less intimidating and more professional seeming postal service than Bulgaria, a member of the European Union, or the UK! Now, to see if the card arrives in Virginia!

Next stop was the ethnographic museum, a couple of blocks away. Could that be it?

Yep! It’s here that I have to comment on something that baffles me about Belgrade. Serbia uses both the Cyrillic and Latin alphabets interchangeably. Like in Bulgaria, they make up tourist maps with everything written in Latin letters while the bulk of their street signage is in Cyrillic. So like in Bulgaria, I’m left wondering how tourists who don’t read Cyrillic manage to match their maps up to street signage and why in a country that favours Latin letters, they don’t use them for street signage… I remain grateful that I can go between the two alphabets, even with the few Serbian characters I haven’t learned yet!

The ethnographic museum had a special exhibit on:

I really enjoyed the richly embroidered textiles.

And beaded objects.

The building is quite remarkable and the museum is spread out over several stories. It’s much bigger than I expected and is basically a history of the Serbian people to the start of the 20th century.

The first floor is dedicated to traditional dress in the area, not just within the boundaries of modern day Serbia, but neighbouring countries as well.

I’m rather sad that we live in a time where we don’t dress up. I could see myself wearing a number of these gorgeous costumes!

I really liked this photo showing real people wearing the costumes.

The dresses with the coins reminded me of Native American jingle dresses.

This reminded me of the rug in my room in Malak Izvor.

In the late 19th century, the region became to adopt Western European dress.

We then moved on to exhibits showing transportation, housing, and economic ventures.

The housing style reminds me a lot of what I saw in the more affluent parts of Mexico, being built with inner courtyards to have privacy from the street.

This panel absolutely fascinated me. All those years of studying history and anthropology and I never noticed that humans have gone from living low to the ground to gradually working their way upwards. For example, we’ve gone from kneeling before a cooking fire to standing at a hob.

Brandy distilling.

Some of the local industry included beekeeping, olive growing, viticulture/winemaking.

Cobbler’s shop.

One style of house that is almost like a North American log cabin.

And this one is made of stone. Two different areas, two different kinds of building materials.

I was surprised to learn about the tobacco growing. For some reason, I though tobacco was a New World crop!

I have to share a shot of the unexpected fancy bathroom!

There were models of different house styles, including this single-story house typical of Kosovo.

I thought this was a rather interesting looking hearth.

Wine cellar.

This was a very interesting little museum that gave me a lot of insight into the different classes of people in ancient Serbia.

It was one by this point, so I decided to go back to Burger House for lunch! En route, I passed some beautiful buildings.

My burger was great! Not as good as the first one, but that’s only because I was more reasonable and didn’t get as many toppings. The base was just as solid. Mmm!

I then headed back to Belgrade Fortress to see some of the paid exhibits. Spoiler: I found plenty of ticket takers for the exhibits, but no vendors! I was appalled and disappointed by that. By the time I’d walked the site three times trying to find the elusive ticket vendors, I’d also learned that the exhibit I was most interested in was closed on Tuesdays, so I gave up.

But I did see lots of wonderful things in my amblings!

First, I stopped for an ice cream. The lady did not speak English, but I was, of course, able to say, “Chocolate hazelnut, please.” She pointed to make sure she had the right one and I said, “Yes.” Then she say, “65,” and, get this, I understood her perfectly! The numbers are super close to Bulgarian, but simpler. As she scrambled to find something to write on, I said, “It’s okay. Here’s 70.” The look of surprise she gave me was wonderful! I will never get as far with Serbian as I did with Bulgarian, but such small victories are truly precious!

I didn’t notice this cottage on my tour the other day. Looks like a private residence as there’s even a satellite dish out front.

I got to a good vantage point where I could see all the way to Zemun. I can’t believe I walked there yesterday!

The clocktower is one of the paid exhibits I wasn’t able to visit.

Here’s the Monument to Victory from the front.

It is called Pobednik (the victor) and “built to commemorate Serbia’s victory over Ottoman and Austro-Hungarian Empire during the Balkan Wars and the First World War” in 1928. He has his back turned away from the Ottoman Empire and is facing the Austro-Hungarian empire. He was put up on a pedestal because he is nude and that was considered scandalous. He measures 14 metres and is one of the most visible symbols and landmarks of Belgrade.

This is a tomb.

I was curious when I came across this archery range. I used to really be into archery some 20 or so years ago. So when I learned it was just 600RSD for lessons and 12 shots, I signed up!

I was rusty but got in a few good shots! This was definitely my favourite part of my day!

I loved these foundations barely poking out of the ground.

It was only mid-afternoon when I decided I’d had my fill of the fortress, so I decided to head across downtown to the Nikola Tesla Museum, which I knew my friend Bast would be interested in. Tesla was, of course, a great inventor who is credited with the invention of AC current and of wireless communication (post-humously winning the battle against Marconi for that claim). It’s interesting that his museum is in Belgrade since he was only here for three days, was born in modern day Croatia, and died in the United states.

It was around here that a young woman in her late teens or early twenties came up and asked me if I would buy her an ice cream. I much prefer to buy food or a beverage for a panhandler/homeless person than I do to just give change if I can afford it. There were tons of gelato vendors around, so I figured she’d take advantage of my generosity. Nope. She went to a convenience store cooler and picked out the cheapest treat that was ice cream, only 60RSD. I’m only sharing this to show that while this world gives us plenty of reasons to be cynical, it also gives us plenty of reasons to rue our cynicism. I will not miss 0.75CAD and I left her stunned that I’d done this for her. I wonder how many people she asked.

The National Assembly.

Here’s the big post office again.

Another one of those buildings that would be impressive after a power washing!

A fountain in glass…

Here’s the home of the Nikola Tesla museum.

The museum is tiny and does not in any way do justice to this genius and everything he invented, but if you can get an English tour, it’s worth a visit and is quite the experience!

Some of Tesla’s articles of clothing.

This plaque shows that the Niagara Falls power plant was mostly built using Tesla’s patents.

We watched a rather enthusiastic, but still very informative, film on Tesla’s life and work before the guide took us to recreate some of Tesla’s experiments.

One of his many coils. This one converts 220V power to an output of something like a million volts.

When the machine is on, sparks shoot out of the top.

I was one of the chosen for this experience. I’m holding a standard fluorescent light tube.

It’s alive! My tube lit up with a bright green light that doesn’t show in this picture, although you can see that it is lit up, using me as a conductor! We all joked that we looked like we were holding lightsabers from Star Wars and the guide claimed that this is how the effect was done in the original movies…

He then showed us the “dragon” coil.

Which illuminates that light.

Then, we moved onto the baby coil, where folks were actually electrocuted, the shock being stronger the farther their hand was from the rod. This one also featured people holding light tubes that lit up and the highlight was that two people were used as conductors. Electricity is magic!

I then saw a few of Tesla’s patents.

And an urn that supposedly contains his ashes! Tesla died in New York, but his nephew, who owned this house (explaining why the museum is in Belgrade) had the body cremated and the ashes brought to the museum.

It was five when I was done and I was absolutely tuckered out. I found my way home without a map (I’m finally starting to get orientated!), stopping at a convenience store for a beer to enjoy with dinner. It was rather neat to join the throng of people heading home at rush hour and, like them, pop into a shop to get whatever I was lacking for dinner! I really missed out not getting urban living experience in Bulgaria.

I’ve got lots of work for tomorrow, so I probably won’t get any exploring done. Just a heads up! 🙂

A Life By Design

"Sometimes in life, we reach to a right place by departing from a wrong port with a wrong ship!" ~ Mehmet Murat Ildan

City Tours

A Walking Tour of Sarajevo

Finding Dinner in Old Town Sarajevo

An Afternoon Wandering Around Sarajevo

A Final Day in Belgrade

A Belgradian Miscellany