Day 6: Ivan and I went to the birthday party of Nikola (the 2nd birthday party I've gone to here). Before getting there, we found a transformer for my camera's adapter/charger and then we got a bite to eat at a little restaurant in a student area. The birthday party was at some girls' house that Ivan had lived with when he was in college. We had snacks, talked and then went to a popular cafe/club. The air was thick with smoke, the club was very crowded and loud, and I was coming down with a cold, so I went back [View Full Entry]

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Day 5: Stayed in the apartment most of the day. Read up on some Irish history, checked emails, posted some photos, etc. About 4 pm, Dejan and I got some burek and then I caught a bus to downtown Belgrade to meet up with Ivan (he works downtown). We then walked to Knez Mihailova (a pedestrian street and very busy on the first nice, sunny day of the year) and toured around Kalemegdan (a massive fort overlooking where the Sava and Danube rivers meet... built around the 14th century). Belgrade is definitely more modernized than when I was here last. There [View Full Entry]

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Day 3: This time I woke up at 5 am on the train. And this time, I had the whole room to myself. During the night I was awakened by the border patrol for passport checks going into Hungary, leaving Hungary, and entering Serbia. Ivan met me at the train station and we took a taxi to his apartment in Belgrade. The taxi driver knew right away that I was a foreigner and that Ivan was Serb. After saying something, he correctly guessed that I am from the U.S. He then asks if I am there for Slobodan Milosevic's funeral. Well... [View Full Entry]

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This morning I woke up on the train at 6 AM. There were five other people in the room (about 7'x7'). One guy was German, two I think were African, and the other two were Americans. I got up and spent about a little over an hour watching the German countryside pass by. The train seemed to be going about 70 mph. Oh, and mom, the high-speed trains here do go 180 mph (300+ kph). Then I spent about 45 mins. talking to an American girl from the D.C. area. She was on Spring break and also staying over here an [View Full Entry]

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Wow. What a first day. I landed already sleep deprived at about 9:30 am and have been going all day. I guess every country has its intricacies, and I had difficulty just buying a ticket from the airport to Paris. Basically, the automatic machines only take coin Euros or smart cards... and the coin changer was out of order... so I went and bought some candy (to get change), and they wouldn't. So, I ended up waiting in line for awhile to buy a ticket. At any rate, after about two hours from the time I landed, I got to Paris. [View Full Entry]

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