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Published: December 9th 2009
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After a restless night of hearing the Slovenians downstairs dancing, banging on the walls and singing "We all live on the Yellow Subamarine..." we woke up at 8am. We went to the bakery next to our hostel and got a loaf of bread and some juice, and we were on our way to explore the city. We walked through the copper markets which sold Bosnian tea sets (almost identical to turkish tea sets), and through the old part, but continued to the new part of the city which we soon found to be a little bit depressing and empty.
We walked down the main street for about two hours... We saw bullet holes in the sides of buildings, condemned structures, graffiti, etc.. The National Museum was a beautiful building, yet it hasn't opened again since the war. We soon realized that there was not much to see in this part of the city, so we took Tram 3 back to the old town. We saw a few things that we missed before like the Sarajevska Beer Brewery and the National library which was almost burned down during the war, but they are doing a beautiful job in reconstructing it. We
saw the famous red church which was stunning because of its brightness in a drab environment. Then we found the bridge where the Archduke Franz Ferdinand was assassinated. Of course there was no inscription or memorial to show the importance of the site.
After the bridge, we walked up about a mile to the old fortresses. From the valley, the fortresses look grand and majestic. But after climbing up past broken houses and ruins we reached one of the fortresses and it was completely caved in from bombing. There were bullet holes everywhere and dust and rubble on the sides of the building.
After the fortresses, we walked back down and went to the market to buy some souveniers. I bought a bosnian tea set and some gifts for family. It was fun haggling.. I was pretty good! Mark got some copper items as well (they are known for their copper industry). We also bought some arab coffee which the Bosnians use to make their "bosnian coffe (turkish coffee)" It was funny.. when I asked them how to make Bosnian coffee, they told me and I responded saying "Oh its just like turkish coffee!." And they shook their
heads and said "no,no! it is much different." But not really 😊
After the market, we walked around the old town again, saw some more mosques, ate dinner (street meat), and went to a little bar. After our Sarajevska beers, we were ready for bed! On our way back we heard some music, so we went up to the table where it was coming from and it was Muslim music. We showed a little interest because everything was in English. The man was VERY friendly and nice. He gave us both an English Quran. Im not converting to Islam any time soon, but I find religion very interesting, so I read it before bed. We were woken up again during the night from the Slovenians singing "Who let the dogs out? Who, Who, WHO WHO."
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Mom
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SO relieved you didn't convert (smile).