Blogs from Belgrade, West, Serbia, Europe - page 19

The bus from Sofia to Belgrade took a lot longer than expected. The border alone took an hour because apparently, the border patrol on the Bulgarian and Serbian sides were too busy having coffee and cigarettes to immediately get to stamping our passports. When we made an unexpected stop in Nis to switch busses, I was lucky enough to meet a Macedonian girl who spoke English (no one else on the bus spoke that, German or Spanish, so I would have been really out of luck) and showed me where to switch in our tickets, where the new bus was, and covered the 10 dinar fee to "check" luggage onto the new bus (that's a new one) as I didn't have any Serbian money on me yet. She told me some really interesting stories about ... read more

So this morning, went off to this suburb part of Belgrade called Zemun.. Its just a 10 min. bus ride but it feels so different! So laid back!!! Its very nice and peaceful...I came across this church that's under renovation..Its actually the Nikolajevska Church... Bumped into a father and brother outside and they let me in! got in and wowowow! The inside was Nice!!!!!!....then the brother came over and started explaining the history and meaning of things to me!! How Nice!!!!! At the end, he gave me this cool postcard with a pullout page of photos of the town as a gift!!! ..Really friendly! Then I walked around town and happen to be able to kinda....communicate with some locals.....very pleasant...The town didn't have much but it was very comfortable walking around. Took the bus back ... read more

Didn't expect Belgrade to be this....developed! I mean, the shops and everything!...The standard of living is still kind of low...many street stalls and cheap food...but I like the vibe so far!..seems like a pretty nice city! I took the night train here and MY GOODNESS...it was bad. it was a train full of people going to EXIT festivals...which means...smokers, drinkers, and exciting people. The two guys in my cabin were just going in and out smoking and rolling..weeed? dunno..I was too sleepy to even look. People in other cabins were screaming and stuff... got through 4 passport checks..and I think I got a stamp from Croatia.....dunno why that is. and also 3 ticket checks.......-___-" Didn't get much sleep in the end...-o- Got to Belgrade finally!!! went to this hostel I read about online that was good ... read more

The highlight of today and this week has to be getting press all stage passes to the Chemical brothers show in Belgrade's Arena. I was thinking of going to see the show, but did not feel like spending the $40 that the tickets cost. My friend Nemanja, came up with press passes that not only let us in to see the show, but allowed us almost all access passes to most of the places. The show started at 6 pm and was going till 4 am or so. We arived around 10 30 pm just in time not to miss the Chemical brothers that started at 11. It was a great sight to see. Beautiful women everywhere dancing to the beats. Beer was flowing and everyone was having a great time. the whole 16 000 people. ... read more

6/03-8/03 In the summer of 2003, I was back to my old summer traveling habits. For some reason, I was still not done with Europe. I had pretty much given up on Western Europe due to the expense, but Eastern Europe still offered everything I wanted, including a special surprise in Romania. I flew into my former hometown of Prague and went from there. Here are some blurbs of what I did in each country. Czech Republic- Prague, Benesov. My grand return to Prague was cut short by the temptation of going to new, undiscovered places. Germany- Dresden. Checking in on my favorite German city. Poland- Wroclaw, Warsaw, Zakopane, High Tatras. I based myself in Poland for mountain hiking in the High Tatras. I also made a stop in Wroclaw, my favorite Polish city. Lithuania- Vilnius, ... read more