The Balkans

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Ahoj!

Last Tuesday, one of my craziest travel adventures began, a trip to the Balkans. Since Thursday, October 28, is one of the Czechs’ national holidays, celebrating the anniversary of Czechoslovakia’s freedom from the Austro-Hungarian Empire and the creation of Czechoslovakia, we had our “Fall Break,” so Wednesday, Thursday, and Friday off. For this break, Alex, Calan and I decided to head to the Balkans.

The Balkans is the name given to the area of Southeast Europe, most of which formerly was Yugoslavia. I’ll give you just a little crash-course in this region’s history, just so the rest of what I’m going to write makes sense. Being in the southeast corner of the continent, this is truly the region where east and west combine…or perhaps better to say collide. The area is made up nowadays of Slovenia, Croatia, Serbia, Montenegro, Albania, Kosovo, Bosnia & Herzegovina, Macedonia, Bulgaria, and Greece. Except for Greece, Albania, and Kosovo, the rest are historically Slavic countries and speak Slavic languages, so related to Czech. Due to their location, each of these countries lived under various foreign cultures, but most predominantly the Ottoman Empire, meaning the Turks, not an empire of furniture. Thus, this is the region of Europe where Islam is practiced, but also where Orthodox Christianity meets Roman Catholicism. Basically, it was a time-bomb waiting to explode. When Yugoslavia (meaning “Southern Slavic Empire”) was created following World War I, these cultures were haphazardly thrown together under Serb dominance led by Tito, Stalin’s greatest opponent. Yugoslavia was also a communist empire, but their communism was a lot milder, and the people did not suffer like in the Soviet sphere. Stores typically had the goods and food people needed to survive, and Yugoslavs were allowed to travel outside of their country. In other words, it was communism with a western face (that’s actually the phrase they used, too). Bulgaria, however, was in the Soviet sphere, and so the differences between Bulgaria and the former Yugoslav countries are vast. When the Soviet Union and Yugoslavia collapsed, the Balkans descended into civil war. On the one hand, Serbia could not (and still cannot) handle the fact that it is not the leader of the other Balkan countries (which has caused considerable problems with Montenegro claiming independence in 2006 and Kosovo now being a UN-protected zone, though still not considered independent by Serbs). On the other hand, the religious and ethnic tensions were being strained, which all exploded in the 1990s in the Bosnian Civil War. Nowadays, the countries live in relative harmony, and some have already entered the EU. The most troublesome area is still Kosovo, given that Serbia refused to acknowledge its independence. Kosovo is ethnically Albanian and prefers having ties to Albania rather than Serbia, but you can imagine the problems that’s caused in Serbia. That’s an extremely condensed version of everything that’s happened and is happening in the Balkans, but hopefully it’s enough to give you some idea of the region I was traveling to.

Thus, on Tuesday night, Alex, Calan and I met in Prague’s train station. We went out to dinner and wandered the city a little bit, and then just headed to the airport. We spent the night on benches in the airport, waiting for security to open (which it finally did at 3am), so we could go through to the other side. At 7am, we boarded our flight, and 45 minutes later arrived in Munich. After a half-hour there (and having breakfast at an Austrian restaurant and getting to speak German which was very nice), we boarded our plane, destination: Sofia. Sofia’s the capital of Bulgaria, and is one time-zone ahead of Central Europe, so we jumped forward an hour when we arrived. We had reserved a rental car and gotten permission to take the car outside of Bulgaria (they have really strict laws), but naturally, when we went to pick it up, they told us we did not actually have permission to leave the country. While we regrouped and decided what to do, we were approached by many taxi drivers telling us they’d more than happily drive us all the way to Croatia and back…for a mere 800€ (~$1200). We finally decided to head to the bus station, and I asked the taxi desk to call us a taxi. Lo and behold, it was one of the drivers who wanted to take us to Croatia! He actually turned out to be a nice guy, and through broken English, he told me about Sofia, its history, and gave me lots of tips for travelling in Bulgaria and the Balkans (I was riding shotty, so he was talking to me). The main thing he stressed was never to take the train in Bulgaria. Well, that’s another story, we’ll get to that.

When we arrived at the bus station, we finally found the area for international buses, as we had our general plan to follow around the Balkans. The first bus leaving was to Sarajevo, and so I was elected as the official spokesman of the group. The woman I talked to was very, very nice, but could only say “today, tomorrow, yesterday” in English. I finally said to her, “Rozumíte mi, kdyz hovořím česky?” (Do you understand me if I speak Czech?) She looked at me, cringed a little, and said, “Něščo,” Bulgarian for “something” (Czech being něco, Slovak niečo), meaning yes, she understood a little. I said, “Tak keď hovorím po slovensky?" (How about when I speak in Slovak?) At this, she lit up like a Christmas tree and exclaimed, “Da da da!” (Yes, yes, yes!) Slovak is the most neutral Slavic language, so everyone in the Slavic world can understand it without problems. Thus, I fumbled my way through Slovak and somehow understood her in Bulgarian, and we had our tickets to Sarajevo, the capital of Bosnia and Herzegovina! After a quick snack, we boarded our bus, and got underway!

The bus was a great experience because not only were we the only foreigners on the bus, but it was actually quite comfortable and we all felt relatively safe (on that bus, at least). The bad thing was, though, that you were allowed, like everywhere in the Balkans, to smoke inside the bus. People from the Balkans are all chain smokers, it was pretty disgusting, but on this bus we were lucky since only the driver smoked. We crossed into Serbia, and then arrived in Niš (pronounced Neesh), a small city in southern Serbia, where we killed three hours waiting for our next bus. It was freezing! We were expecting a warm trip to the Balkans, and instead we were shivering and shaking in Serbia! We grabbed the local equivalent of a hamburger, which was actually not half-bad, and then boarded our bus heading to Bosnia. On the way there, we were at a rest-stop and the police came, given that the bus driver was trying to bring food from Serbia into Bosnia which was not allowed. Come to find out, as well, he was also sucking down glasses of wine during the break, so the police would not allow him to continue driving. After about two hours, we were allowed to continue on, and so we crossed into Bosnia. While driving through Bosnia, I woke up at one point probably around 5am (it was an overnight bus, remember), to find that there was at least six (6!) inches of snow on the ground. Our ideas of a warm trip to the Balkans were quickly being shattered. Bosnia, however, was absolutely beautiful. The countryside was amazing, the houses were very different from Central European architecture in my opinion, and it was great just to look out the window. We arrived in Sarajevo at about 8am, and of course, the bus station was outside of the city. We grabbed a taxi and headed in to one of Europe’s best-kept secrets.

Sarajevo is the capital of Bosnia & Herzegovina, so naturally was hit hard during the Bosnian Civil War. Walking around in Sarajevo, you’re also confronted by the east meets west culture. There are mosques everywhere, and minarets rise above all the buildings of the city. It’s normal, though, to see a mosque on one side of the street, and a Catholic church sitting on the other side. We arrived in the middle of the city and started to stroll around. It was truly like stepping into another world. First of all, most of the buildings were small, typically one story. The streets were also small, and cars weren’t allowed in the center. Everything was made out of stone, which was beautiful, and once again, it was this amazing mix of east and west. We walked around for a while, just taking it all in. It was also my first time ever seeing a mosque, which was very cool. Although the center of the city is beautiful and surprisingly well preserved, the minute you step outside of it, or down a side-street, you can see the war. Façades of houses are completely blown away, riddled by machine guns, and still haven’t been rebuilt. Buildings are destroyed and standing in ruins from bombs. It was the strangest thing to see, but at the same time so great because many people were working on their homes and on buildings, rebuilding the destroyed parts, covering the façades, etc. Mosques all over the city were building new minarets, and one whole area was closed off where it appeared they were building a new, massive building (for some reason, I got the feeling it was going to be something like a skyscraper, though I’m not sure of that). Overall, it was one of the coolest places I’ve ever been.

In Sarajevo, as well, we knew that we could rent a car, so we started to head in the direction of the car-rental company. We ended up taking a cab there, and though the driver didn’t speak English, he did speak German. Since I was the translator of the group, I always rode shotty in the cabs, and so he and I chatted. He asked me if I was from Germany or Austria, and I said neither, but that I had lived in Austria. He had lived in Vienna, and I said I lived in Graz, where there’s a large Bosnian population, so we talked about that. We drove by a huge building which he said was the home of Bosnia’s TV, and he told me that about 1,200 kids ranging from newborns to 7-years-old were assembled there during the war, taken into the mountains, and shot. Not a very happy story. Immediately afterwards, he gyped us out of money by making us pay much more than we should have. In the end, though, we made it to the rental car company, got a car (which was ironically a Škoda, a Czech car), and set out on the next leg of our adventure.

We drove from snowy central Bosnia south to the city of Mostar, famous for its bridge. The word in all the Slavic languages for “bridge” is “most,” and in Bosnian, the word for the person who guards the bridge is “mostar.” We arrived there where it was actually quite warm, and set out around the city. The famous bridge spans the Neretva River, and on one side is Christian, while the other side is Muslim. It’s basically Bosnia in a nutshell (though actually in the Herzegovina region). We found a place to park, and set out to wander around the city. Like Sarajevo, it was also a stone city, and so incredibly beautiful! We were on the Catholic side, and made our way through small, winding streets to the bridge. We climbed up onto the bridge (which is only pedestrian), and then came down on the Muslim side. The original bridge was unfortunately destroyed in the war in 1993, but has since been rebuilt. We walked around the Muslim side, naturally filled with Islamic architecture and mosques, and then crossed back to the Catholic side. There, close to the bridge, we found an awesome restaurant whose owner made us shish-kebob type food, and I had the best tomatoes I’ve ever tasted, all washed down with pomegranate juice. After lunch, we climbed back into the car, destination: Croatia.

We crossed into Croatia about an hour later and continued driving south along the coast. It was absolutely beautiful, and the region we were driving along had many islands not too far off. The scenery was simply amazing. The really cool part, too, is that after driving a bit in Croatia, we actually had to cross back into Bosnia. When Yugoslavia split, Bosnia was able to keep 16 miles of coast, along which sits the city of Neum. We crossed back into Bosnia, and then once again into Croatia. Once back in Croatia, we continued to the city of Dubrovnik. Unfortunately, we did not go down into the city, but snapped some awesome pictures from above right as the sun was setting. It was amazing.

We continued on our way, coming soon to the border of Montenegro. Montenegro is one of Europe’s newest official countries, located on the Adriatic coast between Croatia and Albania, sharing borders with Bosnia & Herzegovina and Serbia. In 2006, Montenegro declared independence from Serbia, and thus Serbia lost not only its coast, but arguably its largest area of tourism. Are you sensing a pattern here? These other countries seem to want to get as far from Serbia as possible. Anyways, we made it to Montenegro’s border, where we potentially had to pay a bribe. We’re not sure, but there was a man knocking at our window saying we had to pay 10€ to enter the country. The border guards confirmed it, but it still seemed a little suspicious. Either way, we paid and they sent us on our merry way. By this time, it was dark, and so we continued driving down along the coast. We were shooting to make it to a city named Kotor, but then decided to continue further to Sveti Stefan. With Calan at the wheel and me giving directions, we only took one wrong turn (due to poor street signs, NOT from poor navigation!), and finally arrived in Sveti Stefan. Calan had the Lonely Planet book with her, and it recommended a hotel to us. We found it, after I had to attempt to speak in Montenegrin (basically, Serbian) to a security officer, and since it’s the off-season, they had rooms. In the book, it told us to try to stay in room 5 since it has a beautiful view of Sveti Stefan. Wouldn’t you know that Calan was given the key to room 5 and Alex and I were in room 6? We ended up just having dinner in the hotel, and then all took showers and crashed. This was our first night of the trip sleeping in a bed (having slept the first night in the airport and the second on the bus), and our first showers, too (you can imagine how nice it was in the car), so we all concurred the next morning it was one of the best sleeps of our life.

In the morning, we were up early (given that we were all asleep by 9pm the night before), and Alex and I set out into Sveti Stefan. It was originally a city built on an island close to the shore, but has since expanded onto land. We walked down to the island (as we were staying on the mainland), and walked along the beach. It was really warm in comparison to snowy Bosnia, and we put our hands in the Adriatic, which was also quite warm (to the point that we contemplated going swimming). We headed back up to the hotel to meet Calan, though, and then had breakfast before setting out. We walked back down to the island, which was unfortunately closed for the winter. We then hopped back into our car and headed for a near-by city named Budva. We were supposed to drop off the car here, and so it was my duty yet again as the interpreter to find out where that was. I asked at a few different places, including a bank and a police officer, and finally found the building the office was supposed to be in. After walking up and down every floor, I ducked into a linen store, the only place open. In my strange Slavic combination I asked the woman there, Jelnica (we’re now old friends), if she knew where the office was. She understood, and asked me a question, which I didn’t understand. She then looked at me and said, “I could just speak English if it’s easier.” Well, she called the office for me, and come to find out, it no longer exists! She then called the office in Sarajevo, and they panicked for a bit. In the end, we had to wait about an hour, but we were able to leave the car at a local hotel, where it was later picked up by someone from the office in Podgorica, Montenegro’s capital.

After leaving the car, we walked to the old town in Budva and wandered around there. It’s on a peninsula and has really high city walls. Inside it was of course all stone, and it was beautiful! We went up onto the citadel, where I actually had a nice chat with a couple from Austria, and we enjoyed the amazing views. Montenegro is Spanish and Venetian Italian for “Black Mountain,” and in Montenegrin, the country is named Crna Gora, also meaning Black Mountain. The mountains were literally right next to the sea, as you can see in my pictures, so it was really cool. After leaving the citadel, we grabbed lunch/dinner, and headed to the bus station. We were taking the overnight bus again back to Serbia, to the city of Niš, where we had stopped to switch on the way to Sarajevo.

The busride went well, though we were all a little more nervous this go-around then earlier. The people on the bus seemed a little scarier, and much more willing to steal our things. We took shifts when we made rest-stops for who would go to the bathroom and who would stay on the bus and watch our stuff. We arrived in Niš, though, at about 7 in the morning, and watched the sun rise over the Nišava, the river running through the city. The next bus going to Sofia wasn’t until 4pm, so we found the train station (even though we’d been warned against it) and asked when the next train was. It turned out to be leaving at 12:35, so we bought tickets (only 7€, incredible!), and set out to explore the city.

We went first to a place Ćele Kula, or in Cyrillic Ћеле Кула, in English “Skull Tower.” It’s the site where a Serbian duke took 4,000 of his men and kamikazed into Turkish troops of more than 10,000 men. The Serbs attacked the artillery, igniting the gunpowder when they destroyed it, blowing not only themselves up, but also a considerable part of the Turkish army. To admonish the Serbs from every trying something like that again, the Turks decapitated the bodies of 952 men and built a tower from their skulls. Now there are only 58 skulls remaining, but it’s still an eerie site. It’s also become a site of Serbian pride at fighting against an enemy. They built a chapel around the remains of the tower, and so we went inside (fitting for the day before Halloween, eh?). Well, I took some pictures in there, and it’s either incredibly funny or absolutely terrifying, but my camera focused on the skulls and asked me after taking the picture, “Did somebody blink?” Creepy.

After that, we headed into the middle of the city and wandered around there. We found the city’s old citadel, which is now where the gypsies go to sell their used, broken, and stolen goods. They were all eyeing us with our clothes, cameras, and big bookbags. Needless to say, we didn’t stick around. We killed some time, got some food, and then headed to the train station to catch our train to Sofia. Don’t worry, even though two people working at the train station told us the wrong track, we still managed to catch the right train!

We found places to sit, and there were still free seats in our cart. As the train headed across Serbia, three people (one woman, two men) came and sat with us. They were relatively friendly, but realized we weren’t Serbian or Bulgarian. One of the men asked in German if we spoke German, and all of us shook our heads no (I chose to say no so that I could understand, but he wouldn’t know). He said he didn’t really speak English, and so we hoped it’d end there. Throughout the ride, though, he kept asking me if I was from the Netherlands (which a surprisingly large number of people ask me), and finally gave up asking when he saw me hand my passport to the border patrol. Well, as we got closer to the border, people started running in and out of our car to the window, stepping on us and kicking us (there is no such thing as personal space in the Balkans, if you think people stand close in the rest of Europe, that’s nothing compared to down there), and talking hurriedly and nervously in Bulgarian. I only caught bits of it, and what I heard I didn’t like.

When we reached the Serbian border, we stopped for almost a half hour. The Serbian police came aboard, checked our passports, and then started to inspect the train. Finally, they let us go. We came to the Bulgarian border, and there we waited even longer. Not only did they individually go through our passports and pat down most people (luckily, the three of us were skipped since we were the foreigners who clearly had no idea what was going on and you could see the absolute pity on their faces), they individually inspected each cart, pulling off pieces of the wall with tools, then rebuilding the walls, looking everywhere. They finally let us pass, but in every town until Sofia the same thing happened. Come to find out that we were in a car full of cigarette smugglers! As we approached Sofia, they started pulling the train apart themselves, opening hiding places you’d never imagine, pulling cartons and cartons of cigarettes out of the seats, behind the walls, etc.! It was crazy! Luckily, they didn’t bother us or involve us in anything, but the three of us were shell-shocked to see what was going on. It was ridiculous, but surprisingly not a problem for us, they were more concerned about getting paid than about the fact that we’d just witnessed all of this. We finally arrived in Sofia’s train station, and quickly left so as to put as much distance between them and us as possible. We grabbed a cab, asked to bring us to the city center, and then somehow ended up at a mall called City Center, so not actually the center of the city. At that point, though, we didn’t care, we just wanted a restaurant. He recommended one to us, so we went there, and it turned out to be a restaurant where they put on magic shows! Well, we had a nice dinner, and then took off. We were spending the night in a hotel again (the only one we’d booked before the trip), and were all eager to get there! We grabbed a cab to the Holiday Inn, and there we had a really nice room. We took showers, our second of the trip, and again, crashed early.

The following morning, we set out into Sofia. It is a huge city (though of course, it’s the capital of Bulgaria). It was really interesting for me, having just spent so much time in the former Yugoslavia, to see how poor Bulgaria looked in comparison, which again is attributed to the two very different forms of communism (Titoism vs. Stalinism). It was an awesome city, though, I really liked it! Our cab dropped us off at Aleksand’r Nyevski cathedral, one of the cathedrals of the city, which was massive! We then walked around the center of the city, seeing some of the sites recommended to us by the hotel, including a statue of Tsar Alexander II and my first Russian Orthodox Church! Unfortunately, we couldn’t go into any of the churches, given that it was Sunday morning, but it was still awesome to see them. We cruised through a gypsy market, and then ended up at the president’s place, surrounded by other important governmental buildings. The main thing about Sofia is just the concept of space. The governmental buildings are all designed in severe communist-era architecture, so they are truly almost monoliths, very long, precise buildings stretching for blocks on end. Not only were they long, but they were also very tall. Combine that with the insanely wide streets, and it was a very impressive sight. This was naturally done intentionally, so as to illuminate the grandeur of communism, even if it weren’t the reality. We wandered around for a while, found a place for lunch, then headed to the airport. In the evening, we flew back to Prague by way of Düsseldorf, Germany, and there made a mad-dash to the train station. Alex caught his train with 10 minutes to spare, I missed my first train at 8pm, so had to wait for the next train at 10pm, and Calan had to wait until her train left at 12:30am. I made it back to Havlíčkův Brod at about midnight, and then after walking back to my apartment it was about 12:30.

This week has been great, just busy. Monday I worked all day, then in the evening went to spinning per usual for Monday. Tuesday I also worked all day, and my schedule switched. The high school I teach at wants as many students as possible to have the opportunity to talk to me, so I have almost all new classes. They’re all very talkative and interested in me (my schedule was actually switched because they kept asking about when I’d come to their classes). As I wrote in an earlier blog, as well, students always stand up when the teacher enters the classroom. When I finished one of my classes on Tuesday, one kid said it was a real pity the class was over, they were enjoying themselves so much and it was so interesting. The bell rang and I went to leave, and they all stood up again, which I’ve never seen. The teacher and I walked out, and I asked why they stood up. She told me that she’s never had that happen to her with that class, but that it’s a real sign of respect and is to show the teacher they really enjoyed the class and are looking forward to the next one, which is nice. Tuesday night I went to watch two of my students’ floorball game, and then last night went to a hockey game (Havlíčkův Brod vs. Jihlava, the biggest rival) with one of the teachers from the medical school. We won 3-1, which was great, and it was a fun time. Today I met more classes, they were having fun talking to me in English and Czech, and now I’m relaxing for the first time in more than a week. Tomorrow I’m heading to Tábor for the weekend, since it’s Emily’s birthday, so a few of us are meeting there, which will be fun.

Anyways, I hope you’re still here, and I’m sorry this is so long! I hope it was interesting, the trip was a lot of fun and really cool. Here’s the final tally: 3 Americans, 5 days, 7 countries, 2 showers, 2 time-zone changes, 6 currencies, 11 passport stamps. Talk to you all soon!

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Photos

Prague's Airport
Our campsite for the night.

Wrong!
I HAVE been to Bratislava!

Awesome Napkin
In Munich's airport at the Austrian restaurant, they gave us napkins with Austrian on the left and German on the right.

Bulgaria!
Cyrillic alphabet in Sofia's airport.

Sofia's Train Station
Not a very cheerful place.

Men's Bathroom
In Sofia's train station. I thought it was cool with the Cyrillic alphabet.

Our Bus
The red buses ran to and from Nis, Serbia. The white on the side is actually "Nis" written in the Cyrillic alphabet.

On the Bus
Alex and Calan ready to get underway with our overnight busride.

Scooby Doo?
In Bulgaria.

Cyrillic Hillside
In Bulgaria, this means "1885-1985 Bulgarian Unification."

Entering Serbia
I quickly snapped a picture on the border.

Bus to Sarajevo
On our way to Bosnia.

The Food
I snuck a picture of the food that was the reason why we got held up on the way to Bosnia.

Bosnia
Driving through the snowy Bosnian countryside.

Sarajevo!
Driving above the city.

Sarajevo
The Old Town.

Sarajevo
The Old Town.

Sarajevo
The Old Town.

Sarajevo
The Old Town.

Sarajevo
The Old Town.

Sarajevo
Rebuilding a minaret of a mosque.

Sarajevo
The Old Town.

Sarajevo
The Old Town.

Sarajevo
A mosque.

Sarajevo
Strolling through the streets.

Sarajevo
The city expands up onto the hills that surround it.

Sarajevo
Building a new mosque.

Bullet-Holes
Normal to see on the outsides of buildings.

Destroyed Building
From a bomb, probably.

Bullet-Holes
Just on regular apartment buildings.

Bullet-Holes
Completely hit by machine guns. Hard to imagine some of my friends grew up with that as their childhood.

Catholic Church
Right by a mosque.

Rebuilding
This is the site I talked about where they're rebuilding something big.

Museum
Sarajevo's museum.

Our Car
Of course, we get a Skoda, a car from the Czech Republic!

Leaving Sarajevo
Exiting the region.

Entering Konjic
On the way to southern Bosnia.

Bosnia
Driving to the south.

Southern Bosnia
A little bit different atmosphere, eh?

Southern Bosnia
Gorgeous.

Comments

[Mom]

Love it and the pictures too!

[kristy]

Love the pictures! So funny that there was a Florida car there - there was a Graz car down my street! Matthew, I can't believe you are the designated navigator!!!!!! Are you planning your trip to Austria for the scary Christmas parade?? Can't wait to see you! xok

[Nanny]

Latest report
Wonderful blog!!!!!!!!!! Do you send this to the Fulbright Scholarship people??? They should be compiling all these blogs for a book!!!! Love, Nannyy