Advertisement
Published: December 4th 2008
Edit Blog Post
In the past month, I've been keeping busy especially since I found my new travel buddy, Ushma. She has been in my program the whole time, but we had not traveled together. I got the feeling that we would make a good team, but I only got around to acting on this notion in the middle of November when I found out she was going to Sarajevo in Bosnia-Herzogovenia. I asked to tag along and that was that. We left on Thursday morning at 9 am to spend 12 hours on a train before arriving in Sarajevo. Luckily we met some very interesting company on the train: Shawn, a man in his 30s from Buffalo, NY, who had moved to Bosnia-Herzogovenia 2.5 yrs ago but was just headed back there now from filming a documentary in India about dance therapy for 4 months. He was very excited to find us as well as he had't spoken to anyone in english beside his girlfriend for the past 4 months. The time passed quickly and we soon arrived in Sarajevo.
We had made plans via couchsurfing.com to stay with 2 turkish guys while there: Furkan and Saadik. They met us at the
train station and turned out to be wonderful hosts. We spent the weekend wondering around with them and Saadik's girlfriend, Anida. Sarajevo was beautiful. It is one of my favorite places that I have been to. There are churches and mosques everywhere. I also got to see Tito's ever-burning fire as well as the bridge where Archduke Franz Ferdinand was shot (thus starting WWI). Many of the buildings still have bullet markings on them from the early 90s. I learned a lot there about the history, which is much more intriguing when you are at the site of these historical events. While there, I also tasted the best beer I have EVER had in my LIFE. It was at the brewery in Sarajevo. It is a dark beer in color, but has a very light, delicious taste. Mmmmm. It was so good! We were there all day Friday, all day Saturday, and then we left on Sunday morning at 7. A very successful weekend all in all.
After that, Ushma and I realized that we were the perfect travel buddies. We are both very laid-back and willing to try anything. If only we had realized it sooner! Nonetheless, we
decided to spend the next weekend together as well, but this time in Belgrade, Serbia. We left Thursday night at 11 pm and got in at 7 am. We were couchsurfing again, and this time our host, Vanja, couldn't meet us until 4:30. Therefore we had 9 hours to wander around the city, and that is just what we did. We left the train station, backpacks on backs, and tried to find the things worth seeing. Once we were a few hours in, we finally decided to give-in and pick up a free map, which was probably for the best. I wouldn't call Belgrade a "pretty" city, but I really enjoyed it nonetheless. One of the first things we saw was the bombed out building that is still just sitting in the middle of the downtown area. Next we came to a few different churches. They had a lot of absolutely beautiful churches around the city! Needless to say, we covered most all of "old Belgrade" in that 9 hours of the 1st day.
Once we met Vanja, he took us across the Danube to "new Belgrade" where he lived. He was a nice guy. We went out for
a beer at his favorite bar and then headed to another couchsurfer's apartment for a cocktail party. His name was Hogar and his roommate, Jen, ended up being from Oregon. They were great. We had a wonderful time at this cocktail party, where I wowed everyone with my medium level guitar hero skills (literally, they were amazed). Around 2 am, we decided it was time to go to the bars. We went to a club called Plastic and danced until 5 am. Upon leaving the bar, we discovered that a front had moved in and it was now snowing (if you could really call this disgusting, wet, icy chunks snow). It was awful, but we made it back to Vanja's and slept in a bit the next day. We then met up with the others again around 1 pm and they took us to an all-you-can-eat Serbian buffet, which was delicious. We diddle-daddled the rest of the day and then went out again that night with Jen and some Australian ex pats now living in Serbia. The next day we went out to lunch with Vanja and he showed us his favorite places in new Belgrade, which were gorgeous. He
then had to go meet with his cousins, so we were left to our own devices for 6 hours until our train left at 10 pm. We concluded that we really had seen most all of the city that we needed to and agreed to spend our last few hours wandering around a bit more and then going on a Sunday night bar crawl, a very enjoyable Sunday night all in all. We caught our train and immediately met 2 guys from Canada that are backpacking around Europe. In the end, in the couchsurfing mindset, I invited them to stay at our apartment in Budapest. So when we arrived at 5:30 am, they came home with me. They stayed for 3 nights and were nice enough guys.
On Thanksgiving, our program was kind enough to treat us to an all-you-can-eat and drink Thanksgiving dinner at a very nice restaurant. Though I would have taken a home-cooked one anyday, it was a very enjoyable evening. The next morning we met up for an overnight field trip for my environmental studies class. We were met by our professor with shots of palinka to start the "decontamination" at 9 am. Then it
was off to a hazardous waste disposal site and after that a hazardous waste incinerator, both of which I enjoyed. It was quite a surprise though to see how these things work and what non-solutions we currently have for dealing with this dangerous stuff. After that, we headed to our hotel which we had entirely to ourselves. We had dinner and wine tasting in the hotel restaurant, which was completely deserted but for us. We had a great time. After dinner, we rented out the old-school bowling alley and played pool as well. The next day we visited an old contaminated factory, then did one tourist activity by going to a famous abbey, and finally headed back to Budapest.
On Monday, Shawn (the man that Ushma and I had met on the train to Sarajevo) arrived in Budapest and stayed with Ushma for 2 nights. He was flying from Budapest back to the states for the 1st time in 2.5 years and surprising his mom. We went out the first night he was here to a nearby pool hall and hung out for a few hours. He is a really interesting guy.
And now here I am. I
think I am most likely going to stay here this weekend, though there is a small chance I may try to go to Prague. Next weekend I will be studying for exams. The following week I will finish exams. And then I'll be home just over a week after that. How time is flying!
Advertisement
Tot: 0.085s; Tpl: 0.013s; cc: 7; qc: 44; dbt: 0.057s; 1; m:domysql w:travelblog (10.17.0.13); sld: 1;
; mem: 1.1mb