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Published: July 30th 2014
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First, a note to my family and anyone other people or groups to whom I promised to send postcards (you know who you are): I did, in fact, uphold that promise, and postcards were sent out from Sarajevo around July 8th. As you've probably learned from my blog by now, practically everything in the Balkans is super inefficient. As such, it should come as no surprise that I recently discovered those postcards are probably inexorably lost in the Bosnian postal system. There is another round of postards being sent out from Belgrade tomorrow; we'll see if they fare any better.
Now, on to today's topics: allow me to be excited for having handed in our executive summary for our disputation for a moment. YAY! With that, my team now prepares our judge's rubrics, questions, and plans to maintain order before our group debates on Friday. The first group goes tomorrow morning at 10, debating the presence of OHR in Bosnia (see July 2nd).
In the middle of my team's 24 crash course on Kosovo-Serbia relations and preparing said executive summary, the Dialogue took a morning trip across the Sava River to visit the Ministry of the Interior,
which was delightfully uninformative, in my opinion. While there were some interesting things about it (for example, it and 4-5 other ministries are housed in the same massive building that was designed to be used as the Federal Headquarters of Yugoslavia), most of it was relatively simple and dull: the Ministry aids in the protection of the people and their rights, etc. etc. Members of the Police Directorate were also present to talk about the police in Serbia, who, shockingly, are there to protect the citizens and the rule of law. If you didn't get it by now, this was not my favorite meeting of those we planned.
It was brightened by the question and answer section, which did include some fantastically diplomatic answers. For example, on one question on the Ministry's presence in Kosovo, the speaker said, "I'm going to answer this diplomatically. The Ministry's duties cover all the people and territory within the Republic of Serbia." Read between the lines as you will. One truly interesting tidbit we did learn, however, was that the FBI is apparently considering putting a branch in Serbia to assist the Serbian authorities in tracking down and stopping crime.
After 6 tonight (the time our summary was due), I went with a few people to Monument, a local restaurant that has been suggested by many but that we had yet to go to. The suggestions were warranted. Risotto, breaded savory pancakes, and t-bone steak were all proof. Dinner was followed, of course, by gelato from the place with the fancy ice creams, and important shopping for two things: postcards and socks. I know socks seems random, but I came to Belgrade with 5 complete pairs of athletic socks. I have done laundry 3 times and I now have 2 complete pairs and 3 single socks. It's uncanny.
I also went for a night run tonight. Potentially not my most brilliant idea given that, as I've mentioned, thunderstorms pepper almost every night here. But it paid off, as we got to the lookout from the fortress and had an amazing view of the city and the lightning storm. We then got absolutely dumped on, but luckily we were almost back at that point. Regardless, I strongly suggest night running. Assuming you don't almost break your ankle on a loose brick, the views you can get
of a city from a distance are unparalleled. I fully intend on continuing this new tradition whenever possible, safe, and reasonable.
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