Mostar

The Famous Mostar Bridge

This past weekend we took a trip to Mostar!  Mostar is primarily Bosniak and Croat with a small Serb population.  Our professor told us to pay close attention to the beer!... Not kidding.  But there is a reason for this… In Sarajevo the primary beer on tap and sold in bars is Sarajevsko (a Bosniak beer) and it is rare to find anywhere that sells the Croat beer in Sarajevo (I forget the name brand of Croat beer).  However, in Mostar they sell both Sarajevsko and the Croat brand! 

We only had two half days and one full day to explore Mostar but it is a relatively small town so we were content with the time that we had there.   On the full day we hiked up to the “big cross” (it does not have an official name) on hill Hum.  It took us a little over an hour and a half to get to the top and it was beautiful!

The tiny cross on the top of the mountain was our destination!

A few from the start of the hill!

Almost to the crossss!

Group picture at the base of the Big cross.

This is the small cross that was next to the big one.

After a long day of hiking we sat down for a nice dinner in town and then met with a Serbian, Sito, who told us about the history of Mostar.  One of the stops we made on the small tour of Mostar was an old Orthodox Church.  We were able to sit in on a church service, which was really cool!  I was sitting on a bench in the church and all the sudden I felt small droplets of water falling from the ceiling!  It was almost like a mist rather than rain.  I looked up and there was nothing there!... No air fresheners that could have misted on me and I even pulled down my sun glasses that were on the top of my head to make sure that I was not crazy but sure enough, there were little drips on my lenses!  I turned to my friend Ian sitting next to me and tried to quietly ask him if he felt a mist but he said no and looked confused.  I tired not to freak out and think that God or a Serb saint was trying to get my attention but I was still extremely freaked out!  I soon forgot about it when we gathered outside after the service and Sito let us refill our water bottles at the outside faucet.  Someone commented on how they wished they could put their head under the faucet or run through the sprinklers because it was so hot and Sito was like that’s fine Serbs are cool.  Haha  As I was running through the sprinkler I looked at the window that I was sitting by... that was open!  God was not trying to talk to me the sprinkler was just spraying into the church! 

Rebuilding the old Serbian Church.

Orthodox Church.

Outside of the Orthodox Church

                                                      Sito!

Sunset at the top of the hill near the Orthodox Church. 

Me with the Mostar Bridge.