We made the
long hall from Mostar to Sarajevo, to get our suitcases, then from Sarajevo to
Belgrade, Serbia! The whole trip
took us about 11 hours via bus with a few stops along the way. We even got a bigger bus from Sarajevo
to Belgrade so that we each had our own seat… It was a pretty big deal after
occupying every single seat in the bus from Mostar to Sarajevo (3 plus hour bus
ride). We did not get into
Belgrade until around 11pm at night but we could already tell that it was a much
bigger city than Sarajevo or Mostar.
The next day we took a 3-hour walking tour of Belgrade that ended at the
old fortress from World War I!
Differing
from Bosnians, Serbians do not credit the US with ending the war in 1995
and actually have a great amount of animosity towards Americans especially after the 1999
NATO bombings. We were told that
we would not be liked as much in Belgrade as we were in Sarajevo but it was
nothing to be concerned about. However, early
last week a few of us experienced something that shocked us but at the same time we thought it could happen every once in a while... A group of us were walking back to our hotel from dinner, which
passes through a small park. When
we entered the park there was a group of people hanging out by a bench, they
looked about our age and did not look threatening. One of the girls in the group started to talk to us in
Serbian. We didn’t understand them
so I turned to them and said “English?”… that was all I said. Then the girl and a few others pitched
in saying, “Fuck you all” etc. We
were a bit taken back by what had happened because we were simply walking back
from dinner and had not even been talking really so we didn’t know how they
could have known that we were Americans or why they were even saying such
things. It did not really bug us
other than being confused. The
next day at breakfast we approached our TA and explained what happened… he was
shocked. He couldn’t believe that
had happened to us and apologized to us (clearly it was his fault). He said that that does not usually happen and it was probably just some punks.
Cathedral of Saint Sava "the largest Orthodox church in Europe." They began construction in May of 1935, however, construction was halted under the communist regime in Serbia and was not resumed until 1985.
The inside of the Cathedral. There was still a lot of construction and work to be done.
Damaged Building from the 1999 NATO Bombings.
Costa Rica? What are you doing here!
