Welcome to Belgrade

It only took me 7 hours to get in trouble with the police in Belgrade. Well, not the police exactly. The autobus controller. Sort of the balkan version of a pompous security guard. Except this guy didn't even have a uniform.

I was taking the midnight bus back to Novi Belgrade after having some cevapi and beers with Guido from the Serbian class in Valjevo. I had my little yellow ticket and punched it like a good bus rider. Then around 10 minutes into the trip the controller gets on and demands to see people's tickets. I showed him mine, but apparently it wasn't the correct one-- after 12 you need a blue ticket (a detail that Vanja and her mom didn't even know). The guy next to me didn't even have a ticket at all. So the guy demands to see our passports. I didn't have mine. Since I didn't have one, he demanded 1000 dinars. I didn't have that either, and wouldn't have given it to him if I did. So he told me if I didn't have either then he would call the police.

Mind you, this is over a bus ticket that costs about 24 cents.

I told him I hadn't known, I obviously had a ticket so I hadn't meant to cheat the system, and that if he kicked me off the bus I didn't know how to get home from wherever we were. We repeated the whole song and dance a few more times, and by this time more people were involved-- a nice guy who spoke english named Milan was trying to defend me. Finally he kicked us all off the bus and Milan and a friend of his walked back with me to Vanja's apartment.

statue

statue
Originally uploaded by mylittlepony3.

Statue at the fortress in Skoplje.

mom

mom
Originally uploaded by mylittlepony3.

Making pinjur in Bitola...

Church in Ohrid

churchOhrid, originally uploaded by anasophia.

Church dedicated to St John the Baptist. The guys on the left are having a few beers. I also went to visit a church dedicated to Mary, where there were lots of families sitting around having coffee and celebrating (it's Sveta Bogorodica day). My host explained to me that many churches here are "living" churches-- people actually use them actively. That church was especially comfortable; it had couches and cushions on the altar seats. I liked it; it felt like a place you could go to pray and feel comforted.

gajda

gajda, originally uploaded by anasophia.

Bagpiper in the castle in Ohrid. I'm sure I'll catch hell for calling it a gajda, since that's the Bulgarian word... what are they called in Macedonian?

Ohrid lake

sunsetOhrid, originally uploaded by anasophia.

Sunset over Ohrid Lake...

japanese

japanese
Originally uploaded by mylittlepony3.

These are two Japanese girls who were staying in the same house as me in Ohrid. Our host was rather odd; he described himself as a philosopher. Which, as far as I could tell, meant that he complained a lot but had resolved to do nothing. He also cooked lots of flavorless organic things that we were compelled to eat out of politeness, and had spread walnut shells around on the floor, claiming it was good for the feet. The Japanese girls were constantly saying, "hentai desu neeeee!" (Isn't he weird?!!!)

Ohrid

Wow. WOW.

Ohrid was my grandma's favorite city in the Balkans. I have to say, the woman had good taste. It is truly the best. About 30 seconds after arriving I started thinking about ditching Belgrade and teaching here instead. Ohrid has quite a lot going for it:

1. They speak Macedonian here, so I wouldn't have to learn all those %#$^ing cases
2. It is an amazingly beautiful, historically fascinating, clean city with excellent swimming in the summer (in the lake) and skiing in the winter in the nearby mountains.

More on this later; time for bed.

Sunset in Montenegro

SunsetMontenegro
Originally uploaded by mylittlepony3.

On the way back from visiting the POET KING of MONTENEGRO (I really love saying that).

Kotorwalls

Kotorwalls
Originally uploaded by mylittlepony3.

The people walking are some nice Chech guys who took my picture at the top.

Zhene

Ana
Originally uploaded by mylittlepony3.

Guarding the poet king...

Escape from Albania

fabian, originally uploaded by anasophia.

The bus from Tihrana to Ohrid took 8 hours, because it went to all the way to Durres and (on the exact opposite side of the country) and back.

To pass the time I taught Fabian how to play table football (the kind with the folded up piece of paper we used to play in elementary school). For the other 6 hours he taught me how to pronounce the Swiss German word for "kitchen cabinet": chuchichaschtli. Say all the "c"s like you're hawking up a wad of phlegm.

Welcome to the Hotel Albania

bikersAlbania, originally uploaded by anasophia.

We would have gotten to Tihrana faster, but we were held up by a bike race. Giro'd'Albania, anyone? Frankly I'm amazed they were able to find enough paved roads to ride on.

Once we finally arrived in Tihrana, we started asking around for where we could get a bus to Macedonia. The lonely planet pointed to a place at the center of the city that was supposed to have busses, but we found only a giant insane roundabout with no lanes. Grady was going to Durres so he went off to see what he could find (good luck in Iraq, Grady!)

After wandering for an hour and getting nowhere, we decided we should get a hotel room. There are lots of expensive hotels there, god knows why. Finally found a room for relatively cheaply. But where were all the busses?! We finally found them at the end of the street in a dirt lot, and learned that there was only one bus a day to Macedonia, in the morning.

Tihrana actually has a very nice downtown. We had a few beers and some excellent schwarma.

Skodra

Food: excellent
Environment: foul
Tourist infrastructure: nonexistant
Languages spoken: Albanian and Italian

After Montenegro I wanted to go to Macedonia. The only thing in my way was Kosovo; a giant knotted muscle of ethnic tensions. I definitely wasn't going to go alone. Fortunately one of the Swiss guys (Fabian) wanted to go to Kosovo, so I figured I'd be OK travelling with him. When we got to the bus station in Podgorica, there weren't any busses to the Pristina, or through to Macedonia. So I said... hey, Albania is probably easier (what the heck do I know?)

We met another American also going to Albania and we decided to split a taxi to the border. Getting in was easy enough, but when we got to Skodra we found... no bus station, no helpful old women offering rooms (like in Serbia and Croatia), and no one spoke English. Fortunately, Fabian speaks German, French, English and Spanish... but everyone in Albania seems to have studied Italian. Being a miracle child, he spoke enough Italian to find us a great hotel, and bargain down the price.

That night we had a massive dinner and got the opportunity to find out more about why Grady (the other American) was in the Balkans. Turns out he's a missionary from the charismatic protestant church of Colorado Springs, Colorado. Final destination: Iraq. He's covering all of Europe before heading off to the Middle East. He had stories about the summer he spent rescuing girls out of prostitution in Thailand, and missionaries in Mexico battling shamanic shape shifters. And of course, the US was right to go to Iraq. Fascinating what a diverse country the US is, eh?

After dinner we went back to the hotel and heard music coming from the restaurant downstairs. Turned out to be a wedding. Canned music, but they were dancing, which was fun to watch.

Cetinja

On the bus to Cetina I ran into 4 Swiss guys that I'd been seeing off and on since Kotor. They were just taking a day trip up to the masoleum of the "poet king" of Montenegro, King Peter II. The masoleum is on a hill in Lovcen National Park. We split a taxi and headed up.

To get to the monument you walk up through a tunnel in the mountain, which is a bit odd (I still don't understand why they had to make a tunnel?) On exiting you are greeted by a pair of huge stone statues of very stern looking women. Inside a gold-plated, domed room behind them there is also a sizable statue of the man himself, with an eagle at his back. The Swiss guys took advantage of the good accoustics to do some impromptu Tuvan-style throat singing. Down below there is that actual stone coffin, which is... well, creepy.

It was interesting to get a European view of all this from the guys, who all felt that the style of the statues was "nazi-ish". All this time I've really enjoyed seeing E. Europead style statues, as they're so different from the monuments we have in the states. I appreciated the minimalistic style of the building, as it seemed to give the spotlight to the spectacular view of the landscape from the mountain. Not a bad place to spend eternity, really.

The taxi driver took us back to Kotor that night since it was closer, and I got a room in the same building as the guys. We had bread and marmalade and cheese from a giant wheel they'd bought up at Lovcen. They also put on a sock puppet show from the balcony, and a silly magic show involving a TP-bosomed "lovely assistant" Nadia.

Then we hit the "old town". We were lucky enough to see the end of the "Montenegrin Narodne Frizerski" competition. Loud techno and hair cutting, woo hoo! The winner was a woman made up in a Zebra theme, with a crazy black and white evening dress and her belly painted in stripes.

tomb

tomb, originally uploaded by anasophia.

Mark and Fabian in the tomb of the poet king of Montenegro.

Budva

Budva is the main beach town of Montenegro. It has an old city with a fortress (are you sensing a theme here?) It was much more touristy and thus less impressive than other places. They've built an ugly red structure into it to make seating for something (maybe showing movies?)

I met a German/Serbian guy there who introduced me to a crowd of young Montenegrins. We went to a bar with a cover band (bad 70's rock, of course) and got sloshed. Then we went to a coffee shop in town and had a lively discussion with the owner of the bar about the Serbo/Croatian/Bosnian language (it's the same! It's not the same! You are stupid! Was basically how it went).

The next day I'd wanted to stay and go swimming, but it was cloudy. Also I didn't really feel comfortable staying at the house I was in anymore. I had gotten along really well with the family, and I guess they took that as a reason to (very insistenly) ask me for a $200 euro loan to pay their rent that month. I told them I really couldn't. So I ended up going to Celije that afternoon...

Kotor

I love Kotor!!!

Kotor is at the inlet of one of Montenegro's beautiful fjords. The walls of the old fortress wind their way up the mountain from the old city; I climbed up just before sunset. Unfortunately it was a bit overcast out, or the view would have been spectacular.

The old city of Kotor is a fun little maze with lots of cafes and bars and shops with expensive skanky clothes. There is also a maritime museum with models of ships, paintings of ship battles with titles like "Prince So-and-so defeats the pirates!" and (my favorite) old maps. They also had traditional Montenegrin costumes and an extensive collection of old Montenegrin firearms. One of the docents had also done restoration on most of the paintings, and proudly showed me the difference between the unrestored ones and the ones she'd brought back to life.

Maritime Map, Kotor

maritimeKotor, originally uploaded by anasophia.

From the museum...

Walls

Kotor, originally uploaded by anasophia.

The walls of the fortress in Kotor. There is a nice plaque at the bottom thanking the US for providing funds for restoration (yay.)

Dubrovnik

I didn't think Dubrovnik was all that great. Maybe my expectations were too high after hearing from everyone I know that it's AMAZING and the view from the walls is incredible and all that. I agree about that. But the rest of the city is tiring to get around in without a car, and food and accommodations are overpriced and not all that great. There aren't many bars or clubs either-- mostly just extremely expensive fish restaurants. If I could do it all over again I'd probably have stayed just one night.

I also met a British couple who had biked down from Slovenia, and they agreed that Dalmatia just wasn't as beautiful as it was cracked up to be.

I met a British guy on the ferry and we ended up getting a place together because absolutely no one wanted to rent to just one person. I was really shocked, especially since this isn't even the high season. After getting to the place he collapsed with some kind of flu/tuberculosis/tonsilitis or something and didn't move for the next two days except for tea. Oh, except he did manage to get up to the walls, which is how I have that picture of myself.

I searched around in the old town for the synagogue (supposedly the second oldest in europe), but couldn't find it. I went to see the local folk dance troupe-- pretty darn good. I have short videos if anyone wants to see. I with I'd recorded it because the singing was amazing, and it's the only folk music I've heard since Serbia.

At night I ended up at the Irish pub, which was where all the tourists were getting their drink on. I met some nice French guys who appreciated the chance to practice English. I made sure to taunt them about Lance Armstrong (ze are all doping! Arr! Was all they could say).

I also went swimming on a little beach (down about 5 billion steps) with had a cave you could swim into.

Finally I got the heck out of Dubrovnik on a bus to Montenegro.

street

street, originally uploaded by anasophia.

Dubrovnik, main street

red

red, originally uploaded by anasophia.

dubrovnik_cats

dubrovnik_cats, originally uploaded by anasophia.

cave

cave, originally uploaded by anasophia.

Like everything in Dubrovnik, this little rocky beach can only be accessed by walking down about a billion crumbling stairs. But it's worth it. I swam into the cave, which extends back about 30 feet. The ceiling is covered with salt formations and the reflections of light on the water were surreal. I felt like the girl in "Island of the Blue Dolphins"; kept expecting a giant squid to appear and wrap a tentacle around my leg.

Hvar

Hvar has three things I love: great swimming, old ruins, and... lots of Irish people? Wait a minute.

OK, so I enjoyed the fortress on the hill; it has a museum inside with an exhibit of items that were reclaimed from shipwrecks and old marine maps. The swimming was great and the people laid back and friendly, though I mostly met people from Britain and Ireland and Australia there. I also went to a concert at the Franciscan chapel. It was worth it for the atmosphere if nothing else (opera isn't really my bag; I'd been hoping for some good old Klapa).

I stayed two nights and then took a ferry to Dubrovnik.

hvartower

hvartower, originally uploaded by anasophia.

magarac

magarac, originally uploaded by anasophia.

magarac = donkey. This photo is dedicated to Kidd Hall; in particular David LeSage.

hvarsunset

hvarsunset, originally uploaded by anasophia.

Sunset. Hvar.

hvarcity

hvarcity, originally uploaded by anasophia.

Hvar from the fortress on the hill.

hvarchurchnight

hvarchurchnight, originally uploaded by anasophia.

Finally, here are the pics from Croatia. This was the Franciscan Church on Hvar where they held the music festival. The night I was there they had a mens' choral group. Pretty, but unfortunately accompanied by a synthesizer (blech).

Split

Split was basically a typical ugly modern E. European city, with an amazing old Roman palace at the middle near the port.

The palace at night was breathtaking. I really enjoyed wandering around the narrow crowded streets with all the other tourists (looking at Bennetton shirts and kitchy souveniers, of course). But even with modern things in the store windows, it was still magical to look up at a moon framed by ancient walls.

I didn't stay long. I probably should have stuck around to go to the museums, but I was kinda museum-ed out, and ready to get in some swimming.

Burska Biljka

burskabiljka, originally uploaded by anasophia.

This is a pool near the springs which are Sarajevo's municipal water source. Now...try to say burska biljka 5 times fast.

turkishroom

turkishroom, originally uploaded by anasophia.

In the turkish house. This was the men's room.

Turkish house

melissa, originally uploaded by anasophia.

Melissa is my cousin's dad's kum's daughter, I believe (does that make any sense?) She was nice enough to give me a tour of this Turkish house that's been set up as a museum. It has a large collection of furnishings and traditional housewares.

Fish

fish, originally uploaded by anasophia.

I really, really, really wanted to go swimming, but figured I would probably get deported, and that would be a real drag. Look how clear the water is! If only I'd lived here 100 years ago.

Plitvice Jezere

aerial, originally uploaded by anasophia.

We went to Plitvice jezere this weekend. It is un-freaking believably beautiful. This is where my grandma's family was from; a little village called Ljeskovac. It still exists, but it's inside the national park, about a 3 km walk from the end of the bus line. I was all ready to go, but Mirijana and Kojo said, "drugi put!"

The lakes are truly an amazing natural phenomenon. Because the natural bedrock of the area is limestone, there is a large amount of calcium dissolved in the water. In areas where there is a lot of aeration in the water, mosses flourish and trap the dissolved calcium, forming a rock called travertine. Over many years this forms a barrier, and a lake is formed. Travertine builds up at a rate of about 1-3 cm per year in the Plitvice lakes. Carbon dating has shown that these lakes only started forming about 4,000 years ago. (I say "these lakes" because there is evidence that the lake-forming process also happened 40,000 years ago; the travertine of those lakes was broken down during the ice age and started re-forming 4,000 years ago).

This biotic interaction means that the depth and shape of the lakes is constantly changing. From 1855 to 1958 the lakes rose 1-3 meters!

Bridge

most, originally uploaded by anasophia.

The bridge where Franz Ferdinand and his wife were shot, triggering the start of the first world war. It is currently being renovated, like many other things here. Seems like every other street is torn up (or toe up, as they would say in the LBC). Someone told me it was because of the elections coming up.

A few words in Bosnian

church, originally uploaded by anasophia.

treeeeba: girl, chick, devojc^ke
kaaaafa: coffee, kafa
djaaaamlja: mosque
feeeeder: curly, springy
peeeeder: gay

*** The two treeebe at the bottom of the picture are Sandra and Andrea

Nachos and cerveza

Today I went to a Mexican restaurant in Sarajevo. I went with a step cousin who is a translator, and a Policewoman from Spain who she works with. It was really interesting; we talked about how south american gang culture is infiltrating Spain, and how it's different from mafia crime. She also told me about this musical gang tradition that the narcotistas have. Apparently to get really big cahones you have to have a mariachi song written about you that immortalizes the glorious terror you've inflicted on the world.

Strangely enough the news today had a story on about a traditional Serbian gusla musician who wrote a song (or maybe a few) glorifying Karedjich. He performed them at a festival in Serbia. The news interviewed an ethnomusicologist and a few festival-goers. My Bosnian isn't good enough to get the whole story, so if anyone has heard about this I'd be interested to know.

SP

klak_FAMILY, originally uploaded by anasophia.

Opet...

anaklak, originally uploaded by anasophia.

And a picture with Kojo...

At Ana Klak's house

untitled5, originally uploaded by anasophia.