I had a cold, my second on this trip, so I didn't go out on Friday night. Besides, I was at a crappy hostel that doesn't have a common room to hang out in which has the effect of scattering people and failing to create group outings to bars at night. It's a big failing of that place. So I just slept and in the morning I went out to explore the town a bit more.
Like I mentioned earlier, there's a film festival in town so I bought a ticket to see some random film from Turkey called Kosmos. I didn't really care for it but some of the other backpackers that I knew were going so it seemed like the thing to do. The rest of the day was spent pursuing Mexican food and coffee made with a filter. I failed on that last attempt.
The plan was to stay in that terrible hostel in Sarajevo for one night and then to take the train to Belgrade... well that didn't work out so smoothly because I foolishly trusted the train schedule in my Lonely Planet book instead of just asking a local when the train leaves. That just meant that it took me an extra day to get out of Sarajevo but that's not such a big deal I guess. I went to the train station and found out that there is no night train after all, so instead I bought a ticket for the morning, had a dinner of nothing but blueberries, and went out for live music and beers with a couple other backpackers.
In the morning I got out to the train station prepared for a terrible trip. The train left at 11:35 and was due to take 8 or 9 hours. It was a little confusing where to sit, but I asked a couple girls where on my ticket is specified the seat and they invited me just to sit with them. Their names are Femke and Suzane and they're grad students from Amsterdam. We talked about byzantine history, music, dutch culture, our respective trips, Los Angeles, and many other subjects. I played some songs, we all played Uno, and the time flew right by. Also, a nice Serbian guy joined us for the last hour and he had some things to tell us about his city. Finally we reached Belgrade quite late at night. We exchanged phone numbers and set off to our different hostels.
The hostel that I checked into, Manga Hostel, is a truly great one. It's super clean, has several different common rooms and a garden to relax in, and very comfy beds for $18 a night. I didn't get too much sleep on the train or the night before so I got some sleep and saved meeting people for the next day. In the morning I sent a text to to Femke and met them to tour the city for a day before they headed off to Budapest the next day. They're on a short trip.
First we wandered around the Kalemegdan Citadel, an old old fortress that was last updated by the Ottomans and now is mostly used as a tree filled park. There's a stone tower near there that was used as a torture chamber that's probably worth visiting but I'll have to visit it later.
We walked through the busy streets downtown, I bought a pin with Milosovich's face on it, and we had lunch in a cute bohemian neighborhood.
We drank a lot of coffee, mostly good stuff surprisingly, and we also saw a government building that NATO hit with a missile in '99. I think that they're keeping it as a memorial to show the West's agression or some such business. Other than that, Belgrade is an exceptionally beautiful city. Definitely the second best of the trip after Istanbul. I'll cover it more in the next post.
The evening was pretty swell too. We supped at a tapas bar with a couple of guitarists doing Clapton and Dire Straights covers. Later on we went to a kareoke bar with a crew of people from my hostel. The music was mostly Serbian but some of the guys did some excellent performances of more mainstream music.
The real problem with the place was its oppresive smoke, warmish beer, and countless underage Serbian girls. The Dutch girls went home to their hostel and I hit the hay. I had fun with them... good conversationalists. Maybe some day I can visit Amsterdam and get shown around by my new friends.
The next day was to be a slow one. I sat around uploading photos, eating pizza, writing this, and watching bad movies with other backpackers. I think that I'll hit some museums tomorrow.
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