Belgrade, my old friend

Fair warning for blog fans -- this may be my last post for a bit. I brought a Netbook with me with which to blog, but do not have the right kind of cable, plug, or converter for Europe. If I have the opportunity, I will take it to the Samsung store in London to see if I can pick up a converter or adapter there. If it's prohibitively expensive, however, I won't buy a European adapter. We don't have free Internet at the hostel in London (although it is supposedly inexpensive).

We've been in Belgrade since Wednesday afternoon. Flew on the smallest plane I have ever been on between Prague and Belgrade. It was an ATR-42 -- a turbo-prop plane. And we sat right next to the engine. It felt fitting, flying between two formerly Communist countries on such a small plane.

There were another pair of Americans on the plane. I wanted to talk to them to ask them what they did, and I should have. As we got off the plane in Belgrade, we saw a man holding a sign for "Ambassador Stephen Rapp." Turns out the ambassador-at-large for war crimes issues was on our flight. It would have been really interesting for me to talk with him. Too bad. Next time.

Belgrade is as gritty as ever. It was amazing to me how familiar the city felt after three years. Our driver, Severim, picked us up at the airport. He explained that there has been a lot of renovation work over the past few years. They are doing much needed work on one of the bridges over the Sava. As a result, there was a lot of traffic coming into the city, with Serbian drivers making their own lanes on the shoulder. Some pretty crazy driving!

The big Partizan-Crvena Zvezda soccer match was on Wednesday night. We thought about getting tickets to the match, but then I remembered that anti-American violence can break out after these games. Smiley and I watched it on TV instead. When we were out walking, every cafe in Belgrade had it on. The whole city was watching.

Spent the first night wandering around a bit. I had decided I wanted to eat my way through Belgrade, so we found čevapi and burek. Yum! I had really missed real čevapi.

We spent most of our time in Belgrade just walking around. On the way to Trg Republike, I stopped at a trafika stand to purchase the mobile number I'd promised everyone I would get. While in line, a man asked me in English if I liked Tito and proceeded to explain that Tito was a fascist bastard who lost Kosovo for Serbia and that NATO is also full of fascists. Wow. I kept repeating "I'm sorry" in English, and eventually he gave up trying to get a rise out of me and moved on. The woman at the trafika stand and I exchanged a funny look, and I proceeded to get my mobile number.

Belgrade felt like a familiar old friend I had not seen for years. Some things have changed, but much of it is the same. There is definitely a lot of construction, particularly in the center and in the city parks. St. Mark's Church and the Federal Parliament building are both undergoing renovations. These are likely much-needed, as many of the buildings are covered in a layer of grime, likely from pollution. The facades of others are cracked and falling down. Restoration is needed.

After our encounter with the Tito-hater, we began walking around Belgrade in earnest. Our walk took us down Skadarska street. Somebody had put in a sign showing the distance between Belgrade and other destinations, including the moon. Ha!

Stopped at Trattoria Košava for lunch. The pizza was so tasty. But the waiter spoke Serbian so quickly that I had to keep asking him to repeat himself. I did okay when people spoke to me slowly, but had a tough time when people talked so fast. After the meal, I thanked him for speaking Serbian with me, as I am trying to learn the language. He told me he could tell that I speak some Serbian, and spoke it so I would learn. He said that many Japanese people can speak Serbian well after just 3 months here, but for Americans it is more difficult. Nice conversation.

We followed the walk listed in the guidebook to Kalmegdan. We walked out to the terrace and took pictures of the view. I ended up taking off my little cardigan because I was warm. Back inside the fortress, an older man asked me in Serbian where my jacket was because it was not super warm out. I showed him my sweater and asked him the word for it...and we got into a 30 minute conversation. He asked me how we were enjoying Belgrade, what we thought of Serbia, etc. We then started talking about the global economic crisis, the catastrophe in Japan, and how more American investment is needed in Serbia. He said that Serbia has so much opportunity for agriculture and I agreed. We kept switching between Serbian and English for Smiley's sake. He mentioned that he had had a conversation with Milošević about seeking help from the U.S. instead of from Israel. It sounded like he was in the know. He gave me his name and address and told me to write next time I come to Serbia. He said he'd show me some important cultural sites. I swear I'd read his name in one of my textbooks about Serbia. I think he may have been in the govt or something.

The chat with the guy in the park made Smiley's trip, I think. He got to experience some of that amazing Serbian friendliness I am always raving about. It was cool.

From there, we walked to the Tesla museum. They were about to close, but generously let us join the last tour to see the demonstrations. On the way, we mailed our postcards from the giant Pošta by the Parliament Building. The post office worker complimented my Serbian and was surprised when I said I was really enjoying Belgrade.

Ended our very full day with drinks at the Federal Association of World Travelers, a bar that kind of looks like a grandmother's basement. It's awesome. Between drinks there and eating my way through Belgrade (made sure to find palačinke and potato burek today), it's been a good, albeit short, trip. Looking forward to coming back sometime soon.

What has changed in Belgrade besides construction? Well, there are way more hostels now than there were in 2008. I knew of just a couple back then, and now they are everywhere. Also, many of the cafes have wifi now. That is new! And Tašmajdan Park is being restored with funds from the government of Azerbaijan. I never would have expected that!

Today, we figured out how to get from Luton airport to our hostel in London, and took the tram out to Tito's grave. There were some nice, new signs in English at the House of Flowers. The main museum was closed, but you could still see the room with all the batons and the grave itself. Neat stuff. I managed to pick up more buttons for my Commie shelf back home! Yay!

Ate more čevapi in town, and wandered back to our hostel. I would definitely stay here again. It's clean and reasonably quiet -- and small. I like small hostels better than large industrial ones. Unfortunately, I think we may be staying in a large hostel in London.

Hopefully I'll be back in Belgrade again within a couple of years. I miss this city when I'm not here!