Astra Hotel Sarajevo

Sarajevo photos here:<br>http://www.facebook.com/album. php?aid=160893&amp;l=fd5f2d8d41&amp;id= 613699523<br><br>Friday got up early to catch the 8am train with Nonie, Cassie, Ben and Mark.<br>Picked up from Sarajevo station in the pouring rain by Jasmin in his tiny little 2 door hatch. Mark was staying at a different hostel so the 4 of us and Jasmin just squeezed into the car and drove to Hostel SA which is a nice hostel run by Jasmin and his ...

Today we had our bus tour of Sarajevo. It was actually quite the sketchy experience. There was enough people to get into a van and a small car. luckily because Aunt Sue, Pete, Marianne and I was considered a family, we were able to stay together in the van. We took off and the driver just drove. We couldn't figure out if he was supposed to be explaining things ...

... the middle aged guy who'd got on holding a can of beer against his elbow which he then proceeded to drink at, oh, 7.45am. On the following stops we had, he kept buying cans of beer, no longer continuing with the charade of the ice pack. The journey began, cute boy offered me a biscuit and we retraced the route we'd taken when we'd been to Mostar a couple days beforehand - including all three border crossings. <br><br>Cute boy turned out to be a pretty annoying person ...

... took that too. Now even Toby had an ashtray. I didn't steal, it was a gift. Next stop was Club Jez (pronounced Yesh), which was supposedly open till the wee hours. We got there to realise it was a weinerfest, but we were too ********d to care. More Cuba Libres. When I decided I was getting my drunken hunger feeling, we decided to get some Burek. The next hour is a blur, but I still don't know how we spent an hour drinking espresso and eating burek at the bakery. I think a ...

... I find a cafeteria line that's got all the local food on display with names attached, so I can just point-and-click, learn as I go. It's not bad either, Muslim food, and reasonably priced. I left Athens on 3-3. When I arrived in Bosnia two weeks later, this was my eighth country within that time, nine if you count Kosovo. What do I do now? I need a line, Trinity. At least it's warmer now. That's the nice thing about Internet. It's warm inside.

... l'habillement en general nous ramene a l'occident... mon hostel est situe en plein centre-ville a un demi coin de la rue pietonniere ferhadija ou a toute heuredu jour et une partie de la nuit la population se promene pour faire ses emplettes, pour prendre un rafraichissement dans un des nombreux cafes ou tout simplement pour s'asseoir et jaser avec une connaissance... dans les ...

... handelsruten mellom Europa og arabiske land paa 1500-tallet. Navnet Sarajevo kommer av det gamle arabiske ordet, Saray, som betyr hvilested. Basilikaen er et gammelt omraade der haandverkerene holdt til og mye av handelen foregikk. Naa er det en masse med souvenir sjapper og litt, men ikke mye, haandverkere igjen. Et trivelig omraade som en turist ikke kommer utenom. I Sarajevo falt ogsaa skuddene som ledet til 1. verdenskrig. Alle har vel hoert om skuddene i Sarajevo ...

... hills are breathtaking. One funny story to relate was how I got into town. The bus from Budva dropped us off somewhere outside the city and i must have looked reallz lost because this Bosnian said 'Where are you going' I tried to pronounce the part of the city I was looking for and he said...'Come with me' We got on the bus without paying and he gave me a nice history of the city as ...

... meal. Another interesting reminder of the recent war is what they refer to as Sarajevo roses. Whenever 10 people or more were killed in an attack, they filled the shell-holes in the sidewalk with hard red paint as a monument to those who lost their lives. Sadly, you see them fairly frequently around the main town of Sarajevo. Unfortunately because of the snow, I never got a chance to get a good picture of any of them. During the next day I visited the ...

... and then apologise when bad things happened. No wonder morale at the UN is so low. It sounds like a tough job. I acknowledge that this could be a biased view as we have just been immersed in the city. But for exactly this reason we plan to visit Serbia next to better understand "the other side". It seems almost callous to change the topic here, but I just wanted to add a few general comments about the city. Sarajevo is one of the easternmost European cities ...