Bewildered in Belgrade
Trip Start
Apr 04, 2007
1
90
115
Trip End
Oct 22, 2007
Belgrade, Serbia and Montenegro
Sunday, September 9, 2007
City Motto: Welcome to Belgrade - W T F?!?
We started a full day of train travel from Sarajevo rather early. On the way up to boarding the train, we ran into a Canadian couple and ended up talking to them on the train ride. At first we were sharing our cabin with a rather eccentric and talkative Bosnian law student who got into intensely deep discussions about Bosnia and the effects the war has had on society and progressing forward from this state. Gabrielle had a blast, it was all of her favourite, happy subjects. War crimes, refugeeism, land mines, rape victims, human trafficking, and the role of the UN! Dan fell asleep for the first bit, still struggling with the early start, but eventually joined in every so often when we could get a word in edge wise. Dan ran into one of the Canadian couple on the train and got chatting. They eventually came and joined us for lunch, being extremely generous with sharing their food! Bonus! Our favourites were the chocolate covered Pistachio's that they had found in the Turkish Quarter in Sarajevo. The couple was fairly young, and the husband was a doctor. The wife was doing her masters and was in Sarajevo for a conference on education and peace building, where she was presenting a paper. They were headed off to Budapest, so we parted ways after a few hours of fun train riding and some great scenery. (the Bathrooms on the train were another matter... HORRIBLE!!! It's best that we just don't talk about it.)
Middle of No Where
We got off at our transfer stop, which was in the middle of nowhere. As usual, the middle of nowhere is a major hub for trains, so we had a nice hour and a half wait before getting on our train to Belgrade. We ended up in a car with an interesting fellow. He was a friendly Serbian gentleman, drunk as an English football fan (more on that later!) and smoked like it was going out of fashion... which in Serbia it definitely wasn't! He had an aura about him of stale booze and cigarettes and you could smell it from the next car over. He attempted to chat us up on various occasions, speaking absolutely no English, but an entertaining mish mash of what we think was, Serbian, Spanish, French, and drunk. We think we mostly couldn't understand him because he never finished a sentence, but we'll never truly know. Our friend was never without a beer in hand, but fortunately left us for a brief period on the train ride so we had some silence... and breathing room.
As we came in to Belgrade we began to get this sinking feeling. The feeling continued until our insides were writhing on the floor. We entered the city limits and began to pass monumental soviet style apartments. Giant concrete blocks blotting out the skyline that were at least as big as five North American apartment buildings put together. There were dozens of them, and they were building more. To add to this charming picture, directly beside the railway lines were scores of Roma slums. Our drunken friend muttering about Gypsies in the background, we passed scores of shacks built out of cardboard and plastic sheets, grubby children and dogs digging through rubbish heaps and piles of burning tires adding a particular ambiance to it all. These were full on slums, stuff you see out of UNICEF and 'Save the Children' commercials. Gabrielle was getting increasingly concerned. Dan was maintaining some hope, looking out the window and seeing a slightly less dodgy looking skyline in the distance ahead of us. When we asked our Serbian compatriot where we were, he said it was 'New Belgrade'. We began to get a bit more panicky at the prospect of what 'Old Belgrade' might look like.
Building of Some Importance
As we pulled into the station and walked out into the town, freshly furnished with a map from the train tourist office, we were feeling more confident. This optimism didn't last long. We found our way to our hostel, already encountering the utter bizarreness of Belgrade. We repeat, this is a weird, weird place. As we walked out of the train station to cross the street, we encountered our first 'Gypsy Mobile'. This was basically a construction of scrap metal and duct tape with a plastic bottle full of gasoline taped to the top. It was driven by a boy who could have barely been older than 14 (you must not need a license for a Gypsy Mobile) and had a young girl in the back which was a cage filled with cardboard sheets. Still staring, we barely managed to avoid the cars that drove on the sidewalks at random intervals. We managed to cross the street without being hit by the buses which are clearly out to get any unwary pedestrian, and ended up walking up a fairly steep road. After a few more twists and turns we found the street our hostel was supposed to be on. On the corner a few gentlemen were selling corn and baby rabbits as women in the latest European fashions tottered by on their stilettos. We dropped our bags and checked in to our hostel. All seemed... not exactly well but potentially doable. We headed out for a look on the town.
Street Seller
A few more Belgrade curiosities. Belgrade seems to have a huge fetish for people in random mascot costumes. In our travels we were accosted by two dancing laundry detergents on our way to get groceries, ran into a giant snail surrounded by screaming children, and narrowly avoided Noddy, who was pulled off the air in North America because it was deemed too homo-erotic, but it's all ok in Serbia. Also, Serbia seems to be the place where old TV shows go to Die. So far we've seen Edgemont High, Mork and Mindy, Danger Mouse, Penelope Pitstop, and various other selections of ancient North American TV. If you haven't heard of any of the above shows... there is a reason. There was also a wide selection of Spanish and occasionally French programs, as well as more televised accordion playing than should ever be acceptable. There is also a very entrepreneurial spirit at red lights. Not only do they try to wash your windows, you have a wide selection of merchandise available for purchase. Among them we saw giant fishing rods, and portable hair dryers for those traffic jam emergencies. One never knows when you will get stuck on a bridge and need to fish for food with your 12 foot long fishing rod.
Random Monument
On our first night, we returned to our hostel and found a bunch of very drunk English boys in the common room (a small room which served as the Reception area, and hallway, and sat right outside of our dorm room!). They had already accumulated a large collection of empty beer bottles in front of them and argued throughout the night about how much they had each had to drink. They also smoked up a storm. Apparently smoking is very widely accepted everywhere in Serbia, including inside hostels. The dorm rooms were non-smoking areas, but basically it's like peeing in a swimming pool. You can't divide up the air! Our night was spent trying to cook dinner in a kitchen that only had one working plug (for the fridge) and was about the size of a closet. We were pretty bushed from our day and wanted to get to sleep. An hour after the posted noise curfew, we had to ask the night staff to turn down his music. He did and promptly turned on the TV at full volume. He also said that he could be quiet, but he couldn't promise about the English guys. Nothing like staff to enforce those hostel rules eh? Sure enough, the drunk Englishmen stumbled in around 2 am and collapsed into their beds, shoes and all. They spent the rest of the night snoring like a snowmobile and not answering their cell phones which rang repeatedly. Ah, the joys of communal living. We woke the next morning (or rather got up as we were already awake) bleary eyed and vengeful. Despite our crashing, banging, and determined plastic bag rustling, we didn't seem to have an effect on the comatose Brits. We walked out into a haze of cigarette smoke and stale beer fumes. A bald headed, chain smoking Finnish guy cheerily asked us if we were there for the Football game, since he was expecting the place to be packed with football fans partying it up in expectation of the Finland-Serbia game that night. We immediately headed out to find a new hostel.
Haircut
After a bit of searching we managed to find a place where no one else was staying, since hostels in Belgrade seem to have sprung up in every hidden nook in the last couple of years. They seemed rather suprised that we intended to stay there, in fact one of the 'staff' was giving his friend a hair cut when we arrived, but the room was really nice so we went back and got our bags and settled into our new place. To top off our last hostel (Belgrade Hostel, just in case any of you are heading this way!), as we were leaving we asked where the staff had gone. The bald Finnish guy, still smoking, told us that he left, and that the girl who was supposed to be on wouldn't be back for an hour. Right... unmanned hostel... so we left. Luckily for them, being honest types, we promised to come back and pay later, and promptly headed back to our new hostel for a nap.
Temple of St. Sava
The rest of our time was spent exploring the city. We went to the largest Orthodox cathedral in the world, the Temple of St. Sava. This was another one of Belgrade's oddities. It's been in construction since 1935 and they have barely touched the interior and still need to hit a few spots on the outside. For the meantime, a few small stands and posters have been erected for those who wish to come and pray amidst the construction materials. Dan's favourite was the poster of Jesus stuck to the giant ceiling. There was also a fully enclosed and furnished kiosk for selling souvenirs sitting inside. Outside there was a path lined entirely with stalls all selling honey. Apparently the only place you can get honey in Belgrade??? It would have made more sense to us to spread out, but all of the honey sellers converged on this one spot to challenge their wares against their competitors. By this point, Belgrade was leaving us pretty bewildered, but we found it was easier to cope if we just pretended we were in a Monty Python movie. Then everything made sense.
Jesus on the Roof
After a bit more wandering we got organized for the next day and headed in for the night. Tomorrow we are off to Pristina! Hopefully with some more sanity awaiting us.
All our best from Serbia
Dan and Gabrielle
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