Not a Vegetarian? Good! This is Serbia
Trip Start
Unknown
1
18
42
Trip End
Ongoing
Belgrade, Central Serbia, Serbia
Friday, June 28, 2013
Upon arriving in Nis I learned I was not on a direct bus and had to transfer busses by going to the information session. I showed her my ticket and she put me on the 1050 bus to Belgrade. The problem was according to my phone it was 1120. I fought her on this but she just shrugged her shoulders. I gave up and decided I would hop on the next available bus to Belgrade and try to explain to the conductor what happened. It was then I looked at the clock and realized I had switched time zones. The sleep was a lot more intermittent this time but I maybe got 3 20-30 minute naps in.
It wasn't too hard to find my hostel. It is literally an apartment in an apartment building. 2 bedrooms with 8 bunks each, a kitchen, a living room, and a bathroom with 1 toilet and 1 shower. The "privates" are also apartments nearby. In my research it looked like all the hostels were like this in Belgrade. The people at the hostel told me the reason for this is that Belgrade is such an epic party city "party hostels" or "hostel bars" wouldn't survive.
When I arrived I asked what there is to eat in Serbia. My hostel owner, a hilarious guy named Srdjan, asked if I was a vegetarian. I said I was not. He responded "Good. This is Serbia. We eat meat here. Come, let me show you your room." He took me in my room and pointed to a guy passed out in bed "He did Thursday in Belgrade. So hungover his friends leave without him. You have entire weekend in Belgrade".
The hungover Brit (Brits are probably my favorite travelers) woke up and we talked a bit... he's going to Budapest alone for a few days then meeting his brother in Krakow. He was asking me a lot of questions especially about traveling solo since it's his first time doing it.. I guess I'm closing in on 20 European cities this year and to some people I'm an experienced traveler. It was a really cool being the knowledgeable one. Turns out the night before him and his friends got so drunk they were running all around the hostel, at one point he stripped to his underwear, grabbed his sheets, made them a cape, ran out the hostel, and wound up waking up in a park.
Anticipating a heavy night I asked for a filling meal. The attached picture is what I got. At the recommendation of the hostel owner this girl and I went to this tourist-trap kind of place in the Bohemian Quarter. It was kinda cool seeing the musicians in the street and the meal wasn't bad.
Then 2 other people in the hostel joined us for a pub crawl. It was the 4 of us, 5 Irish boys from another hostel, and some random Americans who didn't talk much. The first place we went was kind of meh... it was like a weird cafe. The second was one of those trendy Asian fusion type of clubs that served sushi. Finally we went to a river barge. Belgrade is known for having all of their clubs in a row on a series of barges in the river. This is where Belgrade gets it's reputation from. It was a solid club but I can imagine if you're barge hopping and seeing all the different types of DJs it would be really cool.
The other thing about Serbs is they are all about the image. Imagine like the guidos of Europe (This is stereotyping a bit... I later met really cool Serbians). So the club we went to no one actually danced they just sat there at their VIP tables with their girls and looked at other people. Not my scene at all. There is actually a neighborhood in Belgrade where everything costs 40% more and the only reason people go is because it is more expensive. They also park their cars in the middle of the street to show off.
