Bosnia!

Sorry I havent written in a while, but there has been more happening than i could keep track of! I'll start with my first impressions of Sarajevo, which i'm sorry to say werent quite that great. Perhaps because everything was so shot up and it was constantly raining. But when there are sunbreaks the city looks better. It was ruled at different points in time by both the Turks (Ottoman empire) and the Austro-Hungarian empire. This leads to very interesting architecture on the main street. Every Balkan main city has a main pedestrian street and this one is no different except that the stores are more pricey for whatever reason, and the architecture is Austro-Hugarian..Austro-Hungarian and then BAM Turkish! Which makes for an interesting walk and an even better cup of coffee. There are many parks in which old men play chess with giant chess boards and I must say i too have become sucked into the chess phenomenon and our group of 20 students has now bought several boards and we play constantly, which is something to take our minds off of the fact that if we trip over something whilst walking to the club its usually a grenade hole. which is quite sobering.
But to take my mind off the constant staring and sadness that seems to envelope srajevo, some friends and I took a (looong) bus to Zagreb, Croatia! What a great city, my favorite by far of all the ones i've been too. theres just so may different people, good food, people dont stare you down as if you're an alien, and everything is just so..well european i guess. I am considereing going to grad school there as the tuition and food is craaazy cheap and there are lakes and biking to be done (see pictures)
Then two days ago we visted Srebrenica the town in which the mass genocide happened. We travelled with Bosniak (bosnian muslims) students to this town to which they had never been. Bill Clinton visited in 2003 to open up the memorial and hopefully bring people back to this town in which they have nothing left. Nearly everyone in Bosnia lost someone there in Srebrenica and its hard to understand the horrible things that people are capable of doing to each other. Even so recently. One can read about war and history all they want. but actually being there, in the building where things happened, eating lunch in the hills where 6000 men tried to escape execution and maybe 1000 survived, is quite different. Something that stays with you for the rest of your life. I suppose going into the program i knew it would be hard to see all this and to hear peoples stories, and i couldve chosen to go to greece or italy to study, but I dont think i'd trade this opportunity for anything. Its hard, but good to learn about these things that in the U.S. we really cant even begin to fathom. You learn the extent of human compassion, but also about the amazing elasticity of the human spirit. The lively music and constant singing in the streets is the sign of a people who wont be brought down by anything. It might be nationalism, it might be pride, but for now life is stable and they are happen, and the music stays with them.

Blagaj!

we had an awesome day today, me n christine (my roomate) we went to blagaj and heres the high lites:
took a bus and got off in blagaj (not really a high light but a fact)
went to a turkish house and toured around but had to have the muslim ladies wrap head scarves around our heads so we would be like..kosher or whatev. theen we drank from the river there behind the house, which is the source of the river. seriously best water i have ever tasted and it didnt make me sick ! then we hiked up this mountain (after this kiosk guy said we probably couldnt make it because we didnt look ¨conditioned˝ and got to this Illrian fortress on the mountain there. cool times. could hear the call to prayer there too. then we walked back down.
THEN christine spots a girl in a latvija shirt! so naturally i had to like follow her and the guy she was with to hear if they were speakin latvian..they SO were! and i was pumped and so we talked for like a while and they took pics. it was a couple our age and then the guys uncle who was sorta a chaperon on their 8 day trek through the balkans!
-THEN i realized that i lost christine and went down to the kiosk where we were going to tell that guy that we totally made it up to the mountain fortress. and she was there eating an icecream cone and like swingin her feet and stuff and then the kiosk guy who like was a coppersmith too made us bracelets with our names on them! and then we ate some amazing trout and the kiosk man came with us to show us exactly how bosnian men eat fish. basically it was like the proper way to debone a fish. it was a good tasty trouty time and we had some more river water! then we realiyed that our bus didnt leave until 7 soo us n kiosk man who's name was hussein went to this cool spot down by the river and played cards and drank this amazing soda called cockta! tasty stuff. i shall bring some back. oh and then hussein sees this guy from across the river, yells at him and says to us ˝he owes me a cell phones from 2 years ago˝and we're like uhh k? so the guy comes over and i expect this like big beefy mafia lookin guy...no. its like a 13 year old. but he had husseins (totally pilfered) cell phone. so everyone was happy. it was an interesting time. and i sorta got sunburned. but all in all it was awesome and i returned home to some amazing grilled chicken that the boys in our hotel made for us. delish!

Flickr

This is a test post from , a fancy photo sharing thing.

Mostar, Bosnia!

So today after a very comfortable three hour bus ride, we ended up in Mostar, Bosnia! Thus far i think its one of my favorite places. Although every place is sweet in its own way, belgrade for the safety, nightlife and people, dubrovnik for its amaying location and beaches, Mostar is awesome because it seems so like real n things like..they actually still hand make turkish coffee pots and shoes and they sell like guns and stuff from the war which isnt that awesome but its still a pretty traditional society. Although its divided in terms of one side of the river is bosniaks (muslims) and one side is the catholic side, its still a very cool place. i mean i have only been here for six hours but thus far its very nice. In terms of accomodation, we (me and 5 other kids) have pretty much a whole hotel and bar to ourselves, because its not summer and there arent any tourists here now although the weather is totally gorgeous now. The hotel is on a river and has free internet and its just beautiful. we had some amaying local food of trout and cutlets and fish soup, toured the famous bridge that (up until about 1993ish i think) was 500 years old and pretty much acted as a bridge to the two different sides of town. buuuut it was blown up in the war..so that sucks. but the European community rebuilt it and all that so it looks much like it did before. Its also nice and interesting to hear the call to prayer rising lyrically above the city as well. we happen to be on the muslim side of things, which is cool, it just means no alcohol, and let me tell you, i think i am pretty much done with that liquid substance for the remained of this trip. havent gotten out to meet any of the locals yet, we're just chilling here in our pajamas at the bar playing some cards and having some good clean fun!

More pictures!

I have posted some fresh fresh pictures from the last of Belgrade and Dubrovnik! so you dont have to scroll, heres the link to them. http://www.flickr.com/photos/7440769@N06/

Annnnd Croatia! (or more specifically, dubrovnik)

I will sum up Dubrovnik (beach town and popular tourist destination, formally its own country and the second nation in the world to recognize the United States back in the day), in one word. Lots of stairs. and i mean..its a city of stairs. its also in a fortress. but besides that, its one of the most beautiful places i have ever been. I wish it was possible to bottles scents, because the amazing smells are nearly impossible to describe. but imagine orange blossoms, honey suckle, lavendar (lots of lavendar) and lilacs and some roses and just all sorts of olfactory wonderment. The people here are so relaxed and nice and everyone speaks english which is sorta sad for me because i enjoy the cross communication challenge-ness. But in terms of being affected by the war, Croatians seem to be a wee bit more chill than serbians. that only applies to the common person on the street however. We ventured into this alley bar called Africa one night and there just happened to be a unit of the Croatian Special Forces. most of them were more than happy to talk about their role in the war etc, but some of them were very touchy about Serbness more so that hardcore nationalist serbs. The difference comparitivley speaking between the two types of nationalisms, is that Croatians seem to be more ˝our country is so great and beautiful for these reasons...˝ Serbs are more őur country is strong and powerful and better than all other nations˝so its a bit more hardcore, but i'm not trying to stereotype or anything. Its hard to describe the various emotions and feelings and situations that occur here too. I believe though that in order to get a feel for it you really have to come here and experiance it for yourself.
In a few weeks i'm going to Kosovo and Macedonia for the weekend which will prove to be an interesting experiance in itself.

Serbian times

Sorry to not have updated in so long, but access to a omputer isnt as readily available as one would have thought. I do post pictures more frequently on my flickr page though. These last two weeks have gone by very quickly and we've been doing so much. We went to the national bank, which for the time being is functioning as the government sort of, since there currently is no president and all that. The reason for that is Kosovo, since negotiations are going on now regarding Kosovo and its independece and since no serb wants to be responsible for signing Kosovo over to Albanians...you're left with no one wanting to be president. but for a country with no real goernement, its a great placce with wonderful kind, albeit passionte people. i've made many friends both young and old, alot of whom happen to be security guards (not sure why that is, but their police force especially riot police is huge...mostly for soccer games) and i've heard some interesting things, mostly ho much everyone hates croatians an gay people are not tolerated at all. someone in our group made the faux pas of trying to explain how we see gays in america..and it escaated into something big...so we dont talk about that anymore.
A few days ago we went to Croatia to the town of Vukovar which still hasnt really been rebuilt from the bombing and shelling by serbs in '91 i believe. I have pictures on my flikr page of that. its so hard to be constantly bombarded with awful things people have done to eah other and to themselves. i was talking to my security guard friend in my dorm building Oorash (or yrac) and he was telling me how he was shot trying to defend someone and stabbed in the back at a soccer game and all that and it just broke me down and i got all weepy. The whole day i was with my other friends who are from 15-18 and they were telling me about what they did during the Nato bombings of 1999 and all that and its just rough and hard to understand how all this could happen. no one side is to blame totally though there were militant groups and atrocities commited on all sides of the conflict, and Serbs are no worse or better than the Croatian side.
On a more positive yet still cultural note, I went to my second soccer game here but this time it was Red Star versus Partizan (both serbian teams, rivals) and it was INTENSE. there were like dry ice bombs going off and smoke bombs and lighting flags and seats on fire and hardcore chanting and singing and like 2500 riot police in riot gear all aound the stadium and the city. after the game there were riots because red star won (to give a little background, Partizan team was originally recruited from the Yugoslav peoples army fter the war, so pretty much they're way hardcore.) i wasnt in a riot thank goodness but i was walking with my friends down the streets of Belgrade which they shut down because all the thousands of people in the stadium pretty much take over the streets. and the riot police marched with us (when they walk they sound like wheat blowing in the wind..its eerie) All in all i think the lesson learned here is that good people can sometimes do bad things and no one group of people is any better than any other really. Its terrible to think what humans are capable of, and i was searching my brain trying to think of something good humans had done and i couldnt think of anything. Someone said our capacity to love was a good thing, but theres a fine line with that as well. Extreme love for ones country and ones own kind led to this kind of outbreak of ethnic warfare and whatnot as well. so its hard to say. I may go down to Kosovo for a day to check things out and then head on down to Macedonia. right now things in Kosovo are pretty safe, and the albanians are big fans of america, they even have a street named after Bill Clinton. so its good times. on Sunday we head of to Dubrovnik on the coast of croatia which promises to be awesome amaing sunny times. Thanks for reading, and let me know if ou have any questions!

Srpska!

and we're here! in the internet cafe playing "you are always on my mind" in Belgrade. After meeting another UW student on the plane, we got off...she lost her luggage somewhere along the plane switching and all that so thats a bummer. but all mine was there. we sorta got cheated on a skeezy taxi...so we got off at the first hotel, switched taxis and headed into the old city, wherein we got a bit lost but eventually found a nice hotel. life is so much cheaper here than london..its AWESOME. so hungry. mcdonalds is everywhere...but not very creative. more later.

pictures? i think yes.

Thanks for waiting for my pictures! Believe me everything was way more interesting in person..but there are so many funny things to be seen...just in everyday london times. and abbey road and pigeons in trafalgar! heres the link to the pictures. http://www.flickr.com/photos/7440769@N06/ and enjoy

and..Day 1 sorta

Interesting factoid of the day: Chicken selects with sour cream and chive dip doesnt actually taste bad at all! I am now sitting in my friends flat in London after quite the long plane ride, the train ride and tube ride. but i'm sitting pretty now and am probably due to fall asleep at any moment given that its about 5am back home.
Words to describe the Atlanta airport: ghetto, good smelling soap, and what had to be most of the U.S. army. no joke. like there were hundreds of them. the WHOLE airport was the army. But i was only there a half an hour. We had an amazing fligh attendent man who was all about being jovial. He didnt want us to think about us sitting on a plane and being bored. he was all "think of it as coming to my house! we'll watch some movies..have some drinks share some laughs. bring out the home movies!" it was a laugh and a half. We got our own entertainment systems too complete with like full CDs movies and Tv stations. i mostly watched the travel network which had moroccan travel whatnot which made me miss morocco. but now i'm in london and a double decker bus just went by my window. on the wrong side of the street. what madness! The people here are so varied and interesting too. It always throws me off guard though when there are black people that have british accents. but its nice though. i just dont expect it. theres a lot of british being thrown around here and..i can hardly contain myself. pictures to come soon as soon as i finish taking a nap and i go out on the town. next up: the Thames, trafalgar square, westminster abbey and more! stay tuned.

Welcome!

Welcome to my soon to be amazing travel blog! Official posting should start on March 21st or there abouts so stay tuned!