Now I know you were probably stressing out all week...."When is Val going to tell us about Serbia?? I can't handle the suspense!!" So sorry to keep you waiting, my friends. It's semi-difficult to sum up an entire city from a mere weekend, but here's what Megan and I got ourselves into...
Friday our train arrived at night in Belgrade. It's pretty nuts hopping off a train into a completely unfamiliar city and not knowing the layout, the language, or really anything at all. Luckily, I had Megan by my side, who has spent 50 days camping and hiking in the Arctic...pretty sure that makes her qualified to handle just about any situation. So, like the confident, wise travelers we are, we asked a taxi driver for directions (not to be mistaken for a ride!) and found our way to our hostel, fittingly called the "Chillton." First thing was first; GET A MAP. If there's one thing I've learned, always always always get a map asap. After the shock of being seven hours south of our beloved Budapest wore off, we realized how hungry we were, so we took our hostel host's advice and went to an artsy little pizza joint nearby. After our delicious late night dinner, we made it back and collapsed into our beds (actually, that's not entirely true; we were both on the top bunks, so it was more like a climb up and then a collapse).
Saturday morning, Megan and I continued composing song lyrics for our version of Rhianna's "Disturbia:" DisSerbia! Explorin you tonight...DisSerbia!....I-can't-speak-the-language.
As you can see, it's a bit incomplete, but we're going to keep adding on:) We decided to start off walking through what I guess you'd consider the city's downtown, through the "new" and "old" towns. Said hello to St. Mark's Orthodox Church, Parliament, the Republic's Square, and then made a pit stop for some pastries (Apparently, Serbs are known for their pastries; they definitely did not let us down). Our next stop was the Bohemian quarter, which we prefaced with a stroll through a local market where merchants sold things like honey, fruits, veggies, costume jewelry, sports equipment, and saws. From the Bohemian quarter, which mainly consisted of lots of photo-ops of adorable kittens, we made our way to the "old" town to check out Belgrade Fortress (gate was built 1404). This was really neat to see and actually seemed a lot more in tact to me than the hungarian castle Viségrad. And just to continue the trend of sharing embarrassing weekly moments...I fell off one of the walls. Yep, I was taking in the view from one of the little turrets and went to step down and did not see the lone rock perfectly positioned on the ground below for my destruction. My butt was pretty sore the rest of the day, and the rest of the week for that matter. No permanent damage, though. Anyways, after having some Forralt Bör while watching the sun set on the junction of the Sava and Danube Rivers, we made our way to one of the main pedestrian streets. Along the way, we made some canine friends and named them Fifi and Greg. These stray dogs followed us for about 20 minutes. Literally. No exaggeration. Fifi was definitely pregnant, and Greg was large and in charge. If you don't look at anything else after reading this sentence, PLEASE please please look at the video of these two adorable puppies! After splurging and purchasing a pair of ankle boots so that I can finally kind of fit in to the european fashion trend, we engaged in a bit of café-hopping, as we like to call it. This basically involves going into any café that looks welcoming and is reasonably priced..I think we went to 5. After the last stop and some unfortunately watery milkshakes (but still tasty), we returned to the Chillton happy and exhausted :)
Sunday we took a bus across the Sava River and into another section of the city. Our goal in doing this was seeing the Zemun Gardos, which is a tower that was built by hungarians, for hungarians. A taste of home! Unfortunately, the tower wasn't open, but we at least got to check it out from the outside. We spent the rest of the afternoon wandering around Zemun, philosophizing by the riverside, eating a delicious lunch, and just trying to get a feel for the Serbian culture.
So, some thoughts on Belgrade:
1) Main language is Vlach (Romanian dialect I think), which Megan initially thought was a form of math
2) It's a ginormous city and cannot be seen in one day
3) Dirtier (street-wise) than Budapest
4) Probably shouldn't travel there alone, especially as a young girl (two women at our hostel told us about pick-pocketing and near pick-pocketing experiences they'd had that day). Gypsy population was more prominent than what I've seen in Budapest.
5) Underdeveloped in terms of architecture, if that makes sense. Several buildings, had whole pieces missing! We wondered how much of that was still untaken-care-of damage from the bombing in 1999.
6) There was that same down-trodden essence in the air: a result of the post-communist era.
7) Traveling with Megan was the best:) I couldn't have asked for a better tourist buddy!!
We ate a traditional Serbian dinner to celebrate our great weekend and then took a night train back to Budapest. Time of arrival: 5 am. Took a brisk walk up to the Citadella to watch the sun rise over our home and then went off to class. Fabulous morning!
Whew. I'm tired just writing about it! But it really was a fun experience...it's just so cool to be able to hop on a train and travel to another country with the sole purpose of adventure/exploration. I'm so blessed I get to do this!
This past week's synopsis soon to follow-
love,
Val
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