Life, with the park
Location: Belgrade, Serbia • • • Visit: July 2013
Before Belgrade, one rainy Sarajevo night:
After a day of touring the wartime tunnels, wandering through the beautiful city, photographing interesting communist-era architecture and bullet holes left in the walls since the 1990s siege, my plan was to spend the evening catching up on my blog posts. But when I went down to the common room to rinse off my apricots and figs, the rain was pouring down outside and I’ve always had a weakness for heavy rain. Especially going out in them, barefoot, feeling the water fall on my face.
Out on the hostel terrace, which was situated on top of the roof of the lower neighboring building, the water was gathering in puddles. On the long wooden couch, in the shelter underneath the balcony one floor up, two of my fellow tunnel tour participants were sitting. I asked if I could join them with my fruits for a while, and then I just didn’t feel like leaving.
Sitting there, sheltered from the rain but with my feet sticking out (the couch was very deep, so my feet really did stick out, toes straight into the rain), I ate my figs and my apricots. Rain fell on my Bolivia tattoo, not cold, only leaving a fresh taste in the air. The boys from the tour were talking about tourist nationalities that bugged them. The German guy, who’s name I can’t remember anymore, disliked Australians – for their cheerfulness and their drunkenness. Sebastian, the Danish guy, thought Americans could be quite rude. I told them about my not very pleasant experiences with nineteen-year-old Germans in Canada.
The discussion meandered on, touching upon my studies and development aid in African countries, about becoming a consultant and making a lot of money (both boys were business students), and then we dived right into Kierkegaard. Next to economy, Sebastian was also studying philosophy, and him being a Dane I thought the Kierkegaard anniversary (Kierkegaard was born 200 years ago this year) could be an appropriate subject. It turned into a crash course in existentialism for the German, as both Sebastian and I were partial to the existentialist take on ethics, after which we were joined by the other Danes and the young hostel receptionist and the discussion turned to football. To that, I didn’t really have anything to add, but I was content sitting there, listening, feeling the drops of rain run down the sore soles of my feet.
Eventually, someone mentioned food. I wasn’t hungry, but if I was to go to eat, it would have to be real Bosnian. The German had already eaten, and the other Danes didn’t feel like walking down to the old town, where the Bosnian-food-serving-restaurants were, but Sebastian was game. We were in Sarajevo, after all.
It was already eleven at night and still pouring outside, but I had my umbrella and Sebastian borrowed one from the hostel. When we entered the old town, the prayer call went out from the mosque, and when we passed it, the whole courtyard in front of it was filled with people. It was the first night of Ramadan, and now all the Bosniaks were praying as the start of their fasting. The imam was singing the prayer monotonously through the speakers and all the people in the mosque and out in the courtyard were kneeling, lowering their upper bodies and touching their foreheads to the ground, standing up and going back down again in unison. We stood there in the rain, Sebastian and I, under our umbrellas, watching the prayer through the mosque gates. The prayer song and the movements of the participants was hypnotizing.
We found a restaurant that still served food, and I had a delicious lentil stew. Sebastian told me that he was planning to read all the Nobel literature price laurates, which is funny because I’m doing the same myself. I told him about my love for libraries and he said he prefers to own books. I told him about the Japanese fusion tapa restaurant in Vancouver, and he said that the food in Indonesia is very hot, tear-producing-hot.
And I just started thinking to myself: where were these boys when I was young and innocent? I’ve met a couple of them now, during the last year, young men with dreams and ideals. I used to be like that, when I was 17, 20 – but the boys I met then were either older or already cynics and I thought I needed to be cynical too and less exuberant to be cool and attractive. And now, I think I’ve passed the age when it’s charming to build castles in the sky, have big plans and get away with it. A part of me wished I could go back, be 20 again and run my fingers through Sebastian’s beautiful dark hair.
I blame the rain. Summer rains always do funny things with me.
After finishing our food, we met up with the other Danes, took a beer at a bar and then went back to the hostel terrace to continue our talk about food and extraordinary travel experiences. Sebastian fell asleep on the couch, but his friends also had many stories to tell, and we were joined by an American who was a student of international relations and I didn’t get into bed until after three.
The next morning, I went out for a midday walk and just missed the Danes when they left the hostel to go to Mostar.
I didn’t get to say goodbye to Sebastian and his friends. But he was there for the most magical night of my trip. I will carry him with me, along with the feeling of the rain on my feet, walking through the dark Sarajevo streets underneath my umbrella, listening to the Ramadan prayer. He will be remembered, put away in that little place I have for perfect moments in life. Maybe that is the best that could have happened.
A morning in Sarajevo: It’s way past 10 and I should get going, really, go out and do something. But my feet are full of blisters and yesterday I went to sleep after three in the morning.
I don’t have blisters because of my shoes, my shoes are great, I love my shoes. I have blisters because I’ve actually been walking so much. The blisters are on the soles of my feet. There is also this dull ache in them that doesn’t go away even after I’ve slept. So, yeah, you could say I’ve been touristing pretty hard during the last 25 days.
I’m gonna go have Bosnian pastries for breakfast now.
After leaving Sarajevo, and having a beautiful bus ride across the mountains while listening to First Aid Kit, I was met by Hanna and Kirke at the Belgrade bus station. Hanna was invited to a wedding, and in the generous tradition of the Balkans, Ana, the bride, happily invited Kirke and me to be Hanna’s +2. We spent five days exploring the city, experiencing various Serbian wedding traditions, bickering like only really old friends can, laughing ourselves silly like only old friends can, enjoying great food and strong drinks.
This being 30ish days into my journey, I was happy but overwhelmed. It felt like things just kept on happening. I simply didn’t know what to do with all the new experiences that I’d picked up.
And, as if the Now wasn’t enough, while having cocktails at a fancy bar on the posh side of Belgrade, we realized that there was customer Wi-Fi. I checked my inbox for the first time in days, and was shocked to see that I had gotten the acceptance e-mail to the Master’s programme in Social-Ecological Resilience for Sustainable Development at Stockholm Resilience Center. Which is huge.
So now I know what I’ll be doing in the fall. And for the next two years too. Feels both good and a bit intimidating.
After Kirke left early in the morning the day after the wedding, Hanna and I had a last leisurely day wandering around Belgrade. Walking beyond the most touristy streets, ended up seeing some interesting neighborhoods, where walls were covered in graffiti and the plaster was wearing off. Our goal was the botanic garden, which showed as a green spot on the tourist map – but when we arrived at the main gates, we were met by a large sign written in Serbian, but with a big EU logo at the bottom. I’m pretty sure what it said was that the garden was being renovated, funded partially by the European Union. So, I didn’t get to go to the Belgrade Botanic Garden. Maybe it wasn’t such a great loss. I’ve been to a couple botanic gardens on this trip already.
After that, Milena, the friendly architect that Miles-my-Seattle-couchsurfing-host put me in touch with, called and we decided to meet up with her at Ada Ciganlija.
Ada Ciganlija is the artificial island in the Sava River that creates a lake, which in turn is surrounded by beaches, boardwalks and bars. Tons of people come here, especially on sunny weekend afternoons. A favorite spot for Belgradians to spend their leisure time. From the northern tip of the lake, the Ada Bridge is in plain view. It is a magnificent bridge. Really beautiful.
The beaches around the lake were packed. We met Milena and two of her friends for lemonade and then took a walk around the lake, eating ice cream and talking about the Serbian Orthodox church, hidden architectural gems of Belgrade, Novi Beograd and Balkan food. It was a very enlightening walk, which concluded with us getting a ride in Milena’s friend’s Yugo (a tiny car model, from what I hear a very Yugoslav piece of machinery). The perfect ending to a very exciting and intense visit to Belgrade.
Katja Malmborg 