Hello all!
Initially when I started this public journal, I assumed that I would update about once a week. But after today, I realize that that will not be possible unless each entry is an epic saga – there are so many “new” things everyday! So here is my account of Monday….and the first few hours of Tuesday.
Monday started off after a wonderful and welcomed night of rest with the complimentary breakfast at the motel. In my mind I was expecting the lavish buffet that I associate with not only American hotels but also with the hotels that Hollister, Savannah, Liz and Veronica and I stayed in while we were in Spain together. Breakfast in Sarajevo is a hardboiled egg, bread with jam and butter, and coffee/tea/milk depending on preference (to my own surprise I chose milk). After a quick meeting, going over the essentials of the readings, and a rough sketch of our meetings for the week, I spent the rest of the gorgeous morning sitting in the Motel’s garden (surrounded by a LOT of plaster garden accessories) underneath a nice umbrella. I was able to journal for myself, read for pleasure, finish the readings for today, and get to know more about the other students. Speaking of which, everyone is really great. The group is very open and welcoming and everyone seems to get along, then again it is only day two. But really, I can only imagine that the next forty days with these folk are going to be an absolute whirlwind.
At midday the group reconvened and we walked up to the pub where we will be holding our classes while we are in Sarajevo. Now, I recognize that a lot of the previous sentence is confusing; but when I say “up” I mean we walked UP. Sarajevo is in a valley surrounded by stunning mountains, so the city itself is rather hilly. Today we walked right up one of the hills. Now yes, our class will be held in a pub, it is called Phoenix and it is absolutely gorgeous. It reminds me of Hogwarts mixed with the Shire because the doors are so small. Everything is hardwood and there is a beautiful covered seating area at the entrance (look for pictures soon!). Plus, the walls of the room where we hold our class are absolutely covered in books, an absolute dream for me. To my surprise a few books that I know and have read were included on the shelves. We had class for five hours today, and it was very interesting but very long five hours. The second portion we sat outside under an umbrella, which made the situation much better. From the outside view of the pub, we overlooked Sarajevo from a height advantage, which made it easy to see the third main type of architecture in the downtown area – communism style apartment blocks. Our professor said that you can tell which buildings are remnants from Communist Yugoslavia because they look like Hamilton Hall on Chapel Hill’s campus but uglier (if that’s even possible!).
After class, it was dinnertime so I broke off with a smaller group to grab some food. On our way down the hill we had time to look closely at a cemetery that was by the side of the road. Every headstone that we saw said that the men who had died, died between 1900 and 2000, with a large amount in 1995. It is hard to believe that war was present here just over a decade ago. The cemetery we passed was a military cemetery, which is a good explanation of the dates, but still very sad. The entire area surrounding the cemetery was becoming a cultural center and memorial to honor the soldier’s lives.
Dinner consisted of meat stuffed peppers and onions, so my vegetarian days have quickly left. The good news is that I am pretty sure that the meat was not fed on ConAgra feed, so I feel better about it. There is a clear Turkish influence in the city, not only was my meal highly reminiscent of Greek (so I assume also Turkish) cuisine, but many shops sell Turkish coffee, it’s fascinating. After dinner we had “the best ice cream in the world” at a little shop called Egypita. Their vanilla ice cream was more a combination of French vanilla and caramel than plain “vanilla” but it was certainly delicious.
We stopped across the road from the Motel for a few drinks of Sarajevo’s locally brewed beer and by nine pm we decided to investigate “The Cave Club,” which was just a few paces away. The club was a lot of fun, underground with comfortable space, lighting and great dancing music. I am not sure what the club scene is really like in Sarajevo yet because so far we have just created our own party wherever we go. Luckily, we came in early since we have to wake up early tomorrow. I am still awake at 2 am because I am hyped up on adrenaline.
What is slowly becoming evident as I spend more time here is truly how deep the wounds of the war are. It is hard to remember this when Mazeratis, BMWs, Mercedes and Audis pass you by on the street, but one only has to look up to see the remaining bullet holes in the buildings to remember that war was here not long ago. The late-night concierge at the motel and a few students got into a conversation that ended up talking about the war. He had some fantastic insights, given that he was alive then. He told us that before the war everyone was friends (you would lend your Serbian neighbor a hammer if you were a Bosniak, and vice versa) but that after the war you do not have friends in other ethnic groups (you would not lend a hammer and neither would your neighbor). He does not like war, however. He said, “When I hate you and you hate me back, that is when you have war.” So while the ethnic groups don’t necessarily “hate” each other, they just choose to not associate with each other.
So really it’s only been day one and I already feel like I know a lot more than when I arrived on Sunday evening. I wish you all wonderful Tuesdays and I hope to hear from you all as well!
With Love,
Lauren
NB - For the record, I have yet to have a cup of coffee since leaving Charlotte on Saturday.
NB 2 – Kudos to Barge on the title, it was an alternative title to the Blog, but I didn’t know if there was Turkish coffee here.
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