sarajevo
take two... just lost all of this. must save these things frequently I have decided.
feel at a loss to describe a place in black and white words that requires so much intense imagery. will start with the beginning:
managed to ditch the last day of my accomodation in dubrovnik to the annoyance of my surly but otherwise ammicable hosts; but this is what happens when you decide to jump a bus to sarajevo at the last minute. wasn't so much bored with dubrovnik as felt it would be an absolute disgrace to pass up the opportuniuty to come in here.
after several border crossings (due to the particularly complicated set of border arrangements between croatia and bosnia in the post war) we managed to leave the moonlight shores of the croatian coastline and dive headlong into the dark of the bosnian countryside. managed to miss out/be denied a passport stamp due to sheer laziness: 4 physical checks of our passports and the removal of them off the bus to be closer examined still required a verbal request for a stamp which i passed up so not to inconvenience the other commuters. my old and new travelling buddies - yes more brits, whom i feel an ever increasing sense of comradere - didn't share the same communitarian sense of urgency and emerge the victors with a big fat bosnian passport stamp.
have realised that catching the overnight bus is no much more a "saving" on accomodation than a saving on a luggage locker for the night; may aswell have slept cramped up on a park bench. but then I guess I wouldn't be in sarajevo, and the daggy travel pillow did allow for an hour or two of bumpy sleep. this estranged state of mind made the 5:30am 3km walk to the hostel at the other end of town from the station all the more surreal.
trudged in after deciding that catching the tram was looking like an impossibility with no local currency. walked 50m the wrong way and then righted ourselves and began walking past the bullet shattered and shell damaged new (read: 80's communist) section of the cbd. tall concrete buildings stand windowless and unfurbished alongside new shiny glass structures. continued on down the empty main drag and past sniper alley where bosnians were terrorised and murdered by serbian snipers; at this point we managed to bump into a nice bloke who picks up struggling sleepwalking backpackers and directs them to the hostel. luckily one of the new brits i made friends with had the intelligent foresight to book ahead *i assume this is what happens when you plan your trip* so he called the hostel and added several of our gang onto the booking, outmanouvering the other more skillful orienteering pack of travellers who were well ahead of us on the street. aaah the wonders of modern technology...
killed 3 hours of time before check-in drinking fantastic espresso in a cafe across the road. the obviousness of the turkish influence is clear enough in the 700year old end of town, mosques spatter the skyline and byzantinian architecture colours the many corners. this, along with the christian austro-hungarian influence of the middle section of the city's architechture makes sarajevo a kalaidescope of history and culture. it is like a progression backwards in time (but seemingly a little forwards in philosophy) as you walk from the station. this turkish influence was never more obvious than in the coffee, and many baristers walk their steaming turkish espresso sets accross roads at the early hours to the other early openers (bakery's etc.) the bosnian 'convertible mark' is approximately at parity with the australian dollar but not much costs more than 1mark or 2. will see how dinner goes tonight. shall be rightly drunken i suspect.
checked in to a 10euro dormitory in this great old house, then payed a further 12euro to go on a suprisingly good guided tour. the impact of the war is visually shocking, but the intelligent, personal, emotive and incredibly straighforward account by our tourgide, sunny, of what it was like to live as a bosnian during the seige was utterrly astonishing. we drove out past the communist built accomodation suburbs, where block upon block of tall and crammed concrete appartments are affectionately labeleed Ablock, Cblock etc and sensitively garnished in red, blue, purple and other such timely colours. and then arrived on the outskirts of town by the airport where the bosnians built a tunnel under the airstrip to transport food and channel technology and weapons to their unarmed civillian volunteer army. the UN had control of the airport but the serbians managed to shoot anything that moved and the food-aid surmounted to approximately 300grams per person per month. thus the necessity and importance of this tunnel was paramount, a feature i had never heard of and feel greatly priveledged to have walked through a section of.
most interesting of all was sunny's intellectual account of the forces at play in the war, particularly that of the perspective that he believes all should take in examining this as a recent example of the fight of democracy against facism; where milosovic's horrible ethnic cleansing and nationalist motivations surmounted to the enforcement of a political and religious state upon others. alongside this was his accont of survival on behalf of the bosnian peolpe, who managed to resist and show social resiliance and ingenuity (some of the details of which I remember reading from 'Zlata's Diary' which my mum thoughtfully read to us before dinner when I was about 12) they conducted schools in basements, running the university during the siege, and most impressive of all, was the nightlife and parties that the youth threw. the sarajevo film festival was founded during the seige... it starts on the 20th of aug but I'll be well away from here by then.
the history of this town is somewhat inconceivable; most of it war related. i plan to see where the duke franz-ferdinand was shot in 1914 which began the war. that date may be edited by yours truley tomorrow when I see the plaque but i believe it to be correct.
ok so on to the food, the wine and the local spirits (made from plums i believe); hopefully reasonably priced... go the convertible mark! what a great name . very much looking forward to seeing liam sometime tomorrow night or the following morning; and then lucy, even better (sorry liam)
feel at a loss to describe a place in black and white words that requires so much intense imagery. will start with the beginning:
managed to ditch the last day of my accomodation in dubrovnik to the annoyance of my surly but otherwise ammicable hosts; but this is what happens when you decide to jump a bus to sarajevo at the last minute. wasn't so much bored with dubrovnik as felt it would be an absolute disgrace to pass up the opportuniuty to come in here.
after several border crossings (due to the particularly complicated set of border arrangements between croatia and bosnia in the post war) we managed to leave the moonlight shores of the croatian coastline and dive headlong into the dark of the bosnian countryside. managed to miss out/be denied a passport stamp due to sheer laziness: 4 physical checks of our passports and the removal of them off the bus to be closer examined still required a verbal request for a stamp which i passed up so not to inconvenience the other commuters. my old and new travelling buddies - yes more brits, whom i feel an ever increasing sense of comradere - didn't share the same communitarian sense of urgency and emerge the victors with a big fat bosnian passport stamp.
have realised that catching the overnight bus is no much more a "saving" on accomodation than a saving on a luggage locker for the night; may aswell have slept cramped up on a park bench. but then I guess I wouldn't be in sarajevo, and the daggy travel pillow did allow for an hour or two of bumpy sleep. this estranged state of mind made the 5:30am 3km walk to the hostel at the other end of town from the station all the more surreal.
trudged in after deciding that catching the tram was looking like an impossibility with no local currency. walked 50m the wrong way and then righted ourselves and began walking past the bullet shattered and shell damaged new (read: 80's communist) section of the cbd. tall concrete buildings stand windowless and unfurbished alongside new shiny glass structures. continued on down the empty main drag and past sniper alley where bosnians were terrorised and murdered by serbian snipers; at this point we managed to bump into a nice bloke who picks up struggling sleepwalking backpackers and directs them to the hostel. luckily one of the new brits i made friends with had the intelligent foresight to book ahead *i assume this is what happens when you plan your trip* so he called the hostel and added several of our gang onto the booking, outmanouvering the other more skillful orienteering pack of travellers who were well ahead of us on the street. aaah the wonders of modern technology...
killed 3 hours of time before check-in drinking fantastic espresso in a cafe across the road. the obviousness of the turkish influence is clear enough in the 700year old end of town, mosques spatter the skyline and byzantinian architecture colours the many corners. this, along with the christian austro-hungarian influence of the middle section of the city's architechture makes sarajevo a kalaidescope of history and culture. it is like a progression backwards in time (but seemingly a little forwards in philosophy) as you walk from the station. this turkish influence was never more obvious than in the coffee, and many baristers walk their steaming turkish espresso sets accross roads at the early hours to the other early openers (bakery's etc.) the bosnian 'convertible mark' is approximately at parity with the australian dollar but not much costs more than 1mark or 2. will see how dinner goes tonight. shall be rightly drunken i suspect.
checked in to a 10euro dormitory in this great old house, then payed a further 12euro to go on a suprisingly good guided tour. the impact of the war is visually shocking, but the intelligent, personal, emotive and incredibly straighforward account by our tourgide, sunny, of what it was like to live as a bosnian during the seige was utterrly astonishing. we drove out past the communist built accomodation suburbs, where block upon block of tall and crammed concrete appartments are affectionately labeleed Ablock, Cblock etc and sensitively garnished in red, blue, purple and other such timely colours. and then arrived on the outskirts of town by the airport where the bosnians built a tunnel under the airstrip to transport food and channel technology and weapons to their unarmed civillian volunteer army. the UN had control of the airport but the serbians managed to shoot anything that moved and the food-aid surmounted to approximately 300grams per person per month. thus the necessity and importance of this tunnel was paramount, a feature i had never heard of and feel greatly priveledged to have walked through a section of.
most interesting of all was sunny's intellectual account of the forces at play in the war, particularly that of the perspective that he believes all should take in examining this as a recent example of the fight of democracy against facism; where milosovic's horrible ethnic cleansing and nationalist motivations surmounted to the enforcement of a political and religious state upon others. alongside this was his accont of survival on behalf of the bosnian peolpe, who managed to resist and show social resiliance and ingenuity (some of the details of which I remember reading from 'Zlata's Diary' which my mum thoughtfully read to us before dinner when I was about 12) they conducted schools in basements, running the university during the siege, and most impressive of all, was the nightlife and parties that the youth threw. the sarajevo film festival was founded during the seige... it starts on the 20th of aug but I'll be well away from here by then.
the history of this town is somewhat inconceivable; most of it war related. i plan to see where the duke franz-ferdinand was shot in 1914 which began the war. that date may be edited by yours truley tomorrow when I see the plaque but i believe it to be correct.
ok so on to the food, the wine and the local spirits (made from plums i believe); hopefully reasonably priced... go the convertible mark! what a great name . very much looking forward to seeing liam sometime tomorrow night or the following morning; and then lucy, even better (sorry liam)
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