Serbian Thanksgiving - Day one

I traveled to Serbia for the Thanksgiving weekend with Megan, Tara, Jeremy and Sean. I had never met Jeremy and Sean before, but it was a fun short four day trip to a new city and a new country. Things started a bit rocky like usual- both Megan and I were having train issues. Hers never showed up, and mine was significantly late. It ended up working okay because our train wasn’t leaving until 11:00 pm as it was an overnight train. We were pleased that everything worked out okay UNTIL I looked at our sleeper car reservations and asked Tara how we could be sleeping in the same bed. She noticed right away that of course, that my tickets were good for the next day, not that day. UGHUGHUGHUGH. I tried to talk to the train ticket lady about it and her immediate response was “nem jó.” WHAT? They were no good? I bought them in October and spent $60.00 on them… how could they be no good. Couldn’t they see that I had bought them in good faith, and the sleeper cars certainly were not full – why wouldn’t they just let Megan and I sleep in a vacant spot? Oh well – we boarded the train and sat in a normal car which wasn’t that bad. We were able to lie down for a while on the bench seats, though it was not very comfortable and I didn’t get much sleep. On top of it all, I had come down with what turned out to be the worlds worst cold, or H1N1 – the jury is still out on that. So I coughed all night long and blew my nose regularly. I’m still amazed that Megan didn’t get sick being trapped in that car with me for 8 hours.

We all arrived in one piece and trucked off toward the center of Belgrade. The first thing we saw after exiting the train station was some bombed out buildings. This was quite a “welcoming” sight to Belgrade. NATO had come through in the 1990’s and bombed the Serbian army buildings. I don’t know if they left them in their bombed state as a memorial to never forget what happened, or if there just wasn’t the money to fix these buildings. My favorite part of this seemingly “Eastern European” scene was the McDonalds sign that was hung prominently in front of one of these bombed buildings.

We headed to the hostel and relaxed for a while, since we got there at 6:30 in the morning. I took about an hour nap and enjoyed some Turkish coffee before heading out. Well, let me clarify. I don’t like coffee, and I really don’t like Turkish coffee – BUT since I was so sick, I couldn’t taste anything. So when Igor the hostel worker offered some, I took him up on it. Additionally, when we read the information on-line about this particular hostel, it seemed as if EVERY review had some statement about “and I LOVED the Turkish coffee…Igor’s Turkish coffee was wonderful… and they gave lots of free Turkish coffee…” so Megan and I had to try it.

Igor's Turkish coffee residue - you don't drink the sludge at the bottom

A Greek Orthodox Church near our hostel

We regrouped and headed out to see the sights of Belgrade. It was a beautiful day so we walked to a church that was near our hostel, to the open air market, and then to the largest Greek Orthodox church in the world. The market was typical of many I've come across in Europe - fruits and vegetables, some meat stands and then household goods and other clothes.

Megan blocking my perfect picture of the market broom man

these aren't scarves... they're tights. I love Europe

Cute old man outside a church

the largest Greek Orthodox church in the world - I forgot what it's called

inside the church - they were doing re-construction

The Greek Orthodox church was beautiful but they were doing some massive construction on the inside. As a result, they moved all their religious artifacts to a smaller viewing area. I was looking at a crucifix when Jeremy came up to me and said, “wow, Jesus looks really uncomfortable there.” I wasn’t exactly sure what to say to that – and when I repeated it to the others in the group he wanted me to put it in context, but I wasn’t doing anything to set a context except looking at a crucifix.

the "uncomfortable" Jesus

more inside the church... these are the collection of icons and religious art removed while the construction was going on

a HUGE round-a-bout in the center of Belgrade- a TOTAL death trap! There weren't lights anywhere!

At any rate, we headed out to see more of the town – so where did we end up? McDonalds. I really wanted a Diet Coke (Cola Light in Europe) so I was excited to have a meal there. Unfortunately, when I ordered my McChicken meal, the clerk said to me that they did not have any Cola Light. Pshhhhssh What? No Cola Light? Well, in all honesty I couldn’t taste anything anyway, so I supposed that a Coke Zero wouldn’t kill me. The lady said ok and plopped a can of Coke Zero onto the tray. A CAN? What? Have you ever had a can of any cola at a McDonalds? Boo to you Serbia. Boo.

We went back to the hostel and relaxed a bit more and eventually headed out to dinner. We ended up at a small Serbian place that felt a bit like a mob run Italian family restaurant. I don’t know why, but it just had a feeling like that. There was a sketchy group of old ladies sitting in the corner of the place who were probably plotting the death of someone – at least that is what it looked like.

We ordered dinner – I ordered some chicken soup since I couldn’t really taste anything anyway – and a stuffed pepper. The soup was good, the pepper? I’m not sure. It was a hot pepper smothered in sour cream and stuffed with sour cream. Apparently it was a hotter pepper as I started sweating while eating it. Unfortunately, I couldn’t taste the pepper, so it made no sense to really keep eating it, but it seemed like it tasted good smothered in sour cream.

During the meal, we were serenaded by a small band. It was a bass, a clarinet, an accordion and a guitar. They played the theme from the Godfather – of course since there were Serbian ordered mob hits being planed in the corner – and other strange songs for a Serbian restaurant. I cautioned the table to not make too much eye contact with the band – as they would probably charge us for looking at them like other gypsy bands had. I about hit the roof when we got our bill though. I don’t read Serbian and I can’t understand the Cyrillic alphabet, but I understood clearly on our bill when it read “Muszicki Szervis.” WHAT? Are you kidding me? You charged our table the equivalent of $7.00 to just be entertained by people whom we didn’t ask to entertain us?!? ARGH – Strike two Serbia. Phoey.

Here is the receipt... "Muzicki Servis" hmph.