I snapped this photo of Ocean yesterday while we were having lunch at Usce. The light was perfect and she was looking so adorable. What an absolute angel! We got a lot of things done around the house and played quite a bit with the kids.
A highlight of the weekend was visiting Supermarket, a concept store here in Belgrade. A very hip place. It is a restaurant, spa, store, art gallery, etc. We went on a Sunday evening and the place was full. We want to check out their Sunday Jazz brunch which one of the attendants says is well attended by families. They had great gifts there and Nadia bought an agenda. I highly recommend a visit. It is located in Dorcol, #10 Višnjičeva street.
Dinner at Whatever @ The Corner - Belgrade, Serbia
I took this photo from a hilltop above Olympic Stadium in the northern suburbs of Sarajevo. The large gray area above the apartment buildings and below the snow is a cemetary of war dead. The siege of Sarajevo lasted over 4 years and over 11,000 people died. What a horrible waste! The cemetary pictured is only one of many.
The grave to the left is of a seven year old Bosniak. Most of the tombstones had deaths from the time of the siege. One of the horrible characteristics of the war in Bosnia was the heavy involvement of civilians. The fighting in Sarajevo was especially disturbing. There were few traditional front lines or strategic geographic points like a river or mountain top, but mostly building to building and apartment to apartment exchange of fire. I can’t believe so many non-combatants were trapped in the city. It sounded like from what I have read and from what people tell me is most ordinary citizens didn’t think there was going to be such a level of violence. The photos, videos, and accounts of the war are shocking. It was interesting to look for and experience the effects of war 15 years after it occured. I have visited battle sites before, like the Battle of Carabobo site in Venezuela. They were hundreds of years after the fact and seemed like ancient history. This was fresh. I wonder if this is what my father felt as he served in the US army of occupation in Germany in the early 1950’s. The devastating effects of WWII must have been all around him, not only in the buildings, but in the people also. Most of the people we talked to in the city were very nice and I didn’t ask much about the war. I thought that it would be too personal, especially questions coming from a tourist.
One of the most fascinating sites was the tunnel museum. This was the “tunnel of hope” that ran underneath the airport into the city. The tunnel was used to get people and supplies in and out of the city. The museum is located out by the airport and a short section of the original tunnel remains. The original house that sat above the entrance is now full of war displays. We watched a video about the war and the role of the tunnel. Owen was most excited about the fact that actor Daniel Craig (James Bond) also visited the tunnel and his picture was on the wall
I loved the city of Sarajevo. The mosques gave it an exotic touch, the mountains and ski areas around the city are beautiful, and the markets and friendly people make it a very cool place to visit. The older part of the city was crowded and parking was difficult. It will take a long time for the city to shake the effects of the war. The pre-war ethnic mix is now gone, with most Serbs leaving. The city is still great, but with the emotional and physical scars of war in the buildings and people, it is less of a city.
The Dayton Accords ended the war and it divided the country by the frontlines between the Bosnian Serbs and the Croats/Bosniaks. It is still one country, but divided into “cantons” which in my mind are basically countries. I was interested in how the Republika Srpska (RS) would be. RS is mountainous and beautiful. I saw one Bosnian flag while seeing in every village, huge Serbian flags without the coat of arms. The Bosnian flag was flying in a park made with EU money. In a few of the towns were new mosques, obviously built with money from the Middle East. The trip made me think about the Serbs of Bosnia. I got the impression that they were the “country cousins” of the Serbs. I suppose it would be like the differences between the New Yorkers or the people of Boston and Texans.
What both Bosnia and the Republika Srpska need are more money. With a better economy, people would have other worries besides ethnic or religous differences. As my friend in Belgrade said, “give them mortgages and bosses, and they will forget to shoot at each other.” He also said that before the war, there were more similarities between Bosnian Serbs and Bosniaks that between people the Bosnians and people in Belgrade. The war and afterwards made people express their differences more. As Barak Obama said, it is harder to find our similarities than our differences.
I hope to return to Bosnia again. I would like to go skiing there, see the Catholic shrine of Madjure (spelling) and the coastal area and highlands of Hercegovina.
Last weekend I went on a hiking trip to the UNESCO Heritage site called Đavolja Varoš (Devil’s Town). The main attraction advertised were the 200 odd pillars you can see in the photo above. These huge pillars are formed through many years of erosion. You can see the hikers on the far right of the photo. They are set in a beautiful canyon which we climbed into. The sun came out as I was taking this photo and the beautiful fall colors added to the scene. Legend has it that the devil made a secret potion into the spring water at the site, and when the local settlers drank it, they forgot their familial relationships. A brother and sister were about to get married when a protective fairy in the village prayed to god and he swept down and turned the entire lot into these stone pillars. I like this explanation better than the erosion one. I guess with the small pockets of population a long time ago, incest was a big issue for the community.
I took a group of students and we stayed at the Prolom banja spa. It is a communist era hotel that many elderly people go to for the healthy waters. The place was not very modern, but it was clean and somewhat comfortable and the staff was very friendly and helpful.
The Sacred Spiral Plum Tree
The second day we took a 3 km walk from the town of Prolom Banja to a small church called St. Lazar. It is one of the legends surrounding the Serb battle against the Ottomans in 1389. The church is about 10 kilometers from the Kosovo border set amidst some forested hills. The area is great for hunting deer, wolves, foxes, etc. according to the locals. The guide from the hotel told us that before doing battle against the Ottomans, the Serb soldiers walked around the church 6 times and they also planted six spiral plum trees which were regarded as sacred. The photo above shows the oldest remains from one of the trees. There are two living spiral trees next to the church.
Lazar was the leader of the Serbs at the time of the big battle and both he and the Ottoman leader died in the battle.
I am not sure how true this is. From my research, not much is actually known about the battle. It is a great story however and with the low clouds and mists set in the dark forest, it is easy to imagine the medieval Serbs doing battle with the Turks in this kind of setting. I really want to go back with mountain bicycles, there were roads and trails galore in the area.
Ocean is shown looking up at the tower of Beg’s Mosque in the old part of Sarajevo. It is located in the center Bascarsija market and while we were shopping, we stopped to take a look at a fine example of Ottoman architecture. The towers of mosques can be seen throughout the city and in villages in Bosnia.
Beg’s mosque was financed by Gasi-Husrev Beg in 1531. He was the Bosnian governor for Sarajevo when the Ottomans ruled most of the Balkan peninsula. The Ottomans were here for over 500 years and it is in Sarajevo their influence can be felt the most in the ex-Yugoslavia. They also converted many of the Serbs and Croats to Islam, hence the Bosniaks of today. The mosques add a touch of the exotic to Sarajevo. The mosque was destroyed several times throughout its history, most recently during the siege on Sarajevo from 1992-1995. The Saudis financed rebuilding of the mosque. We even heard the call to prayer, the first time I ever heard it live. Very cool.
The family in the market
The market was great! Nadia enjoyed looking at all the shops. We bought a tea set, scarf, etc. and I even bought a fez. The people in the market loved the kids and they got free candy where ever we went. It was low tourist season and horrible weather, so there were no crowds and we got to meet many of the vendors. I also got a nice shave. The kids also enjoyed using umbrellas for the first time. We had to buy three of them of course and they walked around with them every day. Ocean dragged hers through puddles.
Ollie and Ocean are pictured above preparing snowballs to throw at our car. We were excited to see lots of snow on our trip to Sarajevo. We are on fall break and are exploring Serbia’s neighboring country.
We got off to a slow start yesterday with many errands to do around the house. I cleaned the car, fixed the rearview mirror, and helped Nadia pack. We made a delicious pancake breakfast as well as downloaded stories to listen to while driving. After exchanging some boots for Nadia, we were on our way.
Serbia has many single family farms still
We had a slight change in plans even before we got started. We had originally planned to stay near Visegrad, a town just across the Serbian border. The town was made famous by Nobel Prize laurate, Ivo Andric, a famous Yugolsavian author. He wrote “Bridge On the Drina”, a historical fictional account of the town. I blogged about the book here. We did not stay there because the best place in the area according to the guidebooks, was used in the 1990’s as a rape camp by paramilitary forces in the Yugoslavian civil war. The Bradt Guide to Bosnia didn’t mention this. Young and beautiful Bosniak women from the Visegrad area were kept there. Nadia felt queasy about staying the night in a such a place, 16 years after. I didn’t realize how much of the war happened in Visegrad. Many Bosniaks fled the area and what used to be a mixed area, is not predominately Serbian. That is consistent with the history of the place. Much violence happened there over the centuries, from the Ottoman Turks taking Serbian boys away from their families to be raised as Ottomans, to the Austro Hungarians subduing the Ottomans.
The Drina Bridge At Night
Perhaps it was a rainy, cold night, but the town felt a bit depressed. We stopped and I took some pictures of the bridge and walked out to the capia. There is no car traffic on the bridge. It is quite an impressive architectural feat, considering how wide the river is and how long ago the sultan ordered the bridge to be built. I used Serbian RSD to buy gas in the city.
The highlight of the day was the beautiful snow in the mountains. On the Serbian side in Zlatibor, there was lots of snow. We stopped at the Hotel Mecanik for a late dinner, just outside the village of Mokra Gora. We wanted to spend the night, as Ocean vomitted and the kids and I were tired. There was no rooms available, so we decided to go on to Sarajevo. It snowed the whole way and I was a bit disappointed not to be able to see the beautiful canyons and mountain views as we were approaching Sarajevo. Being from northern Michigan, USA, the snow brought back memories of my youth.
We finally arrived in Sarajevo around 10:00 PM. Distances are deceptive in Serbia and Bosnia as the narrow, twisting mountain roads make progress slow. It took about 200 hours to travel the roughly 100 kilometers. The hotel we booked was full so we found another nearby. Initial impressions are a lively, beautiful city. I can’t wait to explore it.
The Pleasures of Family Travel - Cleaning Vomit off a Car Seat
We are having a bit of car trouble. The temperature gauge is cold even though we drove through the mountains all day. I think it is a thermostat problem, we’ll have to get it checked out today or tomorrow before we leave on Tuesday.
Alejandra at lunch with Nadia and our friend Vesna
It was a sad week as Nadia’s sister Alejandra and our nephew Sebey left us. Their school in Bahrain closed because of H1N1 flu fears. All schools on the island closed and so they took advantage of the unexpected October holiday and stayed with us for almost 2 weeks. It is only a few hours flight away and only one time zone difference.
It was great to see them again. Sebey is growing up very fast. He spent a lot of time “roughhousing” (an USA upper midwest term) with his cousins. Nadia and her sister are quite close.
It felt like someone turned on the winter switch as the cold, wet weather came in a hurry this week. Up until Monday, the weather has been absolutely beautiful with warm temps and sunny skies. This week temps were near freezing, although yesterday it finally warmed up a bit and the skies cleared. It has got us all in the autumn mood and as you can see by the photos in this post, we’re doing all of the fall activities.
Nadia receives help from kids in sorting through the winter clothes
It is a nice change of pace after so many years in the tropics. This week we took the winter clothes out of storage. We also carved the Romanian pumpkins that we stole from a peasant farm a couple of weeks ago. I also finally figured out my blackberry and uploaded all of the photos to my flickr.com site. The phone takes excellent photos.
I listened to Owen’s presentation on Bolivia. The first grade class in celebration of International Week in the Lower School, had all of the students give presentations on a country of their choice. Most students chose either nations of their families or where they spent most of their lives. At an international school, there is always a lot of mixed families. Owen chose to do Bolivia because there are not many South Americans in Serbia. He was also born there and is a Bolivian citizen. We spent several holidays there and he also had an extended stay when Ocean was born.
Owen had many photos and stories to share with the parents and people at the presentations. He also finally got a haircut last night. This is the shortest he has had his hair in a long time. He looks very different! I didn’t recognize him when I first walked in today.
He did an excellent job and we are proud of him. Way to go Owen!!!!
Yesterday we visited Kovačević Wine Cellar located in the village of Irig, which is about 70 kilometers north of Belgrade. The village lies in the Fruška Gora National Park. Fruška Gora means “Frankish Mountain” in English. It is a region of hills that are in the middle of the flat plains of Vojvodina. The hills were a natural frontier of the Frankish Empire back in the 400s. I prefer the Roman name for the area, Fertile Mountain because it is a great region for growing grapes. The Franks have not been around in a long time. Besides wine, Fruska Gora has some hiking and 12 Serbian Orthodox monasteries, and we will come back again for those.
We found the address of Kovačević in a guide to the wines of Serbia and it was recommended to us by friends. It is not the vineyards and elegant tasting experience of the wineries we went to in Australia, but a nice experience nonetheless. There is no sign in front and so we went around the side of the building. The workers were busy with crushing the grapes and the kids got to see the process of fermentation and storage.
The Kids Save the Grapes from Being Crushed
I was most excited to try the Bermet, which is a type of wine only produced by the Fruska Gora wineries. It is a strong dessert wine, that is infused with herbs and spices. It used to be very popular with the Austro-Hungarian royalty and it was on the wine list of the Titanic. Today, it is not known outside of Serbia. We liked both the white and red versions of the Bermet. We bought two bottles of the red. We also liked the Aurelius, a mix of Cab Sav and Merlot, aged in the barrels below. Nadia also bought a Rajninski Reisling and Chardonnay. I also liked the Reisling, which had tones of green apples. We will be visiting the region again! After the winery, we had dinner in Novi Sad and walked around the beautiful old part of town.
The highlight of the day however was not the sightseeing, but just spending time with the kids. Below they are eating another of my delicious breakfast entrees. It is good also to have my nephew Sebey visiting us.
Last night my friend Claudiu and I took the kids to the Serbia versus Romania World Cup Qualifying match. Serbia was leading Group 7 in the European Group and needed a win to secure a spot in next summer’s World Cup soccer tourney in South Africa. They earned their spot with an emphatic 5 – 0 win over neighboring Romania.
We got pumped up for the game with a lunchtime soccer match
My last experience at the stadium for the Austria qualifying match was horrible and I was apprehensive in taking three young boys (Owen, Sebey & Tudor) to the game. We were crushed in the entrance at that game, but last night’s game was very well organized. Stadium officials looked at the tickets at several checkpoints on the way to our seats. The seats were numbered and there was one seat for every person. There were also many police and ushers in the aisles to prevent overcrowding in the exits like last time.
Serbia obviously outplayed Romania and were back to their up tempo attacking football that has been lacking the past few matches. At the end of the match, there was a big celebration with fireworks and President Tadic in his luxury box opening up the champagne. Serbia qualified for the first time as an independent nation – in 2006 in Germany, they were still Serbia-Montenegro. It is interesting the there are several ex-Yugoslavia republics with chances of qualifying. Bosnia-Hercagovina will finish in second place in their group and will play off to get in. Slovenia also is in second place and could qualify automatically as group winner if Slovakia loses to Poland. Croatia is one point out of second but will probably not get into the playoff.
How will they do in South Africa? They have as good of chances as anyone else. They have one superstar, Manchester United defender Nemanja Vidic. They are solid in the midfield with InterMilan player and team captain, Dejan Stankovic. My favorite player on the team and possibly their best, is Milos Krasic. He plays for CSKA Moscow and really makes things happen for Serbia. He is fast and always moving forward and is always involved in Serbia’s goals. He is a player to watch out for as he is only 24. I can’t believe one of the bigger European clubs hasn’t picked him up yet. They also have the tallest soccer player at this level, 6’8” Nikola Zigic. He usually gets several good header opportunities in front of the goal every game. Their goalie is solid and if the role players can step it up, they have a shot at taking on the big boys. They need another big scorer as I don’t think Marko Pantelic, one of the strikers is up to World Cup level of play. He is always complaining on the field and doesn’t really do a whole lot in my opinion. They will always be in games with Vidic as center back.
Lunch With the Romanian Supporters
The qualification means the World Cup will be much more interesting for me with Serbia and the USA in the tourney. I have photos on my Blackberry but haven’t yet figured out how to upload them to my computer. I will post some photos from the game when I get a chance.
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