Geez, what a whirlwind trip. I hardly have a chance to write about my (mis)adventures before I’m off to my next destination!
I left Sarajevo for Mostar on a 7:15am train on Saturday morning. I’d heard the scenery along the Sarajevo-Mostar train route was some of the most beautiful in Europe, so I was looking forward to it. I was not to be disappointed.
Leaving Sarajevo, the scenic route begins in the mountains to the west (Igman and Bjelašnica, I think), where the train skirts the mountain side as it winds its way down into the valley, sometimes with only sheer drops below. The sunshine that graced Sarajevo quickly turned to thick fog as we entered the mountains. We climbed the mountains and eventually emerged from a tunnel above a small town shrouded in fog with mountain tops rising above it into clear skies and sunshine. (Sadly, all the photos I took from inside the moving train are pretty much terrible.)
Looking onto the foggy valley from above.
We eventually came out of the mountains and into the valley, where the line ran alongside the west bank of the Neretva river all the way into Mostar, about another hour and half. The river was narrow, and craggy mountains shot straight up on either side of it. Then, we passed through one last tunnel into a wide valley before finally arriving in Mostar.
Dropping down from the mountains into the foggy valley.Along the Neretva, covered in fog.Along the Neretva, fog lifting.The wide valley leading to Mostar.
The best part of my stay in Mostar was my AirBnB host, Teo. He picked me up at the train station and drove me back to the apartment, telling me about all the various landmarks we came across along the way. He has a few apartments in Mostar and offers tours of the city and surrounding areas to his guests, so he’s very knowledgeable about the place.
The first thing I noticed about Mostar was the war damage. I thought I saw war damage in Sarajevo, but it was obvious after seeing Mostar that a lot of money had gone in to Sarajevo’s recovery and only cosmetic damage remained there. In Mostar, there were many buildings that were merely empty shells, with only the core structure still intact; they obviously hadn’t been touched since the war and there didn’t appear to be any plans for rebuilding. I was shocked by how many of these I saw just driving the main streets from the bus station to the apartment.
Ruined buildings such as this one are commonplace in Mostar. Note the sign.Just one of the many ruined buildings easily visible from above.
When we got back to the apartment, he had a couple other guests who were waiting on him to take them to the local farmer’s market/swap meet, so we all piled in his car and were off. The market was fascinating, of course. They had people there selling everything under the sun, including their own old possessions. According to Teo, they also had plenty of stolen goods for sale, especially bicycles. We tried some dried meats and cheeses. They have a cheese here they make by warming up milk and skimming the skin off the top of the milk, and that skin makes the cheese. It’s very creamy and I used it as a butter substitute on bread with some jam – delicious!
Teo and his other guests in front of the smoked meat stand. That’s a side of goat behind Maria.
After the swap meet, Teo invited me to come out to his parents’ home in the village on the outskirts of Mostar. They have a few acres there where they used to grow gads and gads of fruits and vegetables – every square inch devoted to producing, Teo said – but the place was badly damaged during the war and they were gone for a few years afterward, so they’re still working on building it up to what it used to be. The one-floor home used to be two floors. Of course, there’s no money to be had from the government for reconstruction, so it’s all on their own dime. We walked around and he showed me all the stuff they produce and used to produce.
The house. That hole in the wall is war damage. There used to be a 2nd floor, as well.This obviously used to be a covered building.Tobacco drying. Whatever damage you see here is from the war – this is not merely they kind of dilapidation you find in poor countries.A Japanese apple from their tree. They are sweet and delicious and have the consistency of jelly.Coffee with Teo’s mom and her friend. They also fed me and gave me some homemade rakija to drink. This family is unbelievably generous.
The next morning, I got a lazy start and headed over to the old town to see the famous Stari Most – Old Bridge. The bridge had been standing in Mostar for nearly 500 years when it was blown up during the war. They just rebuilt it a few years ago. The old town area of Mostar is tiny, but really picturesque – all cobblestone passageways and stone building facades built up over the steep banks of the exceedingly blue Neretva river.
Stari Most as viewed from the south.View of the bridge and looking north.The Crooked Bridge, located in the old town very close to the Old Bridge. I’m not sure why it’s called the crooked bridge as I didn’t notice it to be crooked. It was damaged in the war and ultimately collapsed in 1999 during floods, but was rebuilt.Lovely view from the Crooked Bridge.
Jumping from the Old Bridge into the Neretva – a 20m drop – is a long tradition in Mostar. Guys will solicit money from onlookers to jump. You can pay someone to teach you how to do it properly so you don’t get hurt. Teo’s dad used to be a bridge jumper, and even appeared in a book about famous jumpers.
So, I walked up to the Old Bridge just as this guy was jumping off it. There he goes…Doesn’t that look fun ?! (Oh, do you detect sarcasm?)That guy in the middle of the bridge was up there posturing trying to round up some money, but he never did jump.Here goes another one.There he goes…I love this photo – he’s about .1 seconds from hitting the water.Then there was this guy. I don’t know where he learned that form, but he looks like a rag doll. Fortunately, he survived unscathed.
I will say I was disappointed by how touristy Mostar’s old town is. It wouldn’t call it a tourist trap because it has legitimate value as a historic site (the whole area is a UNESCO World Heritage Site), but the unbroken chain of souvenir shops and vendors that lined the narrow main pathway was a disappointment. Mostar is such a tiny little town in the middle of Herzegovina that I didn’t expect it to be much of a tourist destination at all, but it attracts an ungodly number of tourists for the size of the place, even in October.
The pathway leading to the Old Bridge.
In the afternoon, Teo took me around to a couple other sites – the Partisan Memorial and the glass bank. The Partisan Memorial honors Yugoslavs who died defending the country against Nazi invasion in WWII. It has a unique terraced design with a fountain that spills into a small rivulet running through the memorial. Stones shaped a bit like puzzle pieces and etched with the names of those who died are scattered across the place. Unfortunately, there’s no money for upkeep of the memorial, so the fountain no longer works and Teo told me the place was full of weeds and trash (people like to go there to drink and hang out in the summertime because it abuts the mountain and is cooler than in town) but that they had recently cleaned it up.
Partisan Memorial.View of Mostar from the top of the Partisan Memorial.
On the way to the glass bank, we ran into this guy in a park:
Bruce Lee statue in a park in Mostar.
The glass bank stands about 8 (10?) stories high and used to house a bank on the ground floor and some other businesses on the upper floors. The building had an entirely glass facade, thus the moniker “glass bank.” During the war, snipers shot on the town from this building. Nothing of the glass facade remains, save the broken shards that line the ground in and around the building. No reconstruction has been initiated, and the entrance to the building is permanently closed. That doesn’t stop anyone from going in, though – people just pile up some rocks and hop the wall, which is exactly what we did.
The glass bank.
The glass bank has attracted not only photographers and journalists, but graffiti artists, as well. The walls inside the building are covered in elaborate graffiti. Teo told me there was even a type of festival a while ago where a bunch of graffiti artists showed up to paint the walls of the glass bank.
Graffiti art in the small park just outside the glass bank.Graffiti art in the small park just outside the glass bank. Notice the damaged building.Nifty graffiti art inside the glass bank.The first floor of the glass bank. The ground is covered in garbage and debris.Inside the glass bank. I didn’t even notice that guy sleeping on the far left of the picture.See the plants starting to grow up in the cracks?
There’s a stairwell you can climb all the way up to the top floor – the eeriest stairwell I’ve ever climbed up.
That stairwell……absolutely zero walls to prevent you falling to your untimely death. People come here and drink (and do drugs, apparently).
From the top floor, you have to climb a sort of fire ladder to get to the roof.
Climbing to the roof of the glass bank.
That view though…
Amazing panoramas of Mostar from the roof of the glass bank.Diggin’ the view.Still diggin’ the view.
Monday was a tour of the surrounding areas: Blagaij fort (or Stjepan Grad, the ruins of the fort of the first king of Hercegovina), Blagaj, Počitelj, Mogorjelo, Kravice Falls, and Međugorje. Every single place we went was amazing. Every single one. It rained on Monday, which put a bit of a damper on the day and had me wondering, as I hiked up various hills in my sandals and in the cold and wet, whether the destination was worth the annoyance. It was and then some, every single time.
At the Blagaj fort.At the Blagaj fort.Blagaj is known for being the source of the river Buna (that cave just above the water to the right) and for the Dervish House, the white building there, originally built in the 15th century by Muslim dervishes.Beautiful and ornate hand-made ceiling in the dervish house.The amazing view from the fort ruins at Počitelj.Our little crew.Ancient Roman ruins at Mogorjelo. The site was massive.An old vessel for hold wine or olive oil. Keeping it in the ground kept the temperature cool and consistent.At Mogorjelo ruins.The amazing and spectacular Kravice waterfalls.Međugorje is famous because some teens back in the 80s say the Virgin Mary appeared to them on the hillside and told them she was there to bring them peace. There’s a huge outdoor amphitheater there for mass, which they do in several different languages, and they have dozens of confessional booths in at least 20 different languages. The little town there is full of shops selling Virgin Mary paraphernalia. Another miracle occurred there when this statue of Jesus started leaking water from his knee. People come collect the water with tissues for whatever reasons they may have. I like the design of the statue, as if he were pried out of that piece of metal. Međugorje is not a Vatican-approved holy site.
I was so busy running around Mostar I didn’t take time to arrange for the next leg of my trip. I stayed an extra night in Mostar and spent Tuesday relaxing and making travel arrangements for the following day.
Sarajevo…where do I begin with this city? With its beauty, immense historical significance, recent suffering and violence, and remarkable recovery to a bustling metropolis once again?
Just a typical walk through the narrow streets of Sarajevo’s beautiful old city.Morning fog shrouds the surrounding hills.
My decision to come to the Balkans was driven in large part by my work supporting the peace-keeping efforts here in the late 90’s. Then, the names of obscure Balkan cities and neighborhoods were part of my everyday vocabulary. Which is not to say that I knew much at all about the war itself. I wasn’t even in high school yet when the war broke out, and, strangely enough, I didn’t need to know about the war to do my job. Regardless what I did or didn’t know, I had no real comprehension of what happened here – of the magnitude of the murderous violence and depravity carried out against defenseless civilians by the Serbian and Republic of Srpska forces; of the civilians – people trying to live their lives in the midst of war – intentionally killed and lives destroyed in Serbia’s attempt to ethnically cleanse the region of all non-Serbs, especially Muslims. I had no understanding of the siege of Sarajevo – a siege which lasted 1,425 days (nearly 4 years) and which entailed Serbian and Republic of Srpska forces occupying the hills around the city and relentlessly shelling the civilian population trapped there. It’s estimated an average of 377 shells were fired on the city of Sarajevo every day during the siege. They had snipers to shoot civilians with high-tech, scoped machine guns supplied by the Russian government. I understood all of this as well as anyone who’s never experienced such atrocities personally, which is to say not at all.
The story of what happened here is overwhelming, and the reminders are everywhere. There are monuments throughout the city to honor those killed in general, as well as those killed in specific attacks at specific locations. Many building still retain the pock-marked scars of the shelling that took place around them. Exploding shells left divets in the concrete that radiated out from the center, like a flower; these were painted with a red resin and are known as “Sarajevo Roses.”
This “rose” was located at the Tunel Spasa.
On Thursday, I went to see the exhibition on the genocidal massacre that occurred at Srebrenica. If you’re not familiar, Srebrenica is a tiny town in eastern Bosnia. After the UN declared Srebrenica a “safe zone,” tens of thousands of Bosnian Muslims fleeing the violence in the eastern territories descended on the town. Despite the UN declaration, Republic of Srpska forces kept shelling Srebrenica from the hills and advanced to claim the city, causing these tens of thousands of people to flock to the UN base established just outside Srebrenica. The tiny UN contingent there, powerless to stop the Republic of Srpska forces, allowed the Republic of Srpska troops to take custody of the refugees under the auspice that they would be bussed out of the city. Most of the men and older boys had fled on foot trying to reach Tuzla, which was in the free territory of Bosnia, believing this path to be safer than handing themselves over to the Serbs. The Republic of Srpska forces separated the men and boys who remained at Srebrenica from the women and bussed the women and children out of Srebrenica (presumably to free Bosnia), raping, torturing, and killing many of them along the way. The men they bussed to other locations and killed outright. The men fleeing to Tuzla were shelled, captured, and executed. If I remember correctly, of the 15,000 men and boys who set out for Tuzla from Srebrenica, only 6,000 arrived. The official death toll from the Srebrenica massacre is 8,373, mostly men and boys. In a video about Srebrenica, they actually showed footage Serb soldiers filmed of themselves executing men with their hands tied behind their backs, shooting them in the back – they would shoot, one would fall, another would step up, they would shoot again… It was disgusting. Some of the scenes from the video shown in the Srebenica exhibit can be found in this CNN piece, which stops just short of showing the actual executions themselves. If you want to see the full footage of the executions, you can see them here starting from 00:19 – 00:40.
The exhibit also included a video on the siege of Sarajevo. The damage to Sarajevo was unbelievable to me – I didn’t realize how extensive it had been. Burned out husks of tram cars sat all along the river and holes in buildings from the shelling were used as passageways. There was the infamous “sniper alley”… The whole thing was incredibly emotional and disturbing.
When I walked out of the exhibit, which was located right next to the Sacred Heart church in the middle of old town, I noticed damage on the church that was obviously from the war. I started to tear up. I suddenly saw the city in the middle of war, imagined all these people risking their lives just by being on the streets, running from the shelling. I started to see the war damage everywhere – it was everywhere, on so many buildings. I walked by the memorial to the children killed during the siege and by a “Sarajevo Rose” just few feet further down.
War-damaged building in the Old City, typical of the damage found everywhere in Sarajevo. I didn’t see any completely destroyed buildings – I imagine those have all been rebuilt by now.I found the juxtaposition of beautiful, modern buildings against old, war-damaged buildings interesting. Perhaps the white building on the left replaced one that had been destroyed by shelling.This is the art museum. This is one of the first major sites I saw coming out of the Srebrenica exhibit – notice all the war damage on the facade.Memorial to the children of Sarajevo who died during the war.This “rose” was located just a few feet from the Children’s memorial.This shot was taken just outside of the old city. Parliament is behind me and to my right. More juxtaposition of war damage against modern – or ultra-modern, in this case – construction.
And all of this happened just 20-24 years ago. The vast majority of the Bosnian population in the former war zone are living with memories of war – of losing loved ones, of hunger and lack, of literally risking one’s life to get water and food each day.
That said, it’s been 20 years since the war and progress in Sarajevo really has been immense. Money seems to have poured in from all over the world to help the city rebuild – there are plaques all over the place thanking this or that country for their donations to the rebuilding effort. As much as I talk about the war damage I see here, the reality is that the only damage left is cosmetic. Any buildings that were destroyed or unsafe have been rebuilt or replaced. There might be a few left, but you’d really have to look for them. I saw some pretty damaged buildings by the river just beyond the west edge of the old city, but that was the extent of it. The story doesn’t end with the war. Life goes on. People rebuild.
Aside from the war’s recency and my work in supporting the peace-keeping efforts that followed, the great former love of my life is from Sarajevo. Yes, I know that’s a very dramatic way to describe our relationship, but that’s how I feel about him. His family left Bosnia a few years before the war, before there was a even a threat of war, when he was a teen. While he avoided the direct horrors of the war, his “lucky” fate brought a different kind of war suffering. I thought about the connection to him briefly when I considered coming to Sarajevo, but I had no idea how prevalent he would be in my thoughts while here. Many things in Sarajevo remind me of him – he shares a name with my AirBnB host’s father, his brother shares a name with my host’s husband, my host was about the same age during the war as his son is now, and I see him – his countenance, his way of carrying himself – in many of the men here. As I was learning about and trying to imagine the experiences of the war in my head, I imagined alternative fates he might have faced had he stayed in Sarajevo.
All of this has been swirling around in my head, and I have spent my days in Sarajevo just trying to understand my thoughts and the jumble of unexpected emotions. I have loved every minute I’ve spent in this city, but I’ve been at a loss for what to write about it.
Now that I’ve shared with you what was most meaningful for me about being Sarajevo, I’ll hit the highlights of how I spent my time and show you lots of pretty pictures.
I spent a lot of time with my AirBnB host, Belma, who was amazing. She offers her guests tours around Sarajevo and the surrounding areas, for a fee, and I was glad to take her up on the offer. It was nice to walk around the city with someone who’s lived there nearly her whole life, and who was in the city throughout the siege. Wednesday, she took me around and showed me some of the must-see sights in the city.
We met at the Sebilj, the famous public water fountain built in 1753. We didn’t meet before the sun rose, I just didn’t bother taking a daytime picture due the construction at the fountain and surrounding square at the time.Gazi Husrev-bey Mosque, built in the 16th century. Belma’s husband’s uncle made that wooden gazebo. Under the gazebo is a public fountain whose water is drinkable, but which is primarily intended for ritual bathing before prayers (abdest). Only men would bathe here; women have an indoor bath as the bathing entails washing the head as well, requiring women to remove their hijabs.Men’s indoor bath at Gazi Husrev-bey Mosque. The women have a similar one, but much smaller. I asked Belma why and she said it’s because men are obligated to go to mosque to pray, whereas women are not, thus you find fewer women at the mosques than men.The dome of Gazi Husrev-bey Mosque.Inside Gazi Husrev-bey Mosque.The beautiful Old Synagogue, now the home of the Sarajevo Jewish Museum, was built in the 16th century on a donation from a Turk. In tragic irony, the synagogue was used as a prison for Jews during WWII.Inside the Old Synagogue, which has 3 floors.This is a type of gravestone found in the Jewish cemetery in Sarajevo. The shape of the rock – wider in front and narrower in the back – is meant to symbolize a lion.The Sacred Heart Cathedral, build in the late 19th century. When I went to the Sarajevo Museum, they had pictures there of Austro-Hungarian emperor Franz Joseph visiting this church and the Gazi Husrev-bey mosque, which was pretty neat since I’d just been to these places myself.The Markale Market, where two brutal massacres took place during the war, killing over 100 people and injuring over 200 between the two attacks.Memorial to those killed in the Markala attacks, situated at the back of the market.Really cool beans I’ve never seen before at the Markale market.The plaque on the left marks the spot where Gavrilo Princip shot Archduke Ferdinand and his wife, Sophie, on June 28, 1914, thus sparking WWI. On the right is the famous Latin bridge where the two were shot.Another view of the Latin bridge and the corner, across the street, from where Gavrilo Princip took his shots.The City Hall built during the Austro-Hungarian empire, later turned into a National Library. This building was completely destroyed during the war and all the books and papers inside it burned up. Its reconstruction was just completed last year. This, by the way, is the City Hall of the Inat Kuća story, which you will read about below, so remember it.Entering into the National Library. Belma tells me it looks exactly as it did before the war. It is a stunning building. I didn’t find any books in it, though.Inside the National Library.Second floor of the National Library.That little white house in the center of the picture just across the river is the Inat Kuća, as viewed from the second floor of the National Library.This is the Serb Orthodox Seminary. Zoom in on the wing on the righ side of the picture to see the battle scars from the war.This is the Islamic theology school.
We finished our day at Žuta Tabija, the Yellow Fortress, which was once a fortress during Ottoman rule for protecting the city, but which now is just a terrace on a hill overlooking the city and offering amazing views.
This is about a 270 degree view of the city from the Yellow Fortress terrace.View from the Yellow Fortress.Evening view from the Yellow Fortress.Nighttime view from the Yellow Fortress.
The best thing about Belma was how open she was to share her stories of the war. She was a child, 8-11 years old, during the siege. She told me about the games children would make up then to occupy themselves since there weren’t any toys to be had – collecting expended shells from the streets, competing with other kids to find the biggest shells, and yelling into the hills daring the “chetniks” to try to hit them. Her father was a soldier for Bosnia, then, and they went months without knowing whether he was even still alive (likewise for him, I suppose) until he eventually returned to Sarajevo, somehow evading the blockade to get back to his family. Her father lost both his brother and his father in the war. Belma turned me on to the Srebrenica exhibit I described above.
Thursday was a solo day spent walking the city to see some of the sights Belma and I hadn’t had time to visit. I’ve already written about most of what I did on Thursday and shared the pics above, but here’s a bit more:
Inside the Serbian Orthodox Cathedral. They actually let me take pictures. There’s no seats because Orthodox Christians stand during services. If you’ve never seen an iconostasis before, it’s that golden wall full of icons – religious paintings.This is the old Serbian Orthodox church, built in the 16th century (during Ottoman rule?). The church still functions, and it’s got a unique beauty as it’s extremely old, but I couldn’t get any pictures of the inside.I didn’t find much of a street art scene in Sarajevo, but I did find some elaborate graffiti. There’s A LOT of graffiti in Sarajevo.
I had dinner at a place called Inat Kuća, or Spite House, so named for the story of its continuing existence. As the story goes, the Austro-Hungarian empire wanted to build the new City Hall (see pictures above – now the National Library) on the property where this house was located. The owner refused to give up his house or his land, finally relenting on the condition that the house be moved exactly as it was to the other side of the river. For reasons completely unknown to me, the empire relented and moved the house, which is now a restaurant serving traditional Bosnian cuisine. According to the history told in the restaurant’s menu, the house symbolizes the “stubbornness of Bosnian man.”
Friday, I woke up early and walked over to Bijela Tabija, White Fortress, which is further east than Žuta Tabija and which also offers lovely views of the city.
One of the towers of the old Vratnik fort, constructed from the 18th to 19th century. Vratnik is a neighborhood of Sarajevo in the hills on the east end of the valley and is the original location of ancient Sarajevo. I snapped this pic on my early morning trek out to the White Fortress.The ruins of the White Fortress, constructed in the 15th century.Morning view from the White Fortress (about 270 degrees).Morning view from the White Terrace.This is another tower of the old Vratnik fort. You can see the wall that stretches to another tower across the way. This view is facing in an easterly direction and the tower in the earlier picture lies still further to the east beyond these two.The lattice-work on the lower half of these windows comes from the Muslim tradition of blocking the view of the women’s quarters in the house from the outside. Today, this is simply considered traditional Bosnian style.
I ate breakfast up there then walked back to the apartment to meet Belma, who was taking me on an excursion to the western edge of the city and beyond.
We started at Vrelo Bosne, a large, beautiful park boasting the source of the river Bosna.
Walking down the Great Alley of Ilidža. The 3.3km stretch of mostly pedestrian and horse-drawn carriage traffic takes you by many lovely, expensive houses on the route to Vrelo Bosne park, the park that is home to the source of the Bosna river.The source of the Bosna river. That hole on the right is where the Bosna river springs forth from Mt. Igman. Belma tells me it gushes madly in Spring and Summer, but it’s pretty tame come October.We decided to take the horse carriage back. Notice the lamps stretched across overhead? I imagine this walk is beautiful at night.
From there, we went to the Tunel Spasa – Tunnel of Life – which was built in 1993 running under the Sarajevo airport and which was the only source for getting food and other goods into the city during the siege. Belma told me that during the siege, a pack of cigarettes cost 100 convertible marks, which would be just over $50 today and was probably a lot more back then. The convertible mark is the Bosnian currency, and it’s symbol is BAM, which I love.
The Butmir entrance to the tunnel.The actual entrance to the actual tunnel.A small stretch of tunnel is still open for people to visit and walk through. Those rails on the floor are actually functional rails. They could roll goods through the tunnel on these, as well as people in wheelchairs and high-ranking officials, such as the President of Bosnia after he was released from his captivity by the Serbs.Me in the tunnel. The tunnel was actually short, requiring even me to hunch over quite a bit to walk through it. The original tunnel was 800 meters long – that’s a long way to walk hunched over at nearly 90 degrees.Unexploded (?) ordinance at the Tunel Spasa museum. I assume this is real and not just a prop. You can see how the “rose” forms from the shell damage.Homemade handguns on display at the Tunnel museum. Created by a mechanical engineer in Sarajevo during the siege.Homemade handguns on display at the Tunnel museum. Created by a mechanical engineer in Sarajevo during the siege.
The story of the tunnel is really amazing. They began building it from both sides intending to dig straight and meet in the middle, but they didn’t meet in the middle – they were off a bit. As such, they inadvertently created an S-curve in the tunnel to join the two sides. This S-curve is responsible for the tunnel not collapsing under the weight of the airport runway above it, which is exactly what would have happened had the tunnel been built straight, as planned. It’s also the reason UN peace-keepers – digging to determine whether the Bosnians were in fact building a tunnel that would damage the structural integrity of the airport as the Serbs claimed – failed to hit the tunnel and determined such an undertaking wasn’t possible. I haven’t been able to find a source for that story, but one of the tour guides was telling it while I was there.
After Tunel Spasa, we went into the mountains, to the mountains of Igman and Bjelašnica, where some of the Olympic Games were held in 1984. Belma had made us some wonderful herbal tea and brought with her some traditional spinach and cheese pie she had baked the night before, along with some fruit, which we enjoyed up on the mountain.
The Olympic ski slopes at Bjelašnica.
I had dinner at a traditional Bosnian restaurant in the old city before turning in on my last night in Sarajevo. I had an early train to catch.
TL;DR: An unexpectedly emotional visit to the unprecedentedly beautiful and fascinating Sarajevo.
View of Belgrade looking north from E-75 and the Gazela Bridge, with a few of the major sites pointed out and just visible if you zoom in.
By the way, nearly every pic in this post was taken from inside a moving bus, so the high quality of photography you’ve come to expect and appreciate in this blog (*clears throat while brushing dirt off shoulder*) isn’t quite there.
If you didn’t know, train travel in the Balkans can be tricky. The train routes between Bosnia and Serbia are closed down and have been perhaps since the Balkan war. I believe the only way to get into Bosnia by train these days is through Zagreb, which was completely out of my way and therefore not an option I considered. I could have flown, I suppose, but flying is its own headache and it’s expensive, and then I wouldn’t have gotten to see the Serbian and Bosnian countrysides. Bus was my preferred option.
Once outside Belgrade, the landscape quickly turned to agricultural fields: a lot of corn and sunflowers, some melons and/or squash, and green crops I didn’t recognize. In many parts it looked just like driving through California’s farm country. Less than an hour into the trip, we were traveling on a 2-lane road (one lane in each direction) and it stayed that way for the remaining 230 or so miles of the trip. We drove through several small towns, like you might drive through on highway 1 in northern California, and there were often tractors and other slow-moving vehicles holding up traffic in either direction along the way. At one point, some car junk yards and a used car dealership appeared among the fields in what looked like the middle of nowhere until, just a mile or two later, we crossed the Sava again into the not-so-small town of Šabac.
We stopped in Šabac for a few minutes for some unknown reason. We did this a few times along the trip, stopping here or there so the bus “conductor” (not sure what to call him, but that was essentially his function) could handle some quick business or other. Just outside Šabac, we were stopped by the police. They were doing some sort of operation, stopping every car in both directions. It looked like a DUI check point or something. I can only assume they were looking for refugees traveling illegally, or perhaps others without proper documentation.
As we approached the Bosnian border leaving a town called Lozica, the terrain started getting a bit hilly, with the hilltops shrouded in gray rain clouds. A fine, misting rain accompanied us nearly the entire trip. We reached a spa town called Banja Koviljaca and were soon climbing the hills, looking down onto the homes built on the sloping hillside adjacent to the road. From there, we turned south and followed the road along the Drina river, the border between Serbia and Bosnia. There was still flat land with fields on the river side of the road, but it was giving way to trees and forest at this point.
The road became rough and uneven here, and the bus rocked and bumped along slowly. Across the river, the hills of Bosnia were blanketed in a drizzly haze. We continued passing through small villages stretched along the road, Serbian hills rising to our left and Bosnian hills across the river to our right. The homes were mostly well built and picturesque two- and three-story affairs, with brick, stone, or stucco facades (or a combination) that reminded me a lot of the house I lived in in Germany back in 1999.
We crossed into Bosnia at the Mali Zvornik gate, just north of Mali Zvornik, Serbia, about 3 hours into the trip. A policeman/border control agent took our ids from us while we waited on the bus. I hate being separated from my passport. When we crossed into Bosnia, we had to show our ids again. This time, the officer only took some our ids off the bus, while others he just looked at and gave right back.
Dovidjenja, Serbia.Dobar dan, Bosnia!
Once across the border, we continued south along the river. This stretch of road ran immediately adjacent to the river, though, so you could clearly see the river and the buildings along the river in Serbia on the other side. Bosnia seemed the poorer of two countries along this stretch; it housed a lot more communist block-style housing complexes, old and run-down looking. The houses looked more run down, as well.
An example of communist block housing in Bosnia. This isn’t even the most representative example I saw, just the one I was quick enough with the cameraphone to capture.
We stopped in Zvornik to pick up more passengers. This was the first of several stops we would make to pick up more passengers and drop others off. I didn’t expect this, for some reason, but I suppose it makes perfect sense. The bus was practically empty coming from Belgrade, but the Zvornik passengers more than doubled the number of people on the bus.
There was a big hydroelectric dam on the river just south of Zvornik, beyond which lay a small lake followed by a wide river, with green hills stretching up. The drive along the river was beautiful, with lots of green hills, quaint hotels, and charming homes. It looked like Italy. We passed through several stone arches along the road, perhaps some sort of ancient gates. There were many short tunnels through the mountainous terrain, as well, even just tracing the river’s edge. While the road itself is flat, maybe 20 feet above the river, hills stretched straight up just to the right.
We turned inland from the river at a place called Kostijerevo and followed the road along a tiny river called Drinjača, a tributary of the Drina.
The very brown Drinjača River and surrounding countryside.
We were met with an incredibly picturesque scene as we turned away from the Drina to the west – pastoral and bucolic, there was a small field surrounded by trees with a quaint white farmhouse, mountains rising into the clouds in the background, and the low afternoon sun peeking, however slightly, though the gray cloud cover. I’m afraid I wasn’t quick enough with the camera, though, so you’ll just have draw the image for yourself from my description. It was in this rural and unlikely spot that we stopped on the side of the road to pick up yet another passenger.
Here we began the narrow, winding journey through the mountains of eastern Bosnia. From time to time we passed through small towns along the way and I couldn’t help but notice how much it looked and felt like driving through Appalachia. Every home we passed seemed to have laundry drying on a line strung up on the covered 2nd floor balcony, and I had to wonder whether Monday was laundry day in the Balkans.
We stopped a few more times in Milići, Vlasenica, and along the side of road to drop people off. From Vlasenica, we really started climbing and winding our way up the mountain.
Climbing out of VlasenicaThese switchbacks!
Shortly, we made a pit stop on the mountain at a restaurant with one of those delightfully Eastern European hole-in-the-floor toilets.
Driving through the forest, I was mesmerized by the spectacular pine trees. There were many different kinds, but I especially liked the tall ones with thick, heavy groupings of pine needles that hung heavily like fringe from the upturned branches. Others were perkier, with straight branches that shot upward at an angle instead of drooping in the middle like lazy smiles, and needles that stretched horizontally outward.
Eventually, the mountains gave way to increasingly flatter land and agricultural fields once more. I saw a lot more livestock in Bosnia than in Serbia – lots of sheep (and a few little lambs) and some cattle. Restaurants were nestled into the green hills all along the way, looking cozy and welcoming in the way of a lodge or a countryside British pub. I wanted to visit them all.
After a while, we headed back into the mountains, through the sizeable mountain valley town of Pale. Pale was very charming, with its homes scattered all over the hilly valley, and reminded me very much of the area of Austria/southern Germany/northern Italy. We stopped once more at the Pale bus station to drop folks off and collect more riders.
It wasn’t much longer before we came out of a tunnel and began our descent into Sarajevo. By this time it was dark and the city looked beautiful – a valley of lights surrounded by the Olympic Mountains.
The bus stopped at the eastern bus station, quite a ways from old town, where I’m staying. My AirBnB host was kind enough to fetch me from the station and take me to the apartment, providing an impromptu car tour along the way. She’s also going to give me a walking tour of the old city tomorrow morning, which I’m very much looking forward to.
TL;DR: Enjoyed a leisurely tour of the Serbian and Bosnian countrysides during the 8-hour bus ride from Belgrade to Sarajevo.
I got a relatively early start to my morning on Monday, getting out of the house before 11 am. Unfortunately, Monday is not a good day to sightsee in Belgrade as most of the museums were closed. I was disappointed at the National Museum, which is actually closed due to renovations until next year but probably would have been closed anyway on account of it being Monday, as well as at the preserved former residence of some Serbian princess and at the Ethnographic Museum. I did get lucky at a museum I had no real interest in seeing, but which I visited opportunistically as I was passing by it – the Serbian Pedagogical Museum. It was closed, but the courtyard leading to it was open. I walked in and one of the employees told me it was closed, but he would open it and let me walk around myself if I wanted to. Can you imagine?! It was a tiny museum devoted to a very dry topic – the preservation of educational history and methods in Serbia – but I had the place all to myself, and that was pretty cool.
My ticket and guide to the Serbian Pedagogical Museum.An historic classroom display.I think this is a device for generating electricity, which was in the physics exhibit. That thing behind it is an epidiascope projector.
Afterward, I popped into a coffee shop to enjoy a coffee and a sit before continuing on my way. From there, it was on to San Marina Chocolate & Pralines to treat myself to some gourmet Serbian chocolates.
San Marina Chocolate and Pralines.Hers.His.MINE!
The next stop was the Alexander Nevsky Cathedral. I had stopped by the Serbian Orthodox Cathedral (full name The Cathedral Church of the Holy Archangel Michael) earlier in the morning, before the pedagogical museum, and the contrast between the two churches was stark. The cathedral was quite dark inside, with lots of religious decoration. The Nevsky church, on the other hand, was all white on the inside, with white pillars, white walls, and a white marble iconostasis. The icons in the iconostasis were quite dark, which made for a beautiful contrast against the bright white marble. The walls were unadorned, and the only decoration were stain glass windows and the painted dome of the ceiling. Photos aren’t allowed inside the churches or I would have some for you. It was my favorite church I’ve seen here in Belgrade. I just read that the architect was Jelisaveta Načić, who was the first female architect in Serbia and whose name also appeared in the Pedagogical Museum as being the architect for an elementary school located near the Cathedral Church in Belgrade.
Nevsky Church.Nevsky Church.
After the Nevsky church, I made a quick detour back to Skadarlija to snap some pics of the muraled walls before meandering over to the botanical gardens.
Murals of Skadarlija.
The botanical garden was small but pleasant, with a tiny but lovely Japanese garden and a wonderful collection of cacti I’ve never seen before in their greenhouse. The garden was extra nice today because it was all but empty on account of the deary weather. There were some apartment buildings located immediately adjacent to the gardens, with only a low wall (maybe 6-10 feet) separating them from the gardens, so that the people living there had a view of the gardens alone from their windows and balconies. How wonderful would it be to see only a botanical garden when you looked out your window each morning?
Lovely Japanese Garden.I loved the beautiful little bouquets that grew on this tree.I loved the colors on this tree.
The cacti were FASCINATING!
I loved the color on this pink, flowery-looking cactus.I call this the “Cousin It” cactus.
Some looked like aliens…
…or coral…
…or worms…
I was just as fascinated by the inadvertent fungus as I was by the plants themselves:
I really enjoyed just walking around the city, taking in the architecture and the feel of the streets. Belgrade feels a lot like Budapest (though not nearly as beautiful – sorry, Belgrade!), with ornate and often crumbling exteriors and winding cobblestone streets. It was a lovely walkabout. Here are a few of the random sights from the city:
The one photo I managed to snap of my apartment. Those steps, while ingeniously designed given their steepness, were precarious. These would not have passed building inspection in the States.The unique entrance to the unique Design Hotel Mr. President (yes, that’s the actual name of the hotel).Very bizarre piece of “art” hanging on an exterior wall of a random building in Zemun.Lookey what I found! This brought back some good memories.It just looked like a normal clothing store from the street…I found the juxtaposition of old, crumbling buildings against new, modern ones, along with the modern graffiti, which could be seen throughout the old city, fascinating.
Belgrade has a street art (and graffiti) scene to rival Rio de Janiero’s. Here are a few of the works I managed to snap:
As seen from the Branko Bridge, the northern-most bridge crossing the Sava in Belgrade.Here’s a close-up of the work.This large mural faces……this large mural. Look closely at the teeth, and at what it’s eating.I snapped this classy piece coming out of an underpass leading to the north side of the Branko Bridge.
I’m not really sure what this piece is all about. The bit on the bottom says “[The] Fight (or Battle) for Truth.”These portraits are amazing:
Sunday started off even slower and later than Saturday, with me not even getting out of the apartment until about 1 pm. I grabbed breakfast/lunch at a cozy cafe with a shabby chic decor, Smokvica – where I had delicious zucchini fritters served with a lebne-type cheese – before setting off for my first sightseeing destination, the Bajrakli Mosque.
Bajrakli Mosque.
Serbia is a Christian Orthodox country, but was once part of the Ottoman empire and still has a substantial Muslim population, like much of the Balkans. This particular mosque is over 400 years old and is the last remaining mosque of the original 273 in the country during the time of Ottoman rule. It was converted into a church at one point, but is a mosque once more. I didn’t go in, just looked in from the doorway. I didn’t want to risk inadvertently offending anyone by violating some rule I didn’t know about. The interior was very sparsely decorated. I stayed maybe a minute before heading for my next destination – Kalemegdan Fortress.
Main entrance to Kalemegdan Fortress.
Kalemegdan Fortress is the oldest part of Belgrade, situated on the peninsula where the Sava and Danube rivers converge. Parts of it are over 500 years old, and the entire city used to be housed within its walls. Nearly all that’s left of the fortress today are its walls and the remnants of a few other structures. The fortress is surrounded by a park, and low, arching pine branches hung just overhead along many parts of the path leading up to it. Dante met me here and we spent a couple hours taking in the interesting sights and views before wandering off to find some dinner. The rain seemed to keep many people away, so it was easy to enjoy the fortress without too many other annoying tourists.
Entering Kalemegden from the southeast.Approaching Despot Stefan Tower and Gate into the Fortress. This tower was built circa 1405. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Despot_Stefan_TowerGotta love cultures where there’s no duty to protect you from your own idiocy aside from reasonable forewarning (the sign in front of the ruins reads “Walking in this area you risk your life”).Ružica Church on the fortress grounds. http://www.serbia.travel/culture/religious-buildings/orthodox-churches-new-age/church-of-the-nativity-of-the-most-holy-mother-of-god-ruzica-church-belgrade/The clock tower entrance to the fortress. The tanks are on display by the adjacent Military Museum.“Damnnit, Slobodan! Pull your head out of your ass!”Display of ancient Roman artifacts from around 3rd century BC found in Serbia in the gunpowder storage room in the lower part of the fortress. That’s Dante, btw.View north from the fortress. The Great War Island is a nature preserve and sits in the middle of the Danube. This is where the Danube and Sava converge. Way off in the distance is Zemun.
We grabbed a basic meal at a modern eatery on Knez Mihailova street, a pedestrian shopping street near where we were both staying. Afterward, we zigzagged our way through streets and pedestrian walkways and staircases to the bus station. This was the first time I actually saw Syrian refugees.
I had mixed feelings about snapping these photos. On the one hand, I don’t want to turn their tragedy into my tourist attraction; on the other hand, I want you see to see what I saw first hand. There are a couple small parks adjacent to the bus and train stations where the refugees had set up tents. Some of the tents indicated the residents as UNHCR refugees, which you can see in some of the photos. There were also groups of refugees who were camped out in the bus station itself. The bus station, aside from the ticket office and few cafes there, is outdoors, covered by an awning that extends to the wall that separates the bus platforms from the station itself. This basically creates a long, covered, outdoor hallway, and it was along both walls the refugees had spread out blankets to live, basically. I don’t know how the refugees were getting by in terms of bathrooms, showers, laundry, or even getting money for food. I saw nothing set up that looked like it was intended to administer aid to the refugees. I hear many of them are having friends and family wire them small amounts of money from time to time wherever they are, though I have no idea whether that’s true. In any case, I saw no violence or begging or anything to suggest desperation or severe lack from the refugees. The families that set up in the bus station really made out from sympathetic tourists, who kept pressing food on them; these refugees were smiling and grateful and looked neither angry, nor sad, nor bitter, nor anything but simply biding their time.
We grabbed a cup of coffee from one of the cafes in the station, then it was time to send Dante on his way. I wished him well as he boarded a bus for warmer climes – the southern Croatian coast.
I was really looking forward to watching the lunar eclipse on Sunday night. It would have been viewable from 2 – 6 am. I was so tired by the time I went to sleep that I forgot to set my alarm, but it wouldn’t have mattered – the clouds and rain prevented any view at all.
TL;DR: Belgrade walkabout day 2 was a mix of wonderfully pleasant, drearily peaceful, sad, and thought-provoking.
Saturday morning began late with a traditional breakfast of stuffed pastries and coffee. Then it was on to sightseeing. I was fortunate to discover an app that has self-guided walking tours of over 400 cities and that also lets you plan your own walking tours according to what you want to see. So, Dante and I set off on a walkabout that took us by the somewhat famous 4-star Hotel Moskva, Parliament, the Old Palace, St. Mark’s Church, a couple lovely parks (Pionirski Park next to the Old Palace and Tašmajdan Park, adjacent to St. Mark’s), the Tesla museum, and the St. Sava cathedral.
Parliament.Bizarre statues and interesting trees at Pionirski Park.Strange little pine trees at Pionirski Park.St. Mark’s Church, still under construction after some 80-100 years or so.St. Mark’s Church – they’re getting there.St. Sava Cathedral.Inside the St. Sava Cathedral, which has been under construction since 1935.St. Sava Cathedral. Construction has been ongoing since 1935. One of the largest churches in the world, it can apparently hold up to 10,000 people.
We grabbed a late lunch at a very non-touristy diner before heading back toward old town and stopping in at the Hotel Moskva for a coffee and fancy dessert.
Inside the beautiful Hotel Moska. Image courtesy of http://www.hotelmoskva.rs
After that, we decided to walk over to Zemun, a neighborhood north and west of old town, across the Sava river. It was a nice walk along the river, but neither of us realized just how long the walk would be. It ended up being about 5 miles. A lovely walk, but it was nearly dark by the time we got there, which made it difficult to find or enjoy most of the sights there. After a brief visit, we hopped a bus back to the city center and headed back to Skadarlija for dinner. We found Antik, a very eastern European-looking restaurant, sunken half-way underground, with a wooden interior and miss-matched furniture that gave the place a homey feel. A group of musicians was playing traditional Serbian music. The place was fantastic, and we really enjoyed the experience. I had some of the best soft goat cheese-like cheese I’ve ever had in my life.
TL;DR: Saw lots of touristy stuff and enjoyed my time during Belgrade walkabout day 1.
The last few days on the farm have been wonderfully slow paced and pleasant. The daytime weather has been perfectly gorgeous, with chillier nighttime temps. We even had a few nighttime thunderstorms. On Thursday, the owner and I went into the nearby town for a girls’ day – some pampering at a beauty salon, second-hand shopping, and massages. Just to give you an idea of the cost of living difference here, I had an hour-long, full body, deep tissue massage for less than $17. At the second hand shop, I bought some jeans, leggings, sweaters, a warm coat, and a pair of RED galoshes. It’s just getting a little too chilly for me to keep running around in my summer clothing.
The galoshes and coat came in handy on Friday as it rained and rained on the entire region all day long. I got up early Friday morning, finished up some last minute packing, and headed to the train station. I left my big suitcase behind and just brought my backpack and a smaller suitcase the owner lent me. First stop: Budapest, with a quick train hop in Dombóvár (of famed Oil and Vinegar Incident of 2015).
I stopped at Kelenföld, one of the big international train stations in Budapest. I had a few hours until my next train and I was expecting to find a little cafe or something to pass the time. Most of my train experience is in Germany, Russia, and the UK, where the train stations in the big cities have lots of little eateries and shops and are fun, exciting places to be. Not so in Budapest. Kelenföld is somewhat unique in that the station is underground, so you walk underneath the train tracks to get to whichever track or exit you need to get to (like Union Station in LA). There were two small bakery shops in the station itself, but nowhere to sit and enjoy your coffee. Above ground, the station is really just a big rail yard – neither pleasant nor terribly exciting. There were a few small establishments up there, but the rain didn’t add anything to their already lackluster appeal.
I made it up to the platform and struck up a conversation with a fellow traveler, a guy from Sweden. We were quickly joined by a third traveler, a Serbian guy. Then the train arrived, and we all piled on. The Serbian guy, Alex, had purchased a first class ticket, I had a reserved seat in a second class coach, and Dante, the Swede, had no seat reservation. The train was empty, though, so Dante and I plopped down in an empty 6-seat cabin in second class. Alex settled into his first class accommodations, but it wasn’t long before he joined us for some company. Thus began the long slog to Belgrade.
Belgrade is about 250 miles from Budapest, but the train ride lasted 8 and a half hours. In addition to the multiple stops made along the way, there’s two passport check points – one leaving Hungary and another one entering Serbia. In addition, the tracks in Serbia aren’t always of the best quality, which meant slower-than-normal progress.
Speaking of entering Serbia, we got treated to a sighting of the fence Hungary has erected to keep the Syrian refugees from walking into Hungary from Serbia:
The fence erected by the Hungarians at the border with Serbia. Note the barbed wire and the gate that opens and closes at the train tracks.The fence at the tracks is guarded by Hungarian police (or military) who also operate the gate to let trains pass through.
I know that extending hospitality to tens and hundreds of thousands of refugees is an impossible burden. That difficulty is compounded by the fact that you have plenty of non-refugees trying to get legal residency in the EU by claiming to be a refugee, as well as sleeper terrorists seeping into the EU under the guise of being refugees. Still, to respond to such human tragedy and suffering with a fence seems the very embodiment of evil.
But I digress…
My serendipitously acquired travel companions made the long trip much more pleasant and enjoyable than it would have been otherwise. We talked about travel and books and music and exes and spirituality… Dante and I had a lot of weird things in common – we both quit our jobs, got rid of our apartments and some possessions before setting out traveling indefinitely, and we both just read Aldous Huxley’s A Brave New World for the first time within the last month. Alex was a big time traveler and a wealth of information about traveling in general and traveling in the Balkans specifically. We picked up another Serbian guy, David, when we got to Novi Sad, a computer science student on his way down to Belgrade to see his girlfriend. He swore he never studied English, just learned it from TV, but his English was excellent. He was a good addition to our random little mix.
As we approached Belgrade, Alex left us to get his stuff before getting off and we said our goodbyes. Nevertheless, we ran into him again on the platform after getting off the train. Dante and I decided to split a cab, but we had to get some Serbian Dinars first. We tried the exchange office, but we both only had Hungarian Forint on us, and they wouldn’t exchange those (strange, since they border Hungary). Then, the ATM didn’t work, so we went searching for another ATM and ran into…
Alex again! He was hopping into a cab of his own and offered to give us a lift since it was in the same direction. What a life saver.
So, Dante and I got dropped off in old town and checked into our accommodations quickly before heading off to dinner on a quaint (but touristy) pedestrian street called Skadarska. The food was even more delicious than I expected and the beer cold and tasty. We sat outside on the patio under an umbrella and watched as women in 5 and 6-inch heels tried to traverse the heavily cobbled street. The bar across the street was playing 70’s and 80’s rock – AC/DC, GNR, Queen, Sex Pistols… Dante and I talked gobs and gobs. I really enjoyed having his company. He’s an interesting person and a really fantastic traveling companion, and his company was an unexpected and welcome pleasure. It was such a pleasant evening I didn’t even mind when the rain seemed to dump from buckets all around our moderately protective umbrella for nearly an hour.
TL;DR: Serendipity abounds on a south-bound train.
The past two days on the farm have been a lot of hard work! With summer vegetable season ending, many of the beds are being put to rest for the winter, which means pulling everything out of the bed and mulching the bed. After taking care of the chicken coop (it went much better this time), we worked on the sweet corn bed yesterday:
Sweet corn bed, pre-clearing.
Clearing this bed meant taking out all the corn stalks, which required a bit of digging around the roots to get them out, as well as all the green weeds that had grown up in the bed. Between the two of us (I’m so much slower than the owner), it took us about an hour and half to clear that bed:
Cleared sweet corn bed.
We’ll weed it once more before mulching it for winter.
After that, it was on to the tomatoes. The tomato plants are situated in a big, flat, fenced-in area underneath some massive old apple trees. The area was badly overgrown since the plants went in, so you could barely see where the beds were under all the overgrowth. All the tomato plants needed to be pulled out. This required some care on account of the stinging nettle that was everywhere. Half of pulling up the tomato plants meant weeding out the stinging nettle just so I could safely reach them! The nettle still got me, but I put up a fight. And, of course, the tomato plants were tied up to the fence and needed to be untied. After an hour and a half of pulling up the tomato plants yesterday, I can honestly say I have a deep and abiding disdain for anyone who ties up tomato plants like they’re trying to prevent a prison break. They’re tomato plants – they’re not going anywhere! The ties were no higher than calf-height, which meant standing hunched over to undo any that hadn’t been tied in a simple slipknot or bow. Three hours of clearing the corn bed and the tomato plants and my back was ready for a break!
Besides clearing out the tomato plants, one bed needed to be cleared out entirely and returned to open “lawn,” and the entire area mowed and cleared out of some pretty big lamb’s quarter and weeds that had grown up, which I spent several hours today working on. I had some visitors while I was out there:
These are the neighbor’s sheep and goats I wrote about briefly before (notice the billy goat on the left in the back getting on that tree). I heard the sound of stampeding hooves behind me and there they were. I know they can be quite destructive, but I like having them nearby. Have you ever heard a sheep cough before? It sounds like a human being. It’s weird. All the property in this photo belongs to my host, but she lets the sheep graze the uncultivated land. They seem to like the apples and the stinging nettles. Notice the guy on the left of the picture sticking his head through the fence to get at the stinging nettle. The trees on the far left and right of the photo are apple trees, and you can see the apples all over the ground. I had to clear a bunch of them out of the fenced area before I could mow today.
The weather has been so fantastic the last few days and it’s made working in the garden a very pleasant way to spend one’s time. It’s really starting to get chilly at nights, though. I will have to invest in some warmer clothing if I’m going to stay much longer.
In other news, the seeds I sowed are all sprouting!
Mizuna and Tat Soi I sowed last week. The larger plants in the bed are herbs.
Even the Mizuna I sowed, then plucked out, then resowed and covered with the clay-y local dirt instead of the bed soil:
Mizuna and Bok Choi I sowed a couple weeks ago.
I also sowed some radishes that are coming up nicely – I’ll have to update with a photo later.
Two new volunteers showed up yesterday. A couple of guys from Israel. They’ve been hitchhiking through Europe and managed to get to a remote farm in southwestern Hungary from Vienna in a single day. There’s a French guy coming tomorrow, as well. So much for my solitude! That’s okay – it does me good adjusting to living with other people.
TL;DR: Farm work is hard, but the visible and tangible results are pretty rewarding.
The German couple that was here left Wednesday morning, which means I have the house ALL TO MYSELF! I walked around naked Thursday just because I could. I haven’t done that in WEEKS. I didn’t even realize I missed being naked until it dawned on me that I could and started flinging my clothes across the room. So freeing…
I don’t know what I imagined I would do – all the stuff I would get done that I hadn’t been doing – once I was alone, but finding myself alone with nothing I had to do, I had no idea what to do. It was like I had to reacclimate to being alone again. I guess I imagined that I would be very peaceful and meditate a lot and read a lot and write a lot…Instead, I found myself agitated, antsy and anxious.
I’ve been eating a lot of stuff I shouldn’t be eating, overeating, and playing games on my phone to pass the time. These are the kinds of things I normally really berate myself for – wasting time and counterproductive behaviors. I’m playing games, presumably for amusement, and I’m not enjoying them. I’m eating junk food, presumably for pleasure, but I’m not enjoying it. The entire time, instead of focusing on what I’m doing, I’m thinking things like “Why are you doing this,” and “Stop doing this,” and “You should be doing this instead,” and my mind is besieged by negative emotions of anxiety and disgust. Not only am I not enjoying what I’m doing, I’m not even present for the experience. I can’t be present for these activities I hate myself for engaging in because I’m too busy hating myself for engaging in them.
The results are doubly destructive. Not only are there the direct consequences of the destructive behaviors, but, by focusing my attention on hating myself instead of on what is I’m hating myself for – the behaviors themselves – I keep whatever’s motivating those behaviors inside me instead of allowing it to burn itself out and pass through. In doing so, I prolong the duration of the destructive bouts and increase their frequency. The behavior and the self-hate together form the 1-2 punch that fuels and perpetuates this very real downward spiral. It’s kind of like, when you’re craving something sweet, but instead of consuming real sugar you consume a sugar-substitute; your body still craves the sugar and you end up consuming a lot more of the fake stuff than you would have if you had just gone for the real deal. Instead of giving my attention to the behaviors and their drivers, I’m giving my attention to a substitute – self-hate – and I end up consuming a lot more of the undesired behavior than if I simply paid attention to what I was doing and left off all the unhelpful judgment.
So, I’m working on self-acceptance. I really hate that I’m compelled to do these things that I don’t want to be doing, and I wish, wish, wish I wasn’t compelled to do them. But, I am. That’s just reality, and I’m never going to change it with hate and wishing. The only way I can hope to change it is to simply accept that it is and to give my full attention to my destructive desires when then come calling.
I did this on Thursday. I got sucked into a silly video game and didn’t emerge for about an hour. When I found myself berating myself for wasting time and such, I consciously pushed those thoughts out of my mind and focused more on the game. “This is just what I’m doing right now and I don’t know why I’m compelled to do it, but I am, and that’s just how it is.” Afterward, I was much more productive than I have been in trying to suppress myself. More importantly, I was happy. I wasn’t necessarily happy that I’d spent an hour playing video games when there are so many other more worthy (yes, I hear the judgment) things I could be doing. But, by accepting it for what it was, I was able to let it pass through me instead of holding onto it through self-shaming.
When I reject these things about myself, they dig in even deeper, take root even deeper, so that I can’t let them pass through me. My self-deprecation continues to drag me down even when I’m not engaging in the offending behaviors. By accepting myself, though, offensive behavior and all, it was able to pass through me completely and I wasn’t holding onto to any of it with my trademarked self-loathing. When it was gone, it was gone, and I was free – mentally and emotionally free – to do the other (worthier) things I wanted to do.
Some of you probably have no idea what I’m talking about. For some of us, accepting ourselves completely comes as naturally as eating and sleeping, so that the idea of feeling badly about anything we do, let alone letting that feeling prevent us from moving forward, is so foreign as to be incomprehensible. Many people will see an aspect of themselves in my words, though, and for us, feeling truly free from our self-inflicted shame and guilt about the past is a rare luxury and a blessing greatly appreciated.
I’m positive that much (or all) of the depression and anxiety I’ve experienced over the years has been the direct result of rejecting these parts of myself that I hate. The fruit of self-hate is depression, anxiety, and perhaps other forms of mental illness (written with the full acknowledgment that I am not a medical professional and I know there’s a litany of research out there about hormone imbalances and all that; let that also be a disclaimer to you that my personal opinions do not constitute valid medical advice). The fruit of acceptance is freedom from the shame and guilt that keep us trapped in our destructive spirals, as well as freedom from the aspects of ourselves we would seek to reject.
If you struggle with shame and self-loathing about any aspect of your personality, I encourage you to practice acceptance of it as a means of freeing yourself from its oppressive grip. Acceptance starts with simply being present, attending to whatever it is you would reject in nonjudgmental observation. Don’t judge it, don’t even think about it; just observe it. In time, observation yields to familiarity and familiarity to acceptance. Paradoxically, the more you reject and deny these aspects of yourself, the more greatly they fight for expression; but, the more you are able to accept what you would reject, the less need said aspect has to express itself at all – the more you accept it, the less you experience it.
Today was one of those days that, if you’re lucky, you get to enjoy while traveling every once in a while. It’s not the kind of day you can plan or even to hope to have again, you’re just thankful that it happened.
The owner here has a local woman, Margit, who does some of the cleaning up around the house from time to time. This is in addition to her full time job, which happens to be working for the local municipality taking care of the surrounding forest to ensure its ongoing sustainability. The owner inquired just what it was this work entailed, and we got treated to a first-hand experience of what it’s like to work in environmental sustainability in a rural Hungarian village.
Margit and a colleague picked us up and we drove through the town and out into the forest to their current work location, about 10 minutes from the house. There, they had been planting Acacia trees all along the hillside for the last few days. Margit told us the trees would be harvested (cut down) in about 15 years. When asked what for, all she could say was “energy trees” (Margit’s English is much better than my Hungarian, but that still isn’t saying much). I surmise the trees will be turned into charcoal, but I really don’t know what an “energy tree” is.
When we got there, the team (in addition to Margit and her colleague, there were 3 other people on the team – 1 man and the rest women) was getting ready to have lunch. They had built a fire and set up a pot, witch-cauldron style, in which they had cooked up some potatoes with bacon and a goulash-paprika seasoning. They offered us some food and obviously intended for us to join them, as they had prepared plenty of food and had plates and plasticware for all of us. So, we sat in the forest with the Hungarian forest maintainers and ate the delicious potato/bacon dish they had prepared, along with some fluffy white bread and water.
The weather was really spectacular today – warm, with a lovely breeze, so you never felt too hot or too cold, just wonderfully mild. A great day for an unexpected forest outing.
After lunch, Margit walked us back toward the car and across the road to a vineyard that operates there. There was a small building with a table out front shaded by a grapevine-covered trellis. This isn’t the type of vineyard you think of when you think of California wine tasting – this was a very bare bones operation:
The big barrel on the right with the metal contraption over it is the grape press. Once the juice has been pressed out, it moves over to the fermenter, which is the big cement tub on the left. The product of the fermentation is the wine, which is then stored in barrels (shown below) until the wine is ready to drink.Barrels of aging wine. These are ALL the barrels. You can see this is a tiny operation. BTW, Hungary is famous for their wines, though their output is only enough to support local consumption – no exporting, at least not to the States.Enjoying a glass of Laci Bor.
The owner was a lovely man named Laci (pronounced “LATS-ee”) who let us look around the operation and offered up some 2011 Merlot for us to taste (I’m guessing we each got a glass to a glass and a half of delicious Merlot). Before we left, Laci handed a full bottle of wine over to us as a “souvenir” and told us to go pick some grapes, pears and walnuts from his property, all of this at no cost to us whatsoever. Hungarians are known for their hospitality, and we got the full pleasure of their amazing generosity, not only of stuff, but of spirit, today.
Since the forest workers had fed us lunch, the owner of the farm prepared dinner for us instead of the lunch she would normally provide. I’m the only volunteer on the property for the time being, so we enjoyed a lovely meal of fish and fresh garden veggies accompanied by Laci’s delicious Merlot.
Today was truly most fantastic. For added funsies, here’s a bonus pic of the affirmation pig I’ve been working on:
This is a potted plant holder that happens to be shaped like a pig, in my eye. I attached the wire mesh face, snout, and springy tail. Eventually, the affirmation pig will sport some rubber boots and affirmations – painted wooden ornament style – left behind by the volunteers, kind of like a guestbook gone wild.
TL;DR: Treated to a unique and generous wining and dining experience, Hungarian style.
