So clearly I am doing a smashing job of updating this thing, seeing as my trip ended on the 19th. Here I am almost two weeks later with four days left to update of my actual study abroad. Let's see if I can wrap this up in one fell swoop.
We were only in Belgrade for three full days and two of these were incredibly busy. As with Sarajevo, here are all the lectures we attended with NGOs, government people, and the US Embassy:
January 16th
National Democratic Institute (NDI)
Serbian Parliament and the Democratic (Minority) Party leader
Belgrade Open School on the process of Serbia getting into the European Union
 |
| Serbian parliament building |
 |
| Group picture in the large Serbian assembly hall |
January 17th
US Embassy- easily the best Embassy briefing we had
History and Political Science of recent Serbia
European Movement in Serbia
January 18th
Civic Initiatives
I am much too lazy to type out what happened or my responses to these lectures for the most part, so here is a link to the academic blog I had to keep for the actual coursework of the trip. The academic blog is a more detailed day-to-day on what we did and my reactions to the information that was presented to us.
triplebsgo.blogspot.com
Do you get it? Triple BS? Berlin, Budapest, Belgrade, Sarajevo? No not BS as in bull shit. Get your heads out of the gutter. I'm so clever.
 |
| Most famous hotel in Belgrade, across the street from our hotel |
 |
| View from the fortress looking over the Sava River |
So when we got to Belgrade, it was probably around 8 pm and we were all still feeling a little hungover from our night at Cheers and went through a genocide memorial. A great way for people to be excited to see what's next — it was really nice though. Closer to Berlin than any of the other cities we went to, at least in my opinion. I had expected Belgrade to be closer to Sarajevo than Berlin. It also did not help that when we asked the Professor what he thought of the cities we were visiting, he said Belgrade is his least favorite of the four. Just what everyone wants to hear — the last city you are going to is the worst and the least exciting. Maybe it could have been but we have no way of knowing because we did not have any time to really explore the city. Our hotel was in the old city and across the Sava River was the new city or the part that was built under the communists. This is the part of the city that had a majority of the shopping, clubs, bars, and nightlife that would interest a group of 20 somethings for the most part. Either way, I thought the city was really nice and had that whole European feel to it.
The city itself was really beautiful. After the first day, we had a walking tour of Belgrade led by two people from the NDI. They weren't tour guides but it didn't matter because what most people wanted to do was just get a feel for the city and maybe try to get our bearings for where our hotel was and all the other stuff we would want to do. The only problem with the city is it didn't have public transportation like the others, so we were never able to go to the other side of the river unless we wanted to spend all of our time walking there or take a taxi, which wasn't happening because they weren't the cheapest things in the world. The best part of the city we found was the Belgrade Fortress, which provided plenty of entertainment for us over the next few days. Our city tour ended at the Fortress, but it had a cute coffee shop overlooking the river where we were able to enjoy a hot cup of coffee. We got to stick around and watch the sunset for those of us who paid attention to it and just hang out drinking hot chocolate or coffee in a fortress that is more than one-thousand-years-old; not something many people can claim that they have done. One of the coolest parts of this fortress was in between the walls there were tanks and artillery guns on display and one boat that clearly did not know where it was supposed to be. In between some other walls were basketball courts, ping pong tables, and other sports stuff, so you are able to play a basketball game or 4v4 soccer in the walls of the fortress. The cannons lined the outside wall with a great view of the old city and a panoramic view of the new city when looking out across the river.
 |
| Tanks in-between the walls of the fortress |
 |
| Basketball courts |
 |
| The joining of the Sava and Danube Rivers from the fortress |
Cayla and I ended up coming back here on our last full day because we finished at Noon and had lots of time to kill before our farewell dinner until 7:45. We walked along the river to the other side of the fortress where there were lots of boats that acted as restaurants for fish and other seafood, fields with dogs running wild, and groups of guys playing rugby. The only problem is I don't know enough about it to figure out what was really happening or the teams. There were paths that ran up the hill, twisting to the top of the fortress that we were able to walk so now I can clearly say that I have scaled a fortress and climbed its walls. Since it was a nice day and probably in the upper 50's out, there were couples sitting on the wall licking each other's faces, people playing guitars and accordions and other instruments, and even more dogs running around since they were expertly trained. On the other side of the fortress overlooking the basketball courts and leaning against the cannons, three guys probably around my age were hanging out drinking beers with their bikes lying on the ground behind them. Must be nice to have a place like that to go and hang out when the days are nice and not worry about anything. The walk from the fortress back to the hotel was only around 15 minutes and straight down the pedestrian walkway. This was the wide cobblestone street with street artists, performers, restaurants with outdoor seating, and lots of decorations.
 |
| Looking out through one of the cannon slots |
 |
| Statue of the Victor in the fortress |
 |
| Fortress as the sun is going down and the lights turned on |
Like the Sarajevo, after we finished the 'academic' portion of the days, we were all pretty tired and didn't feel like doing too much. We usually went to dinner, recollected ourselves at the hotel, and then went out to a bar or something to have drinks and just hang out until we all wanted to go to bed. The best part of being in Europe and in a big city; the bars were always close and the drinks were cheap when compared to what we could get at bars in the states. A shot of Jaeger usually was around $3. (220 dinar which comes out to ~$2.60) Suck on that America. At this point in the trip, we had all been together for 15 days and say we knew each other pretty well is an understatement. The best part is that there were no real cliques on the trip that you would think would happen. People hung out more with certain others but there was no 'I am only going to hang out with these 3 people because we are BFF's and I hate you all,' which made the whole experience so much better. Going out in groups of 10 people was not problematic at all because everyone talked to each other and we were always the stupid Americans who were loud and would have to yell across the table to talk to the person at the other end of the table. We are never going to see these people again so what does it matter?
The last night was certainly an interesting one because we all wanted to go to a club together as a big end of the trip celebration. Two nights before, we ended up at a hotel bar that turned into a club as the night got later and it turned out this was one of the best places to go in Belgrade. When we went the first time, we were there before it turned into a club so we made a reservation without knowing what we were getting ourselves into but it was a lot of fun since it was all so unexpected. The sad part is I was tired and left before the night really got good from what I was told since a live band came out not too long after I left. We had the hotel make a reservation for us on this final night and this included some of the NDI members who were hanging out with us and were only in their late 20s, so it was a lot of fun. Only the reservation did not go through or they did not want to let a group of 20 Americans in because the club said that there was no reservation under the name of our hotel. Instead, we ended up walking the other direction towards a bar that is a common hangout for the LGBT community. Since the LGBT situation, there is not the safest, many people did not want to go in and there ended up just being five of us left along with the NDI people, so, all in all, there were nine of us there. We went in and it was just a typical bar with a DJ and nothing out of the ordinary. In Europe grinding is not really a thing so it made for a different experience than going to a bar with music in the states. It was a really fun night that was spent chatting with the realization that this was our final night together. Thankfully we chose the better bar to go to because the place that the rest of our group ended up going was giving away shots of rakia to get rid of the bottle. As you can imagine, this ended up being a total shit show with people having to be carried home.
 |
| Bar we went to on the last night |
With that, the Great Cities trip ends, and I continued on to Brussels for a week to spend time with a friend of mine from Delaware who graduated a year early and is in grad school studying international law through the University of Kent.
Comments
Post a Comment