of course, another train

Belgrade, Serbia


I must be crazy. After getting back to the Asian Istanbul train station Sunday morning, I went to the European train station Monday night, bought my sleeping car reservation, some Turkish Delight for my hosts, and boarded the one car on the train that was going to Belgrade. It was a pretty empty car - and no one really spoke English or Turkish - just serbian. Before even leaving Turkey, I was once again back to speaking with my hands. Now that I am able to communicate most things that I want in Turkish, I had gotten used to not needing to speak with my hands to get things done.

The conductor made up my bed, and at 10 the train left and I went straight to sleep. I was woken up about 2 in the morning, and put my coat on over my pajamas, and walked out into the fog, down the stairs and under the other tracks to the station where I waited in line to get stamped out of Turkey. But before they would give me back my passport, I had to fill out a survey about my time in Turkey. Where I had stayed, how much money I had spent, etc. The whole thing was entirely surreal. And then they got on the train to make sure everyone had been stamped out. Why they can't just stamp you out on the train like most other countries is beyond me. One stop later the Bulgarian officials came on the train, stamped us into Bulgaria, and then I was allowed to return to sleep.

The next day I woke up when we stopped in Sofia. I ate lunch, then went out to explore. It was when I got out of the station to see the very distinctive front of the train station, I realized I had been here before, running to catch a train in the summer of 2005, and making it literally a minute before the train left. No such stress this time, and the train continued on. At the border between Bulgaria and Serbia one of the guys actually searched my entire bag, and we continued. We got into Belgrade late, at about 9:20 local time, and I couldn't find Petra. So I got money, and after several tries bought a card to work in the pay phone (stupid turkcell doesn't work outside the country).
Unfortunately I couldn't get the phone to work, and only found petra at around 10, when I realized there was another section of the train station. She had been frantically looking for me for 40 minutes. I felt horrible. We took a tram and then a bus to her house. It was really great to see her again! Her mom (who speaks no English and is originally from Croatia) fed us both the most amazing pizza ever (eaten with Ketchup - and for the record Petra did eat it with Ketchup, something I am told she never does) I tried hard to stay awake and be social, but around midnight gave up and went to sleep on the bed that pulls out from under Petra's bed - a trundle bed I suppose.

In Petra I have found a fellow sleepyhead, and so we were not good at getting up early. Around noon we made our way downstairs and her mom had made breakfast. First was a sort of french toast, eaten with sour cream and ham. That's right - real ham!! and then crepes with nutella and jam. mmmmm. After breakfast we headed out so that Petra could give me a tour of the city. We decided to walk to the center instead of taking the bus, and half way there stopped at the newish tea house that sells all sorts of different kinds of tea. I had really nice green tea, a welcome change after so many glasses of Turkish tea. Then on to see Petra's high school (depressing looking) and primary school (full of happy looking kids with flowers on the window).


Next on the tour was the Temple of the Holy Sava. It's huge and still under construction. Sava is the name of one of the rivers that flows through Belgrade (the other is the Danube), and is also the name of their patron saint. At first I wasn't impressed by the temple, but the inside is amazing. The entire space is open - no pillars or anything and at the moment very simple. I hope they keep it simple and don't over decorate it, because at the moment its beauty is in its simplicity. We also visited the small older church next door, with walls and ceilings covered in paintings. Petra pointed one image out to me - The ottomans burning the remains of Saint Sava so that people would not know where to pray.

Next we bought sushi, and walked down the main pedestrian street to Kalemegdan fortress. As Petra put it "American girl coming from Turkey enjoying in Japanese food with a view on the Serbian river and city from Kalemegdan...classical example of a multicultural experience.:)" From the outside, I thought the fortress looked pretty small, but it's huge. We walked the grounds, went into Saint Ruzica's Church, and did a little bit of exploring as it got dark. Petra knows an enormous amount about the fortress, who the statues are of, who the paintings are of, and about her city in general. She made a fantastic tour guide, and put up with lots of my questions.


Our last stop was Skadarlija, the cutest cobblestone street, lined with lots of nice and cute restaurants. On the way home we stopped at Petra's favorite coffee shop - Coffeedream for fancy coffee. I had a cinnamon latte (No starbucks in Belgrade!) and it was super and we sat there and talked for forever. I feel like I have found a friend to whom I could tell anything. And who I can walk arm and arm with down the streets.

Back at Petra's house we ate the lentil soup her mom had made and then, concluding we were too tired to go out, watched The Notebook which had me crying the entire second half.