"Welcome To Sarajevo"

Gypsy Home. The kids were very frindly.
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Sarajevo…

I left work at 3pm, went home, packed ate, conversed with the cleaning lady and at 5 left for the train station. I packed very little baggage, a small daypack that was half filled with camera stuff, books, film, and music. Arrived at the station 20 minutes before my train left, bought my ticket and spent 10 more minutes trying to locate my cart. If you don’t know Hungarians like to be different, the only country in the world that shows a clock of how much time has passed since the last metro, and well dealing with trains, its almost the same, the numbers are random, following no consecutive pattern. Finally fond my cart, all the way at the beginning of the train, found a seat, opened my book, put on my headphones, and zoned out for the next 4 hours. At around 10pm we finally hit the Croatian border. The train split up, and the only two carts that remained were destined for Sarajevo. I had the liberty of being in my cart, yes the entire cart alone so I had a little adventure. Anyways, after the train split, Passport control came over, gave them my Canadian passport, and waited. 3 guards lined up, all telling me that I need to buy a visa to enter Croatia (whatever, that’s a complete crack) so I take out my Polish passport, and you could see that they were a bit angry. Spent the next 10 minutes analyzing my passports to determine if they were real. Finally I got my stamp, and the train continued. At 1am, we arrived at the Bosnian border, flashed my Canadian passport, and the dudes were totally cool with everything. So by this time, I was already dozing off a bit. It as hard to sleep the entire ride cause you always had some form of conductor walking in to check tickets, passports or whatever else. All in all I think I slept around 6 hours, not bad I guess.

War Museum! Interesting!
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At 630 I was awoken by the conductor, who stated that well be in Sarajevo in 10 minutes. Packed my tings, loaded my camera and waited. The train arrived, right before sunrise. A beautiful scene, really, I couldn’t help but feel like I was in another world. The streets completely deserted, and all I could here was the birds and the river. I was approached by a couple of people offering rooms, and taxi’s into the city center, but I refused. I left the train station on foot and began walking wherever I found an interesting direction. Instantly as I left the train station I ran into a site that really stunned me. The old parliament building across from the holiday inn. The parliament building was bombed severely, and the building still stands in the same condition as it did after the war. The holiday inn was where all media people stayed during the war. Anyways, stopped to take a couple of pictures and kept on walking. To my surprise the city wasn’t like I expected, sure scars of the war exist but only fragments. Most buildings contain shrapnel marks, which really make you think about how bad the city was destroyed. I kept on walking to satisfy my curiosity, and ended up on top of a hill which contained a cemetery for Muslims victims of war. The views from here were truly amazing, houses built on hills that rise all the way to the top. While there I couldn’t shake the fact that there were almost as many graves here, as houses in the entire city. After the cemetery I kept on walking uphill to discover more mosques, and houses, nothing really exciting. I proceeded down hill and decided to hit up the city center. By this time I knew where it was because I could see it from the cemetary. The rynek, or well it’s called the Turkish district is really beautiful, very narrow streets with shops, and mosques, churches, synagogues, everywhere. At 4pm I decided to go and find my hostel, arrived at the door to find that it was closed. I went next door, and got a room. The hostel was in really bad shape, but clean and had everything that I wanted, cant really complain. I spent that evening at very cool bar writing in my scrapbook, and thinking about you!

View of Sarajevo
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The next morning was awful, it started snowing then raining, and then snowing again, and well lets just say that it was really hard to keep my feet dry. I took the liberty of running into a really nice lady while having my morning coffee. She was born and raised in Sarajevo, and I found it interesting to talk to a local about everything that the city has been through. She finally offered to give me the unofficial tour of the city and show me things completely off the beaten track. She showed me the scar on her shin from a sniper, and said that she has many things she could share with me. So ok, for the next 3 hours I spent learning about how people survived during the war, and what kind of conditions they lived in, she took me to an old hideout that they had, and really two things, first I thought I was going to be robbed, and second after finding out that I wasn’t going to be robbed, I was amazed at the living conditions these people had to endure for 4 years. No water, no electricity, and well coal, and wood were scarce items. Anyways to make it short, the tour was totally mind blowing. I paid her 10KM about $5 (my hostel cost exactly the same amount, so it’s a fair bit of money for the locals) and decided that Id walk the city in parts that I haven’t been yet.

Side Streets Near the Vienna Village.
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I followed the river down away from the Turkish center. Ran into many little gypsy kids that were super funny, I started giving them candy and they wouldn’t leave me alone. They led me to their house, well very unfortunate children, and extreme poverty. It was funny though, even though I gave them probably all the candy I had they kept on asking me for money “Marka, Marka” I couldn’t resist so I gave them 1KM and told them not to spend it all in one place! LOL, I can imagine how far kids can go with that much money!!! Anyways, during the walk I saw more scars of the war, and couldn’t believe how badly this city was bombed.

Your Truly with the City
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The next day, I was supposed to go skiing. Unfortunately the buses to the ski hills on run on the weekend so I was out of luck. A taxi was way too expensive and I dint want to take the chance of missing my train back to Budapest. So I chilled around the city come more, went on a city tour bus, and ya, nothing special.

I caught my train to Budapest at 8pm, and spent some time writing, ohh yes, my famous postcards! I had bought a couple of beers for the ride, so it should be very interesting to reread what I wrote!

UN Mine Clearance Truck. Many mines are still being cleared from the hills.
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Written for my beautiful girlfriend Ewa M. Your the best Kochanie. ImYours Always & Forever