2012-04-02 Belgrade, day 2

What a busy day!!

I'm sure nobody is wondering but I'm still going to inform you that my cereals were edible, not only were they edible they surprisingly tasted good. I'm quite picky on my milk and Serbian milk passed the test!

So after part one of breakfast I took my very first Serbian shower haha, then I headed out to see the world! As mentioned yesterday, my first mission was to find burek. This had been recommended by my Serbian colleague as a "must try" while I am here, so I was quite decided to have one. My colleague also specified that burek has to be accompanied by yogurt. I do not like yogurt but she informed me that Serbian yogurt is not like the Canadian one, however I did discover in one of my travel books that Serbian yogurt is made of milk that is passed expiration... I summoned all my courage and had a sip. I'm still alive!! But I did not finish my yogurt ;) The burek was ok but very greasy. I would still give the whole experience a 9 out of 10, just because this is a very typical thing to do! I sent this picture to my Serbian colleague, she will be proud of me that I listened to her and enjoyed a Serbian dish for breakfast!

I went on to discover one of the cutest street I've ever seen! It was still very early (around 8 AM I think) so the sun was adding a special light that made everything look even nicer. Here is a picture I took of the description of that street:

And the street itself, unfortunately it doesn't look as good here but in real life it was beautiful I promise!

This is actually drawn on the wall, the door is real but not the windows and the trees.

I walked around pretty much all day taking a bunch of pictures of nice looking buildings, I'll show you some of them toward the end of the message.

At one point, around 2 PM, I had seen everything I wanted to see for the day so I decided to be extremely courageous and go talk to someone. I spotted an old lady sitting on her own on a park bench and I said (in not so good Serbian) "I want to practice Serbian, can I converse with you?" She said "Sure!" so I sat down and we spoke for about 10-15 minutes until her bus arrived. I didn't understand everything but it went ok! Apparently her sister lives in Toronto so we were talking about Canada, my trip, etc. That was quite an experience!!

At 5 PM I was meeting two real Belgraders! (I'm not sure that's how they're called so please don't quote me). A few months prior to my trip, I discovered the website www.sharedtalk.com where you can specify which language you speak and which language you're learning and start exchanging messages with learners of your own language, and I have been in touch for quite some time with a young lady named Jelena who wanted to practice her French. So eventually I told her that I was coming to Belgrade and I asked if she'd like to meet in person, so she said yes and we met today! She came to see me with one of her co-workers and we spent the whole evening together, which was quite nice! Luckily their French is absolutely fantastic so I didn't have to use my brain too too much. It was quite weird because we were walking around and I felt at home because we were speaking in French! So I was quite surprised every time I was hearing other people talk in Serbian around us, until I remembered that I'm actually not home at all :) Jelena taught me a few very interesting expressions in Serbian, apparently it is usual to say "I could sleep like a beheaded". I think it sounds much better than "I could sleep like a baby"! Serbians also say that to really know someone, you have to eat a full bag of salt together, meaning that you have to share many meals together to eat the equivalent of a bag of salt, meaning it takes time to know someone.

I'm quite happy with how the day turned out, I know not every single day will be an adventure such as this one but after only two days I can already say that I have no regrets at all for carrying on this crazy trip project. So far I'm having a wonderful time!! Also, I wanted to add a quick thank you note to everyone who are commenting on my blog, it gives me the motivation to continue and I'm going to try my best never to bore you! (I hope I didn't today with the long blog post...)

On with the rest of the pictures from today!

This is the picture of a movie coming out soon:

In one of the churches I visited today, I saw the tomb of Dušan the powerful. I didn't know him prior to today but from the description below he seemed to be fairly important at one point! Sorry that I have no picture of the tomb but I'm actually stuck with taking pictures with my phone at the moment because I have lost the battery that goes inside my camera... My phone does not take good pictures inside, I'll have to really dig through my luggage sometime tomorrow to find that battery... So sorry dear readers that my laziness is impacting the quality of the pictures that I am sharing with you!

Oh here is a picture I took of what I think must be the ugliest statue I have seen so far in my entire life. I hope I'm not offending anybody here, that's just my opinion :)

I am sooooo sad because the st. Mark church, which is absolutely beautiful according to the pictures I've seen on the Internet, is under construction. But here's the picture I took of it regardless!

I stopped in a kafana for lunch apparently they were very popular at one point but are slowly disappearing from the city center so I was glad to find one. Unfortunately I forgot that Serbia does not have laws regarding smoking inside a building so the smell was not too pleasant... And the funniest part is that at MY table it was forbidden to smoke. Not too sure why but I think this picture of the lady smoking behind the sign on my table looks very artistic :)

Here is a building that was bombed during the war, it's quite a contrast because on the same corner, there are very nice looking buildings and then two buildings that have been completely destroyed. Seeing how the city is now, it would be easy for foreigners like me to believe that no war ever took place here. I think those building are an important proof of the sad events that took place in the past.

 Nice looking buildings:

Bombed buildings:

Just to prove I really am in Serbia and not sitting at home writing false blog posts, a picture of me taken by some person on the street who accepted to use my phone to take a picture for me! Behind is the St-Sava temple.

I took a picture of a door for my mom because I know she loves old doors. I looked quite stupid for 2-3 minutes trying to take a picture of that door so I really hope she enjoys.

Here are two videos, the first one I have to apologize because I took it backward. It's a protest for I'm not sure what reason, but I didn't want anybody to see that I was filming them, I didn't want to create a fuss! Also, there are policemen on this video and I think it is illegal to film them in Serbia so please don't tell anybody!

While we were walking around my new Belgrader friends and I, we heard a street musician playing on his guitar. I know a few Serbian songs because being passionate about music, I had to hear what they have to offer. I think I know approximately 25 songs. Well, that guy was playing one of them! I thought that it was yet another reason for enjoying myself and I wanted to share that story with you :)

And we will finish this long blog post (sorry!) with a few more of the pictures I took today!