Day 5.3

So many things to write and so little brain cells left with which to write them.
Got massively lost looking for Ruski Car this afternoon-- thank goodness I decided to do a test run before meeting Florian there tomorrow morning! Took 1 1/2 hours as opposed to 20 min thanks to the fact that while in the map street names are in Latin, 99.9% of the street signs (when you can find them) are in Cyrillic!!! Sigh... just call me Twoflower. (This is some random art on a random wall on a random street... :-p)

Around 6pm Milos picked me up and took me adventuring! He helped me buy a Serbian-English/English-Serbian dictionary (yay) and then we walked around the rest of kalemegdan park... I forgot my camera of course so I'll have to stroll back there and get some pics.

From there he took me to a really old part of Belgrade dating back at least to the 1800s. The streets were laid by the Ottomans and we walked past the ruins of the National Library which was completely destroyed by the bombing during WW II. Directly across and situated right on the Sava apparently were the lodgings of many of Serbia's famous poets and painters. (Really need pics of all of this!!! bad Suzie!) Nearby was the house of Mihailo Petrovic the world renowned Serb inventor and mathematician.

We then went back to Kneza Mihaila to get some coffee. We were outside under their awning when an immense thunder storm rolled in. It must have continued for 20 minutes at least. We had to raise our voices to hear each other over the noise.

On the way back to the car Milos pointed out some bullet holes in a building-- "from 1999?" I asked. "Earlier than that" he replied "World War II or I"
Moments like that remind me how different the histories of our two countries are-- the closest the US has ever come to being attacked like that was Pearl Harbor and 9/11. But those were isolated places... yes... horrible horrible horrible events but still not the same as being bombed day after day after day during a war. Events like that shape a generation. But what about when it happens three times...As Milos said, Belgrade was the first and last European capital bombed in the 20th century... What does that do to a people?

He then drove me by the Serbian military buildings that are still bombed out shells. I have yet to come up with words to describe what it felt like to see them. I agree with the humanitarian arguments made in favor of international intervention in Kosovo but I strongly STRONGLY condemn the means used. We drove past a military compound in Dedinje which apparently had been untouched by the bombs. Apparently a market place and a radio station full of civilians were of greater strategic importance than a military base.

In Dedilje we drove into the elite neighborhood formerly home to Milosevic and Arkan of "Arkan's Tigers"-- I saw his house... sent chills up my spine.

The size of those houses rival those found in Malibu and Beverly Hills. As Milos tried to locate Milosevic's former house we happened upon a house apparently containing someone important because there was a guard patrolling the sidewalk with a fairly large gun.

I talked to Alec tonight... I told him that so far everything I've been experiencing is exactly what I was expecting... I feel vindicated yet also so incredibly sad. I expected to encounter a frustrated, hurt, angry, and exhausted country and so I have. But I am filled with an incredible sense of injustice. People should not have to go through this. Not in this day and age. It's pure political (international and domestic) foolishness that has kept Serbia so isolated over the past 10 years and the Serbian people know it. With the current economic crisis making the already weak Serbian economy weaker I'm concerned that it wouldn't take much for things to go downhill fast.

("Kosovo is Serbia" ;[1389 was the Battle of Kosovo]; "EU= Organized Traitors"; "Eurolex- Occupator")

I have been taking pictures of graffiti around the city because I find it an interesting social commentary. It must, of course, be understood that as in any locale graffitti represents a certain social element and must not be construed as representative in any way of the whole or even the majority of society. That being said I find this picture interesting.

It's late and I have to get up early tomorrow.
laku noc...