Day 10, May 20th, Montenegro
We got up, ate breakfast, and then boarded the bus for Montenegro. It was a gorgeous drive—crystalline blue/green waters to the right, and mountains immediately to the left. It took quite a few hours, but it was so worth it. Montenegro is so beautiful. It’s all mountains, coastline, palm trees, and pine trees.
We drove through a place called Budva, which has apparently the highest number of millionaires per km2 of anywhere in the world. It’s a coastal town which has a population of 16,094. It was absolutely breathtaking—we went into the mountains immediately behind it, so we had a view of it from a progressively higher elevation.
From there we went to Cetinje, where we got out and toured an Orthodox Monastery. It has the oldest library in the Balkans, having opened in the 16th century. The books were incredible—one of them had 20kg of silver engraved on its cover. After being in Cetinje for a while (a few hours) we drove all the way back to Zaton Mali and went to sleep. After a really late, really good supper.
Day 11, May 21st, Bosnia
After getting to sleep in an hour later if we wanted (I still got up at 06:00), we ate breakfast and then drove to Mostar, Bosnia. It took two hours or so. The border crossing was really strange—it was essentially a giant parking lot, on which one side was Bosnia and the other was Croatia. We parked and then passport control guys boarded the bus and checked our passports.
Mostar was overrun with tourists, but it was incredibly sobering anyway. Burned-out homes rested next to ones in pristine conditions, and signs were everywhere warning people against entering certain buildings on the basis of being structurally unstable. We passed tons of graveyards that had the date of death being 1993. It was really sad.
After being in Mostar for a few hours, we drove on to visit a dervish house not far off. It was mildly cool, but really it was just an old Muslim situated in an awesome place—right at the source of the Buna river. The river was a gorgeous green, and tasted so amazing.
From there, we drove on to Sarajevo, arriving at around 06:30 or so. At 07:00 we ate, and then we all crashed. It was exciting to have wireless, though.
Day 12, May 22nd, Sarajevo
Today was fairly intense. It started off rainy and gloomy, and everyone was pretty down. We went to a museum and saw a few exhibits of Bosnia (ethnographic and Roman/Medieval eras). It was fairly interesting, but the guide had such a pro-Muslim bias it made everything a little more dubious.
After that we went and had lunch. It was kind of a sad lunch, though—the hamburgers were all undercooked, and despite my eating of my own, when I went to finish off someone else’s I found out that they had more or less the equivalent of lead in theirs. Something that did not react kindly and squish when it encountered my teeth. So I left theirs alone and ended up being hungry all afternoon.
After lunch we visited the Sarajevo Orthodox Cathedral and then the Catholic Cathedral. They were pretty cool, but nothing compared to other things that we’ve seen.
What was cool was the Bosnian Institute that we went to next. IT had a number of really interesting exhibits of artwork, but the guide herself was really interesting. She was born Muslim, but she has a Catholic name. As a result, people simply assume that she is Catholic. In reality, she is neither—she’s spiritually confused. She said that Bosnians are taught to be Muslims at a young age, the Serbs to be Orthodox, and the Croats to be Catholic. With such unforgiving teaching styles generating tension between people, she doesn’t predict peace for Bosnia for a long time. She does hope that it will eventually return, though. For years Croats, Serbs, and Bosnians lived side-by-side with no trouble. Nationalism was not helpful in this part of the world.
We had a ridiculously late supper today. It was like 20:00.
May 23rd, Day 13, Sarajevo—Višegrad—Kraljevo
This was absolutely the most boring day so far. We drove from Sarajevo in the morning after church, all the way out to Višegrad, which took several hours. Višegrad itself was awesome, though. We were there for some two hours, in which we had no rain—it rained before we got there and after we left, though. I had prayed that morning specifically for sunlight while we were in Višegrad, because everyone was looking forward to it, courtesy of Bridge on the Drina by Ivo Andrić.
TheMehmet Paša Sokolović bridge was just as fantastic as all of us had thought it would be. It was so cool. There were lizards everywhere on it, though, and apparently someone saw a small snake, which is cool. We went to a restaurant where I didn't eat enough, so I was hungry all day.
In Kraljevo that night, we had an enormous meal. It was a massive salad platter for four people (so we had seven of them), followed by mixed-meat platters for everyone individually. It was so good—chicken, pork, and beef.
Sleep that night was on a partially full stomach for one of the first times on the trip.
May 24th, Day 14, Kraljevo—Žiča—Studenica—Beograd
We drove most of the day, but we stopped for two monasteries that were pretty cool. They werenćt the most impressive things I've ever seen, though.
We got to Beograd late in the evening, and our hostel was awesome—it was several floors of an old apartment building in the center of the city, and the halls were artistically graffitied and stuff. We had free wi-fi, hot showers, even one desktop per bedroom. It was fantastic. Dr. Pearse didn't like it, though, because they failed to deliver sterling performances in several key aspects, such as preparation.
Laura and I went for a very enjoyable walk to close our evening.
May 25th, Day 15, Beograd—Vinkovci
We wandered around Belgrade all morning, after breakfast was 35 minutes late. We listened to a lecture which portrayed a much brighter picture of evangelicals in Serbia than we got in Bosnia or Croatia, where Evangelicals are a very small part of the population. We got lots of ice cream, we got sour apple rings, and we walked around the fortress. It was pretty cool. Then we went to the Cathedral of Saint Savo, which was amaying—it is being refurbished, but it was still glorious. I felt like kneeling down and praying in it.
Then we got on the bus for Vinkovci, during which trip I got a massage to obliterate the knots that had viciously appeared in mz shoulder during the day.
We drove through Vukovar on the way, and that was really tough. There were tons of signs of war in it, and as we passed through I couldn't help but think about and shudder at the thought of neighbours killing each other—people who have lived side-by-side for hundreds of years, suddenly at war with one another. It was really tragic.
We reached Vinkovci, and stayed at a hotel in the back of a restaurant. It's a pretty nice place. The town layout is kind of confusing, and my mental map didn't work out as anticipated when I went for a walk later, because there was a dead end that I hadn't accounted for, so I didn't get us to where I thought we should have gotten. We got everything all sorted out, though, and made it back to the hotel in good order.
Bed followed soon after some of us guys watched the first half of Blood Diamond.
May 26th, Day 16, Đakovo—Osijek
Today we drove a lot, and we went to the Strossmayer Cathedral. It wasn't nearly as cool as the average church—in fact, I would say it was as much of a monstrosity as any pollution-spewing factory in a national park. The architecture itself was pretty fine, but the decorations inside—the paintings and patterns on the walls, the star-filled 'sky' on the ceiling, etc., all felt more appropriate for the bedroom of a small child than a location in which to worship God.
Osijek was kind of boring, really—we walked around, went to a museum, ate supper and then ate ice cream. That was all enjoyable in and of itself, but we didn't really do anything, ultimately. Nothing that pertains to our trip, anyway.
I rounded the night off by finishing Blood Diamond with the other guys, and then they all went to bed and I'm writing this.
May 27, Day 17, Vukovar—Venice
Today is going to be the long, miserable day—we're having our overnight drive to Venice tonight, and I can't sleep in moving vehicles. Anyway, I'm writing this while relishing the Angels and Demons soundtrack. We're going to go around Vukovar today, and I expect it to be pretty depressing and sad.
It turned out to be so, in fact. Many of the buildings were still bare ruins (not anything near the majority, though). What we saw standing were those which had been the least damaged in the fighting in '91. The others were mostly new buildings, replacing ones which were simply piles of rubble.
We saw a short video clip describing the months of 1991 during which Vukovar was attacked, and it was yet another portrayal of the events. We've heard from Croats, Serbs, and Bosnians about the Homeland War at this point--as I see it, the Serbs of Vukovar could almost be portrayed as equivalents of the Tories. Reconciliation attempts are slow, but ongoing--people who had lived together and worked together before the war attempted to kill each other (frequently succeeding) or tortured each other during it. Now, the survivors have to live with seeing each other every day, knowing what the other person has done. It's an incredibly sober environment.
After that, we had free time. Lots and lots of free time. Which I'm still using. We leave for Venice at 21:00, and it's 19:21 right now.
