Belgrade, Serbia

So, after a bit of a journey I arrived in Belgrade, Serbia. The train was scheduled to take 9 hours and ended up taking 14 hours. Luckily, I shared the ride with some nice people. It gave me a chance to practice my speaking, which is getting better everyday. It is still pretty bad, but better. I have had two days in Belgrade. I spent some time visiting museums about Serbian culture and a military museum. After visiting the war museum in Dubrovnik and the war museum in Sarajevo I was interested in seeing how the war was portrayed in Serbia. I was shocked that they barely mentioned it at all. The museum only showed the NATO bombing of Belgrade, but no other mention of the 5 year war with the Slovenes, Croats, or Bosnians. I am not really sure what to think about that. It might take me a while to process it. People in Croatia and Bosnia seem to be still recovering from the war but here it is different. There are a few buildings that have bomb damage here but it is not the focal point of what people talk about.


Life in Belgrade seems to be pretty good for most people. This city is the point where the Sava and the Danube Rivers meet. There is a huge park and a fort that overlooks the rivers called Kalemegdan. It is easily one of the best places I have visited. I spent hours both days climbing around and finding little hideaways. I was walking around there today when all of a sudden a huge group (thousands) of people started parading through wearing traditional costumes. I learned later that Belgrade is hosting the International Folk Festival this weekend. Lucky for me, I got to watch some traditional dancing and listen to music from all over the world inside this incredible park. It was such a great idea. NYC could totally do something like this because the city is so diverse. It reminded me of the labor day parade and all of the different costumes from the Carribbean.


The majority of people in Serbia belong to the Serbian Orthodox religion. The churches here are HUGE! They are by far the biggest churches I have ever seen. Today I went to see St. Sava's church which is one of the largest in the world. It is undergoing renovations now, but people still gather outside of it all day long. My favorite thing about Serbia though is the fact that they eat pizza for breakfast. It's not exactly like our pizza but it is dough with cheese and some type of sauce. You can get vegetables or meat on it. It tastes so good! I leave here in the morning. I have a seven hour (hopefully) train ride to Zagreb, Croatia.