They don’t smell though. Thank God or else this would be a terrible train ride. My favorite sports writer does a running diary of big sports games so I thought I would do the same for this train ride.
11:31 am: Travelling through a lot of farmland now(see picture). Huge farms of corn for as long as you can see. In Belgrade in the evenings they grill corn on the cob on the street corner and sell it to people. Everyone is walking around eating corn on the cob. I also think they eat more ice cream in Belgrade than anywhere else in the world. People are always eating ice cream. The small train stations we pass are cute. My Mom would like them. A man stands outside in his train uniform and blows a whistle as we go by. I think it is some sort of signal.
11:37 am: My language skills are improving. When the family next to me is talking with each other I can understand about every 10th word. People in Croatia, Bosnia and Serbia all freely admitted that they speak the same language but just call it different languages. My friend in Dubrovnik, Boris said he gets annoyed when the newspaper will have a section where they write in Croatian and Serbian and they write the exact same thing. The Bosnian Serbs I shared the train with from Sarajevo to Belgrade also said it is exactly the same language with one or two minor differences. Religion seems to be the dividing point for people, even though my guide in Sarajevo said it is more about defining their identity than it is about spiritual belief. When I was in Dubrovnik the Catholic churches and monasteries were the central focus of the old town area. People in Sarajevo are extremely proud of their mosques and in Belgrade the St. Sava’s Orthodox Church was easily the site everyone recommended that I see. While the religious differences are clear, the language similarities are the same, and the general day to day culture is very similar. People live at cafes. They sit outside and watch people walk by, drink coffee or mineral water. They seem to do this for hours. I tried to do it but after about 45 minutes I was antsy and had to get up and move around. Cafes are the central social activity in all three countries so far.
1:17 pm: For the past hour there was a group of about 25-30 young men who were chanting, clapping, singing and yelling. It was total amusement to the kids sharing the train compartment with me. I had no idea what they were saying, but they would hang their heads out the windows. They all just got off at the last stop and I found out that in Northern Serbia they are hosting the Exit Festival, which is one of the largest music festivals in the world. None other than Missy “Misedemeanor” Elliot is performing. Hahaha! I haven’t thought about her in years. I also found out that the father sitting with us is a cop. I will try to be on my best behavior for the last FIVE hours of this trip.
3:58 pm: The family just got off the train so now I can stretch my legs out. It feels awesome! The view out my window has been fantastic. We passed field after field of sunflowers. It was so beautiful.
I can see mountains in the distance. We go through a lot of small towns and villages. We crossed the border from Serbia to Croatia about an hour ago. The border agents climb aboard the train and ride it with us to the next stop. They go from car to car and stamp passports. They are always really friendly. When I crossed the border from Bosnia to Serbia the agent made some joke about the people in the car talking with me. I didn’t get it but they all laughed for a good 15 minutes afterward. I am sure they were making fun of me for being American. Everywhere I have been people say Americans rarely travel here. I have met a lot of Australians and Europeans but only once did I meet Americans. When I was in Mostar, Hercegovina I met two girls, one from Philly and one from California. They asked me to take their picture in front of the old bridge. That has been my only American contact so far.I am getting excited about getting to Zagreb. I feel this strange sense of relief. I am not sure relief is the right word, but the tension in Hercegovina, Bosnia and Serbia is pretty palpable. This has been a hard trip because I have tried to get a sense of the war of the 1990’s, appreciate the culture of the people and get a better understanding of the continuing ethnic divisions. It is some pretty deep and serious stuff, but each of these places has great people. It reminded me how easy it is as a teacher to teach about wars and groups of people, rather than individual people. History is about people, and not just governmental leaders but also the everyday person who lives in that place during that time. I am sure I didn’t need to go across the world to understand that, but it happened nonetheless.
9:57 pm: I checked into my hotel and then walked to get some dinner in downtown Zagreb.
I walked through this beautiful park (see picture). I think it is the makeout spot of Zagreb because there was a lot of that going on. I am back at the hotel now and exhausted. Who would have thought that sitting on a train for 8 hours could make you tired?
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