Another city, another hostel, another internet cafe...

A few thoughts on Sarajevo:

-A few of you have asked about the gas crisis and how it's affecting our trip. Well, today we found the most visible sign: Sarajevo's eternal flame has gone out, because there's not enough gas to power it. Yeah. We've also found that most of the hostels in town have shut down their larger, cheaper rooms because those rooms don't have electric heating, and there is no gas for the central heating. Thankfully, while our hostel here would win absolutely no awards, it is warm and does have hot showers, neither of which we were sure we'd find in Sarajevo.

-One thing that I've found really interesting here is the appearance of microcredit institutions. This is the first time we've seen them in Eastern Europe, and there are a fair few of them, around the city.

-There's still damage from the shelling of the city in 1992-1995 visible on many buildings in town. It's a little odd to think that in my lifetime, this city was a war zone.

-Bosnia is soooo Turkish, it's incredible. They have borek, kebap, mercimek corbasi, and patlican salatasi in the restaurants. The cafes serve Bosnaski kafe (Turkish coffee, by another name; a little less thick though). The cake shops sell baklava (in servings 4-5 times the size of Turkish servings) and helva. The guy next to me at this internet cafe is speaking Turkish to his friend. The hotels have names like Merak (Curiosity) and Yildiz (Star). The district with all the shops and restaurants is called Bascarsi (the head/chief market). It's wonderful. I think I will really enjoy Bosnia.

Sarajevo is, as much as Eastern Europe has been, beautiful and cold. We saw a few churches, mosques, and monuments today, including the Latin bridge, where Archduke Franz Ferdinand was assassinated, thus sparking World War One. It was incredible. The other highlight of our day was finding an English bookshop, so we are now fully stocked and ready for many long bus and train rides to come. As long as they're in daylight hours.

kib,
-R