Unlucky Break

Today was our last full day in Sarajevo before we hop on a bus to Mostar tomorrow morning.

One thing we noticed as the rain poured this morning is that street umbrella vendors pop up out of nowhere - nobody wears a raincoat.

After the rain had subsided we paid a taxi to take us up Trebevič Mountain to where the bobsled run still stands.  It was originally built for the 1984 Winter Olympics in Sarajevo.

Unlike many Olympic sites, this one remained very popular with locals after the games had wrapped up.  From these games, Ron and Judy mostly remember Torvill and Dean's thrilling ice dance to Ravel's Bolero.

Then when the Balkan War started and the siege took over Sarajevo, the hills and mountains which surround the city were used by the Serb forces to blitz the city.  They used the bobsled track to store weapons and ammo, and snipers even bored holes into it.

This is what it looks like today - the mountain and graffiti artists are taking it back.  Our cab driver agreed to stay for 20 minutes so we could walk it and get some photos.  It was nearly impossible to think that 30 years ago this place would have been packed with athletes and dignitaries.  Now, they suggest that you only keep to the well marked paths are there are still many unexploded ordinances.

It feels like now it has become a bit of a tourist attraction, as on our way out we saw 2 more cabs pull in.

We headed back down the mountain, which offered beautiful views of the city below.  We also saw a lot of shelled out houses and stray dogs.

Back to the where the taxi picked us up at the Latin Bridge, we decided to check out the Sarajevo 1914 Museum, which was small but well set up with many interesting artefacts from the Hapsburg era in Sarajevo, including the gun that was used to kill Archduke Franz Ferdinand:

We then headed into the old town for a traditional Bosnian delicacy for lunch: čevapi.  It's meat dumplings served with pita, onions and cream cheese, surpringly tasty, and American-sized portions.

After lunch we strolled around the cobblestoned old town where Ron tripped and took a spill.  He then got to take a very exclusive tour of Sarajevo that not many tourists get to experience, including an ambulance ride, x-rays, a cast, a hospital gown, a hospital bed, and later surgery and pins.  A note to future travellers - if you want to stay an extra 5 - 6 days in Sarajevo, break 3 bones in your elbow.

After a family meeting, Ron absolutely insisted that Judy and Kelly carry on with the tour and when he is all bandaged up, he will meet up with them, hopefully in Dubrovnik.  So for the next few posts, it will only be experiences from Kelly and Judy, because can't imagine that Ron has many different ways of saying "had stewed quinoa for lunch.  It was friggin' terrible".

Part 2

After taking a few pictures of the Latin Bridge we went to visit the adjacent museum  - which was closed.

We crossed the bridge to the left bank where the massive Sarajevska Brewery sits.  It is THE watering hole for the town, and an important lifeline during the siege - its natural spring gave Sarajevans the opportunity to fill up on fresh water - but they had to dodge sniper fire to get there.

Inside the brew pub was enormous but cozy with its dark woods and brick ceiling.  Ron enjoyed a premium lager while Kelly tried the special dark ale, both which cost 3.50 BKM, or $3CND (eat your heart out, anywhere in Vancouver!).

We then backtracked to Hapsburg Sarajevo and entered the Gallery 11/07/95.  A little background info here: back when the Bosnian Serbs took over Bosnia during the war of 1992 - 1995, the UN moved in Dutch peacekeepers to try and help out some of the civilians who were being victimized, most of whom were Bosnian Muslims, known as Bosniaks.  The UN, being the super functional organization that they are instructed the peacekeepers that they were only to feed the victimized, not defend them.  The Bosniaks were trying to flee the town of Srebrenica before the Serbs came and took over, but the peacekeepers roped off a safezone for about 5000 of them.  The Serb forces moved in and had told everyone that they were going to escort the Bosniaks out of town, so they asked the women to stay and instructed the men between the ages of 12 - 77 to follow them.  What happened next was the greatest mass murder in Europe since the Holocaust.   Bosniak men were lined up and shot, stabbed or had their throats slit and pushed into mass graves.  Many women never found out what happened to their fathers/husbands/brothers/sons.  Estimates range between 7,000 - 8,000 Bosniak men were slaughtered, with mass graves still being uncovered today, along with exhumations, identification and proper burials.  The two men who coordinated this atrocity are on trial at The Hague in the Netherlands, which still drags on now.  The Gallery is a two room exhibit that features black and white photos of some of the women and children, bones and remains of the murdered, and other bleak images.  The first thing you see when you step off the elevator is the names of the dead.

Another sobering thing to see around town is known as a Sarajevo rose - a distinctive mark and splatter pattern left by a shell shot from the hills.  We saw many of these.

One thing that the world has done, possibly to try and make itself feel better about that whole siege, has been to give the city of Sarajevo public art, apparently most of which Sarajevans hate.  We crossed through a park that houses a gift from Italy - a bronze statue of a naked man doing jumping jacks with an overly polished member.  Thanks, Italy.  In the same park but out of view of naked Guiseppe were a bunch of old Bosnian gents playing giant chess.  With their cheers and jeers, it reminded us of the old guys who play bocce on Commercial Drive.

Continuing west bound, we then came upon another atrocity that rocked the city, in the Markhale Market.  It's a modest market but during the siege it was where people woudl buy their produce.  2 seperate bombings, one in 1994 and one in 1995 killed almost 100 people and made the international community finally give their heads a shake and pay attention to what was happening to the civilians, which long story short, helped end the siege and war.  Futher west there is another Sarajevo rose in the ground, and this one a bit famous.  On May 27th 1992, Sarajevans were waiting in line to buy bread when a shell hit the line up, killing 26.  This lead to a Sarajevan cellist to brave future shellings and sniper fire and set up his cello and play on that spot for 26 days to honour each casualty of the bomb.  See also "The Cellist of Sarajevo".

Heading into more modern Sarajevo, we passed by McDonalds.  In North America, who cares, but this is the first McDonalds in the city and opened in 2011 after being delayed 4 years.  There were concerns that Sarajevans would abandon their local foodstuffs in favour of the greasy American burgers and nuggets.  People lined up for miles to try McSlop, but the furor died down a few weeks later and Sarajevans went back to their delicious local dishes.

We then came to a park that showed one of the more devistating public memorials - The Memorial to the Children of Sarajevo.  The glass sculpture represents a sand castle that will never be finished, and the basin shows the footprints of children, in honour of the nearly 1600 children who were killed during the siege.  Beside the fountain are some steel pillars with the childrens' names inscribed on them.

At our westernmost point was what was known as Sniper Alley - a busy intersection that would get you sniped if you hung out longer than 5 seconds.  At one side of the street is the Holday Inn Hotel, where the first shots of the siege were fired.  On the street in 1992 people gathered for a peaceful protest, when Serb forces were instructed to openfire on the protestors, killing 6, and marking the beginning of almost 4 years of a city under siege.

Our final stop was to a bridge just beyond the hotel which is now named after the first 2 casualties of the siege, but is more famously known as the Romeo and Juliet bridge.  A Bosnian Serb and Bosniak were in love and hoping to flee the city for a better life when they were sniped on the bridge while making their escape.  He died instantly and she, mortally wounded crawled up to her beloved and died clutching his body.  The two corpses stayed on the bridge for many days afterwards as people were too afraid of sniper fire to retrieve them.

Yesterday was our first full day exploring the ecumenical and historic powder keg city known as Sarajevo.  Sarajevo is known as "Little Jerusalem" as it has 4 major religions living side by side - Catholic, Orthodox, Judaic and Islam.

With our Rick Steve's guidebook at our side, we started our self guided walking tour in the Ottoman sector dating back to the 1500s.  At a plaza known as Pigeon Square, we dodged gypsies to make our way to the Baščaršija.  It is said that those who drink its water will some day return to the city, so we all had a sip.

Kelly and Ron decided to have our first foray into an important tradition to the Bosnians - Bosnian coffee.  To the untrained eye it looks like Turkish coffee, but the Bosnians insist that you take the time to slowly pour the sludgy mix over your sugar and give it a good swirl.  It also comes with a piece of Turkish delight and a glass of water (to no doubt get the grounds out of your teeth).  Both Kelly and Ron thought that, despite it s murky visual, it's surprisingly good.  So suck it, Starbucks.

After our breakfast and coffee, we ambled down Coppersmith Street, with it's tenants and craftsmen selling evil eyes and copper goods.  We stepped into one shop and started admiring the goods.  We started talking to the shopkeep who informed us that he had learned the coppersmith trade from his father, who had learned it from HIS father.  Kelly bought a beautifully simple copper coffee service and the shopkeep showed us his hand-crank coffee mills ("the man grinds the coffee, the woman boils the water").

After Coppersmith street we checked out the outside of some of the mosques and marvelled at their sky-touching minarets.

It's so troubling to see a religion that the large majority choose to practice peacefully perverted by a small few.

The Ottoman Empire crumbed and just like that, Sarajevo was snapped up by the Hapsburgs of Austro-Hungary who sent in their architects and builders.  It's an obvious line where Ottoman ends and Vienna begins.

Just on the Austria side of the divide is the Hotel Europe, which houses a Viennese cafe, so we popped in for a coffee and sone cake.

We strolled through the main strasse and then took a significant and historical turn - to the Latin Bridge.  The Bridge doesn't look like much, but historically it's street corner changed history.  Here's what went down 100 years ago:

Franz Ferdinand, heir to the collapsing Austro-Hungarian empire (and not that shitty band) and his wife Sofie were on a state visit to Sarajevo, smiling and waiving at their subjects.  Also in town was Gavrilo Princip, a member of the Serbian anarchist group the Black Hand who, with his cronies had earlier thrown a bomb at the Archduke's car.  In some sort of horrible comedy of errors, Princip slipped into a delicatessen to enjoy a tasty bunwich kitty-corner to the bridge.  Franz Ferdinand had suddenly changed his mind and told his driver that he wanted to visit the people wounded by the earlier bomb attack.  The driver, totally confused by the Archduke's last minute route change accidentally stalled the car at the right bank of the Latin Bridge.  Princip exited deli, raised his hand and emptied his 9mm Browning at the car, killing the Archduke and his wife.  To make a long story short, this set off a chain reaction that pissed everyone off and lead to World War 1, the war to end all wars (until the next war).

To be continued....

Disorient Express

Today was our travel day from Zagreb, Croatia to where our trip REALLY starts in Sarajevo, Bosnia. We were all bright eyed and bushy tailed at 330hrs in the morning, so we took our time getting ready, showered, trying not to die in the shower, dressed and breakfasted.  After a decent breakfast and great coffee, we checked out of the Gulag Hilton (complete with Croatian Adolph at the front desk), and headed across the street to the train station, where the power was out.

We knew we were to catch our train on platform 2, so we waited and sure enough, our ticket out of Zagreb and into the country side arrived.  But before we boarded, we partook in some coffee sold by a guy on a bike, who grinds the coffee on site (on site being wherever he parks his bike).   It was delicious!

The train was pretty much the Hogwarts Express - if the Hogwarts Express was built by a bunch of communists in the 1980s.  But at least we got our own compartment on the non-smoking carriage, which is apparently just a suggestion, and not a rule.

It was really interesting travelling through the Croatian and Bosnian country sides - many differences and many similarities.

The Croatian country was mostly flat with small boxy houses with red roofs.  We saw many delapitated and derelict houses, and it was difficult to discern if they had been shelled, abandoned or merely neglected.

The train made many stops on the way and at each stop was a man in a red cap, either waving us by or assisting people getting on and off the train.  As we drew closer to the border, we got a knock on our compartment door and two completely humourless Croatian border guards looked at out passports, scanned them and stamped them.  About 15 minutes later we crossed the border and a friendly Bosnian police officer took our passports and returned them a few minutes later, complete with a Bosnia stamp.

Going deeper and deeper into Bosnia the terrain grew more mountainous, and the village Catholic cathedral spires turned into the rounded turrets of Orthodox churches and domes and minarets of Muslim mosques.  The houses became nicer and everyone seemed to have a lush garden with the beautiful orange flowers of squash season being around the corner.

During the train journey we all decided that we much prefer train travel to plane travel - we were able to walk about freely, open a window, eat whenever we wanted, and look out the window and see more than just clouds, although the washroom left A LOT to be desired (we shall never speak of it again).

After 9 1\2 hours on the train and one compartment guest whose English was just about as good as our Bosnian, we pulled into the historic city of Sarajevo.

We quickly found a taxi driver who started in right away about what we must see while we're in Sarajevo.  He pointed out many of the historic sights, told us where to get great Bosnian coffee and a traditional Bosnian meal.  He is a native Sarajevan and obviously very proud of his city, telling us he does not like to speak of the war in the 1990s (he was 14 when the siege began).  He dropped us off at our pansion, Casa United Apartments in the heart of the old town where we were met by the delightful innkeeper - "My English, CATASTROPHE" who showed us up the stairs to our clean, comfortable and quiet suite.

We dropped our bags, plugged in our devices (thankfully our host has a few outlet converters) and headed out to grab dessert and a drink.  Kelly and Judy shared a chocolate cheesecake and Ron had a walnut cake, all 3 of us drinking a refreshing Italian lemonade, all served up by an adorable and personable server.  We paid our bill and are turning in for the night, excited for our walking tour of Sarajevo in the morning.

Best Laid Plans of Mice and Men...

It takes a special kind of family to leave the house for our 1545hrs flight at noon and still only arrive at the check in desk at 1415hrs.  That family would be us.

We packed up Kelly's minty green Corolla and got our friendly neighbour Carl to drive us.  At about 32nd Ave and 176th st, Ron asks Kelly, "have you got your carry-on?"  "YES," Kelly rolls her eyes,  not realizing the foreshadowing of that statement.  We pull in to YVR at 1245hrs and unload the trunk.  Kelly has her two bags, Judy has her one, but Ron is standing with his carry-on, no check in bag to be found.  "Is that it?" he says.

And then the collective "OH SHIT".

"You have to go back.  Are we checking in?  We'll wait.  Are we waiting?  Fuck, go NOW."

So like a bat of of hell, Carl and Ron head back to the DeCaigny abode to pick up the poor forgotten check-in bag, still sitting on the couch.

And Kelly and Judy wait.  And wait.  "What do you want to do?"  "Wanna find a Starbucks?"
Kelly and Judy locate a Starbucks, sip a pumpkin spice latte, share a chocolate chip cookie, and in their heads decide how this is going to play out.  "We'll just leave tomorrow then.  We'll leave without him.  I don't want to be THAT asshole, the one who runs in, red-faced at the final boarding call, getting the stink eye from all the travellers who bothered to show up on time."

Kelly and Judy head back to the KLM check in desk and Kelly waits and cranes her neck to try and spot Ron.  Judy paces.  After what seemed like a DAY, Judy gives Kelly a thumbs up and Ron comes in with the poor bag in tow.  And in Raiders of the Lost Arc-type fashion, Kelly, Ron and Judy check in, check their baggage, sail through security and find their departure gate.  Which says "Air China".

"Oh shit.  Air China.  We're looking for KLM."
"That's next gate over", says friendly Air China steward.

We find the CORRECT gate with enough time for us to sit, use the washroom, Ron to mow down on an Oh Henry bar and for Kelly and Judy's blood pressure to go back to something normal.

After that whole fiasco, the flight was pretty uneventful.  We were are really impressed with KLM's service and food, as well as their goofy accents.  On the DeCaigny Airline Rating Scale, 1 being Air Canada and 5 being Singapore Air/Cathay Pacific, we give KLM a solid 4.

After 9 hours in the air (no sleep being had thanks to the air-witch in front of us, apparently wanting to inform the ENTIRE plane "DOES THIS JUICE HAVE ANY SUGAR IN IT" in the dead of quiet time) we arrive at the bright and colourful and maze-like Schiphol Airport in Amsterdam, with enough time for Kelly and Ron to enjoy a Heineken on tap (much less skunky than its bottled variety).  We then board a bus, which takes us out to the tarmac to board our KLM City Hopper and get settled in to our seats, where Kelly promptly falls asleep.  An hour and 35 minutes later and apparently letting a 5 year old fly and land the plane, we arrive at the tiny Zagreb Airport (think Abbotsford).  Bags arrive safely, we get a cab driver and are on our way to our hotel, described as having "communist vibe, disinterested staff and overly perfumed rooms".  Our cab driver was apparently more angry about having 2 new stop lights put in than he was worried about safety, so he pretty much drove in whichever and however many lanes he felt like.

We arrive at Hotel Central on a dreary and rainy Croatian afternoon and check in to our super ugly hotel room.  Where Kelly promptly falls asleep.  Ron and Judy decide to head out to explore, but get as far as the train station across the street to buy a couple pastries as well as our train tickets for the next morning.  We eat our pastries, and Judy searches the bags for the plug adaptors.  When she finds them, she looks at the 5 adaptors, all of which have 3 prongs, and the sockets in the wall, all made for 2 prongs.  "It's always something," she says.

Ready to go...