Day 22: More Sarajevo...

Clay and I had a very cool evening last night in Sarajevo. We were pretty tired, but we went to dinner in the old town and it was delicious. I really like the food here, more than I would have guessed.

The traditional food seems to be veggies stuffed with meat and rice and some delicious spices. We had the stuffed pepper for lunch, and at dinner I decided to go for a traditional beef stew (onions, potatoes, carrots, meat, and spices cooked in this clay pot). It was off the chain. I also decided to taste a traditional "brandy" flavored with pear. It was strong, but very delicious. Put that together with some homemade pita bread out of a wood stove, and you couldn't get a better meal for 5euros!

As we were leaving the restaurant we heard people yelling, so we followed the noise to a back alley where there were over a hundred people squeezed on small chairs watching the game projected onto a screen in an old courtyard. Half of the people were smoking hookahs, and it looked like a cool place, so Clay and I decided to stick around and watch the game.

I couldn't read the menu, and probably should have gone with a coke- but instead ordered a "paradize" cocktail, and Clay ordered a beer. We both had the shock of our lives when the drinks came, and mine was a tomato juice and his was a non-alcoholic beer. At that point we figured out we were in a Muslim "bar" and they don't serve alcohol! Note to self: Next time I can't read a menu, go for the Coke, that is always a good choice.

We watched the game for a while and then headed back to our dorm, with a bottle of cheap wine and a carton of fresh raspberries we bought on the street. SO GOOD!!

This morning we got up kind of late, checked out, and went for a walk around old town before deciding on a kebab for lunch. It was super hot, so we looked for some shade and bought some cokes and enjoyed our cheap lunch in a cool place.

After lunch we headed out on a walkabout, to explore the "real" town. Not much to see really, it is kind of just a big city. We went to the museum about Franz Ferdinand's assassination in 1914 (it was like, the smallest museum EVER, but only one euro) and then went in search of another museum further away that we'd passed on the bus yesterday.

The walk was sweltering- the heat was around 95 again today. We were so happy when we finally made it to the museum an hour later, we didn't care about paying the entry fee to get inside the museum.

As far as museums go, it was kind of sad, although there was a lot of effort put into it. It was a "Natural History Museum" with a lot of random stuff that we couldn't identify since all of the plaques were in Bosnian. But we walked around all of the exhibits, including a really interesting one with butterflies and insects that were pretty. Also an exhibit on traditional Bosnian shirts from different regions (in the ethnology section).

A nice way to spend a few hours in the cool.

On the way back to Old Town, Clay and I picked up a watermelon and some peaches at the big outdoor market that was bombed by the Serbs early in the war (100 people were killed there ). We found some shade and went to town on the watermelon. Messy, yet delicious.

The rest of the afternoon was spent going through the shops looking for interesting things to take home...

Clay and I are off to Belgrade, Serbia tonight on the night bus. Should be interesting. We'd thought we could take a train there, but apparently there are no direct lines, so the trip is ridiculous by rail. So, yay for a 9 hour bus trip?