Sarajevo, Bosnia-Herzegovina

I'm back, and I'm badder than ever!

I arrived in Sarajevo at 6:30 this morning after a thirteen-hour train ride from Budapest. The city was covered in a thick blanket of fog when I arrived, but the sun came out this morning after ten days of non-stop rain, which I happily missed.

Sarajevo is a beautiful little town set deep in a valley with a pretty river (the Miljacka) running through it and completely surrounded by mountains (notably, Mount Jahorina and Mount Bjelasnica, the sites of the 1984 Winter Olympics). There are only 600,000 people living here, and the majority of the town can easily be seen on foot in one afternoon (I speak from experience). In spite of its obvious beauty and comfortable small-town feel, it remains a gloomy city, with the majority of its buildings showing scars from the 1992-1995 war and a large percentage of its population (especially the men) showing their own physical and psychological scars (missing limbs, terrible burns, and nervous twitches, just to name a few).

I went straight to the National Library when I arrived this morning to see how the restoration efforts are proceeding. It doesn't look like much has been done to fix this building, tragically destroyed by Serb incendiary bombs on 25 August 1992. Almost the entire archival and manuscript history of Bosnia-Herzegovina was lost that day. There is a new glass and steel dome covering the building, but the inside remains gutted.

From the Library I proceeded to the Latin Bridge where Austrian Archduke Franz Ferdinand and his wife Sophie were assassinated by the Serb nationalist Gavrilo Princip on 28 June 1914, kicking off 92 years of non-stop human stupidity, and counting.

I spent most of the day wandering around Bascarsija (the old Turkish Quarter, and the most picturesque area of downtown Sarajevo) and strolling into the new town, past the now-famous Sarajevo Holiday Inn onto the once-deadly stretch of road known as 'sniper alley'. Returning to Bascarsija, I briefly stopped by the Serbian Orthodox Cathedral and the Gazi-Husrevbey Mosque before spending the remainder of my afternoon in the Novi Hram Gallery of Jewish Art, the old Sephardic Synagogue, and the Jewish Museum of Bosnia-Herzegovina.

I sampled some traditional Bosnian cuisine today as well. My lunch consisted of a tasty soup that had a thick, shimmering layer of grease covering a spicy, creamy, dead-animal concoction underneath. The main course was a fried egg, cream, and meat extravanganza that made our Hawaiian Loco Mocos look like a health-food snack. If the landmines don't get me, the food surely will.

It's nice to be back! I hope to hear from the regular band of fun-loving commentators, if you're still out there!

(Photo by Eric: Bosnian National Library, Sarajevo, Bosnia-Herzegovina)