Belgrade

Well we are on the train returning from our trip to Belgrade. Don’t ask why it was just one of those adventures we said we would do just once. 12 hours on the train to get there and we are into hour number 4 on the return journey. We are in a cabin with 6 other people and I believe none of them are in their assigned seats. Someone will eventually come along and argue that they should be there and then the shuffle begins. There is a gypsy standing in the isle and is playing gigs on a flute. Looking for money I assume. O n the way up there was a woman who had a baby in her arms going from car to car begging for money to feed her kid. What we can’t figure out is how they get on the train in the first place.
The scenery from the train on the way up was amazing. The mountain views were ones that you would never get from a car. The railway itself should be one of the wonders of the world, a rail on the side of a mountain top and tunnels through peaks. I am sure the history of it is one wrought with grief and loss as well as success. We have just now left the flatter lands outside Belgrade and surrounding cities and are entering the mountains again. We plan to plot it on a map someday.
One should never visit a city with so much history and importance without planning to give it enough time to full appreciate it. We knew that coming up and decided that even though we were only giving it two days we would try to see something really important to us and then promise to return again. That we did.
We stayed at the Balkin Hotel which is right near the promenade area at the center of the city and within walking distance of the old section. Gave us a view of the hustle of center town, the market area and the opportunity to see the Fortress that marked the edge of the city facing the Danube.
Funny how small things strike a chord in a person. On the way back from the Fortress Marianne spotted the men in the park playing chess. She almost tripped over herself to get to where they were playing. I think it was some latent memory of Holland but who knows.
At the fortress there was a magnificent war museum that outlined the history of the Balkins in a timeline of conflicts. All the way from 400 bc to today. Marianne and I have been trying over the years to pick up as much locally told history about the formation of the Slavic states, the tribal systems and the conflicts and wars that ensued over time. We know that if we read north American renditions they will be somewhat skewed in their views. We know that to balance our views we will need to do that, but just not yet. The only thing we didn’t like about the museum was that there were no publications that followed the same timeline as the displays. There were a number of bookstores along the mall street but we saw none in English. The section on the second world war and the images showing the hardships the people went through only served to remind us that there should never be a generation that does not learn in detail the inhumanities that man is capable of. Seeing the strength one will summon to maintain a simple right of freedom is reflected so much today as oppressed nations are trying to break free.
We discovered we like the simple foods much more at the coast than the cosmopolitan attempt at cuisine in Belgrade. It was mostly ok, but certainly nothing to blog home about.
Students are the same anywhere as they gather at night in the streets, homelessness is prevalent no matter where you go, hustling happens, poverty and need stares you in the face at every corner it chooses. You feel bad for the little ones that mothers use to beg or to look cute at you with a rose in their little hands trying to sell it to a tourist. You wish you had a gigantic kennel to house the hundreds of injured and sick dogs and cats that litter the cityscape and the countryside. But your life continues as does theirs.
The views will soon be getting exciting again so back to them.
Addendum. Things changed really fast. Marianne said we should have downloaded a movie to watch on the latter half of the trip when the time starts to drag. We really didn’t need one. Remember when I said that there were 6 people in the compartment and we thought there was no real seating even though we had a reserved ticket. Well there seems to be a means in their madness. As people shuffled we ended up with an elderly lady, a young man, a couple and a businessman. In the end it was the couple we were left with. At some point in the trip a large bag appeared outside the cabin and the couple took them it and proceeded to divide its contents between two other bags. The contents were yellow brick shaped plastic packages. They then pushed both bags as far under my seat as possible. That is when the texting, the hallway meetings wither other pairs spread through the train and the nervousness on their part. They really didn’t care that we knew what was going on it seemed. As we approached the border it got interesting, police, border police and conductors all scurrying around. Three times they took her away and three times she came back. They made it through customs, no one looked under the seat. As the train approached podgorica the conductor handed them a form of some sort, she looked really nervous and when she handed back a signed copy of the form there was a small wad of money attached to it. The drama, calls, texts continued and when the train stopped in Podgorica we opened the window to see the conductor helping them off the train with the heavy bags. Each bag would have weighed about 8 kg. and we can only assume either hereon or cocaine. Quite the movie if we could have filmed it.