Brussels Stories

We spent 10 days in Belgrade a city full of history. Started the trip off Friday night at Bitef Art Café where we saw a very good cover band. The following morning we started the week long eating experience at a restaurant with a spread of traditional foods. A list of assorted meats and tomatoes in a nice restaurant on a hillslope. We spent a lot of our time visiting family and old and new friends. In the mean time we tried to keep up with school work, watching the 24 hour commercial free Olympic channel and sightseeing. We even got haircuts; I avoided getting a EuroMullet (faux Mohawk with standard mullet).

Some of the main sights we saw were the Belgrade city hall (once the Queen's court) and the President's office (once the King's court) and The Palace of the Assembly of Serbia and Montenegro (picture on left), or parliament building. Hotel Moscow was also a nice building.

We went to the big church, Crkva Svetog Marka (St Mark's Church), then to Beogradska Tvrdjava (an old fort built over centuries at the confluence of the Danube and Sava Rivers). Here we saw tennis courts, basketball courts and ice skating rink in the moat, sections built in the 500s, or some time long ago, and had a drink in a cafe in the walls.

The fort also has the church that was built within a lambskin (the steeple portion of the church in the picture to the left). The story here is that the Turks said they could not have a Christian church, but the Serbs pleaded. Eventually the Turks gave in and said sure, go ahead and build yourselves a church, as long as it fits in a lambskin, ha ha ha. The Serbs responded by saying, gee, you are so kind, meanwhile they cut up a lambskin into a long piece, laid it out in a circle, built a church within this outline. Damn! the Turks responded. But they stood by their word and the church is still around after 500 years of Turkish rule.

We went into Maja's elementary school, the first in Serbia at almost 300 years old. It was also a place where several famous historical Serbians have had influence, such as the dude that was the major reformer of the phonetic alphabet and some famous early educators.

We went to visit a large church under construction (Hram Sv. Save - behind the statue). We occasionally made our way to Pomodoro Pizzeria for breakfast and use of their wireless to keep up with our responsibilities back home.Saturday we slept in and woke up to a thin blanket of snow. Again, on Monday, on the way to the airport it was snowing.

Watching European Olympic coverage gave me the impression that Canada was not winning anything and the Norwegians, Swedes and Italians were the leaders in these Olympic games. Only heard about the American athletes with difficult personalities. Then I saw the medal count upon returning to Internet. Goes to show the influence media has on what we perceive.

Now that we are back in Brussels we can stop eating and I can get ready for my internship at IUCN, which begins March 1.

\One more thing. Here is a way to put Wikipedia on your iPod. Great for when you are travelling.