Belgrade

Sofia has two trains a day to Belgrade. We had Easter break. Why not?

The train took forever! We left at noon and were told it would be just six hours, but we didn't arrive till 9 pm. Stupid stupid stupid. However, the countryside was very beautiful (especially for the first half of the ride).

 

We arrived really late, but BH's friends were really kind, and waited for us at the hostel. We grabbed a quick bite to eat, and then headed to a house party. Well, we thought it was going to be a house party. More like five friends hanging out. It ended up being really fun though.

The next morning we toured the castle in Belgrade. It was right on the confluence of the Danube and Sava rivers. Pretty nice. Plus, the weather, as you can see, was perfect. 

 

 Lunch was at a restaurant named "?". Apparently, it had some sort of religious name, and the religious authorities did not like it. So the owner of the restaurant just put up a huge question mark. The restaurant was pretty famous, which may be the reason why the food wasn't the greatest. Serbian food tasted pretty similar to Bulgarian food. Not bad, not amazing.  Their house beer was pretty good though. And H looks great in this picture.

 

Turkish coffee is the coffee of choice in Serbia. I like to annoy the waiters and turn the cup upside down so we can read our fortunes. BH read Hillary's future. She will become a queen but she will be a little chubby. So will her husband. Eventually, they will take a spaceship to reconcile their marriage. Oh, and her husband is a faun. 

 

We had to wait here in the center to meet our friends Saturday night and ended up just goofing around. One of the best parts of Belgrade was people watching. Everyone looked so interesting and there were a lot of foreigners. Very different from Sofia. 

 

The Hotel Moscow. This is one of the most recognizable buildings in Serbia, and an important architectural building in Belgrade. Apparently, they have really good pastries. We didn't try them. :-(

Belgrade has really good nightlife (or so I had read). After wandering around for an hour or two on Saturday night, we went to the Anderground Club. Not cool. Afterward, however, we found this awesome techno Club right on the Danube. I have no idea what it was called. The music was CRAZY loud, but since H has been studying some sign language, we were still able to communicate in the club. One of the bennies of ASL. Of course, this meant that people were staring at us, but that was fine because we were staring back. 

 On Sunday morning, we headed to the "Montmarte" of Belgrade. It was not as cool as the Bohemian neighborhood in France, but it was still really pleasant. There were musicians everywhere. Since it was Easter, I think we had a pretty unique experience, and we spent a couple hours people watching and teaching H some more ASL.

Since it was Easter, all the museums were closed. We decided to go to the Botanical garden, which was interesting. Half of it was pretty and half of it was way run down. The greenhouse was definitely haunted. I liked this tree growing out of a trash barrel. Super natural.

Like Sofia, there was a lot of graffiti in Belgrade. Sunday afternoon was spent just wandering around, doing some more people watching, and scavenging for food. Since it was Sunday, a lot of restaurants were closed. We really wanted Chinese food, but no dice. Sunday night, we headed back to the train station, got on the sleeper, and came back to Sofia this morning. I love weekends away.