Home again!

Tamara brought it to my attention yesterday that I haven’t even told my subscribers that I am home.  I hope to write more about my journey and the last few weeks in Bosnia soon.  Now all I have is a post that I put in the class blog:

“When I left Sarajevo I could sense that I was both anxious to come home but at the same time not completely happy to be leaving.  There are so many things in Bosnia that were left for me to do, and by coming home I feel I am cutting my adventure off short.  I cant quite put a finger on what these things are that I would have done had I had more time.  They are, I think, the unknown adventures that I know would have happened had I had more time, and they would help to complete my experience there.

Being home has been a giant relief and a huge stress all at the same time.  This past week I was bouncing around from house to house and city to city saying hello to all of my family and friends, giving gifts, and exchanging stories.  I enjoyed that a lot but because of all of this activity I was unable to reflect on my summer experience fully.  Now that most of my friends are off to school now or gone abroad I have some time finally to slow things down and just begin to think about where I was, where I am now, where I will be, and how these all affect one another.

Since I have been home I’ve noticed that even though everything feels normal they all stand out as being slightly different.  Subtle things like the taste of food, the flavor of the water, the dryness of the air, size of the streets, the cars and the traffic, the sound of the music on the radio, the overwhelmingness of the supermarket, and easily being able to communicate with those around me all bring back memories of Bosnia.  As I’m watching the news Libya suddenly seems less exotic and violent to me as the camera angle pans out to reveal a friendly minaret on the skyline.  Walking in the foothills doesn’t seem so different now from hiking to the old fort in Sarajevo.  RMNP suddenly looks a lot like Herzegovina.  Seeing live music at Red Rocks brings back memories of TBF and Two Cellos.  Cinema takes me back to the Film Festival.

As these memories come back I want to share them with the people around me, and all of my friends and family have been very patient with me and listen with interest whenever I bring them up.  Right now though all I can do is prepare for the next adventure, which is just around the corner, and look forward to the day when I can return to Sarajevo and complete that one.”

-Daviis

One week in Bosnia

It’s been extremely busy.  The first day here we went on a tour of the old city and I got to see the place where Francis Ferdinand and his wife were assassinated.  Considering how big a historical event this was and how well known Sarajevo is for this the place is surprisingly unimpressive.  There is just a small museum at the corner of the intersection where it occurred and the remnants of an old Austrian monument.  Most of the monument has been moved somewhere else for safe keeping.

Thursday I went for a hike up to an old Turkish fort that overlooks the city.  The hike took about two hours and I got some great footage of the city.  That afternoon I had my first meeting at Cheers (the pub across the street and out adopted “office”) with my contact for the organization that I intern for (more on this in a bit).  That night we hit up the night life at a bar in the old city and then came back for some fun at Cheers.  People here stay up late and go out almost every night of the week and enjoy a cold “Sarajevsko pivo,” the local beer.  We’ve been going out a lot too and are already very loyal to Sarajevsko.  Being able to buy alcohol is definitely something I could get used to.

Friday we went on the tunnel tour.  The tunnel was one of the ways that Sarajevo survived the siege.  The tour included a drive around the downtown area and was a effective recap of the war for us.  It included a video of actual footage during the war and we got to go down into the tunnel and walk a ways in it.  Afterwards we went to a Mexican restaurant that had some not so Mexican Mexican food.  The rest of the day was casual and I got to walk around the city a bit more.  It is hard to get bored here because when ever I do all I have to do is go for a walk in the city.  By now I’ve gotten to know our neighbor hood pretty well.

I went for an awesome hike on Saturday with three of the girls in my group to the largest continuous water fall in Bosnia.  We had to take the bus for about 15 min out of the city and then we had a rather strenuous 2 hour and 15 min walk up and around a mountain but it was really worth it.  The waterfall went over a several thousand foot cliff.  We got up really close to it and took some sweet pictures, some of which are on the BiH page.

Sunday I went looking for a adventure at an “antikapitalizam” rally but couldn’t find it so I gave up and watched movies back at the hostel.  That night we watched “Brides Maids” in a theater in English but with Bosnian subtitles.