Serbia, the Balkan Adventure!

It's been quite a while since I've given updates. So last weekend I took a 19 hour train ride through Eastern Europe, the Balkans, to Belgrade, Serbia with 7 other people from my program here at Cattolica.

Begrade is just like any other modern European city really, but the looming presence of its communist past is still very evident. There are still bombed out buildings left partially destroyed from the NATO bombings in the 90s that are left destroyed because the Serbian government does not have the funds to fix them. It was also very cool for me personally to see the actual places where optor! took action and marched to the steps of the capitol building. We past intensely impoverished gypsy villages by train and saw the evidence of poverty and gypsy camps in a nearby town we visited just outside of Belgrade. Overall, it was quite eye-opening to see and experience a part of Europe that is rarely visited and that has such recent historical significance.

We stayed at the appartment of Vasa, Luka's grandfather. He was the sweetest old Serbian man ever and we squeezed all 8 of us into his two room one bath apartment in a Belgrade highrise. He cooked for us lots and lots of authentic Serbian dishes which are very fatty, greasy, and meaty.

One day we visited this awesome park in central Belgrade with views of the city and the Danube river. The park had cool old ruins that we walked around and museums and park art and stuff. Also that evening we went to the apartment of Lilly, a Serbian women who used to babysit Luka when he was little. She lives with her 15 year old son, David, and her boyfriend. It was a surreal experience and I will have to explain it in person to you all sometime. During our meal there she dissed big time on the country of Australia which offended poor Tim, the Aussie in the group. But then she played Balkan gypsy music on the record player and handed us all tamborines and other instruments and taught us some gypsy dances and we danced on the wooden floors of her apartment for a while (after sipping some Ratika, an authentic and very strong Serbian drink of course).

The train ride back was pretty long and miserble and we almost missed our connection in Zagreb, Croatia, and then we had to go to class when we arrived back in Milan. Gross.

So that was Serbia....and last night (Tuesday) I attended a play performance here in Milano for my Italian literature class and it was awesome. Even though the entire play was in Italian, we could sort of follow what was going on because we read the play in English beforehand. The play was "Six Characters in Search of an Author" by the modernist author/playwright/director, Pirandello.

Also, I made an extremely spontaneous decision to fly to London this next weekend so that I could visit my dear friends in the British Isles Study Program at Whitworth. It was an expensive last minute ticket, but at this point I feel like seeing Whitworth people will rejuvinate my spirits! I'm extremely excited also because London is one of the coolest cities I've ever been to. After that I have another week of classes, then I go to Bern, Switzerland for the weekend, and then it's midterms. After midterms I go to Amsterdam, then Bratislava/Vienna/Budapest, then probably Copenhagen, Barcelona, then Paris to finish it off. Crazy, I know. And oh, I'm flat broke during the financial crisis. ugh.

Oh, and I started my Italian language class! I'm in a basic level class and there are only four of us in it! Me, my two roommates, and our friend, Devon. It's so nice to get so much personal attention from the professor and be able to ask lots of questions and practice speaking Italian. But it's throwing me off so much because I keep wanting to say things in French and my mind automatically translates things into French....so I need to work on that. It will be so helpful though to be able to communicate better in the city. Milan is the least english friendly part of Italy, surprisingly.

Ciao Ciao, miss you all!!