Beograd Fun Club

Belgrade, Serbia and Montenegro

It's official. Damon and I have become members of the Beograd (Belgrade) Fun Club. The club was founded in 1937 and all we had to do to become members was buy shirts.

Okay, so there is no Beograd Fun Club. But we did get the shirt. It's quite a random t-shirt: the print has a guy on a motorbike and of course it says "Beograd Fun Club" underneath. For 350 dinars, we just couldn't pass up the deal. Damon took it a step further, buying a large, framed photo of old town Beograd from the same little shop. I'll confirm your assumption: Damon's gonna have fun lugging that thing around for the next week.

Belgrade has been one of my favorite stops to date. The journey here was excruciatingly long and tedious (as Damon explained in the previous post), but it was worth it. This city is relatively tourist-free, or so it seems. This makes for an interesting stop as the city really doesn't seem to tailor much of anything to the tourism industry -- refreshing, in the least.

Before arriving here, we read in our Eastern Europe book that Belgrade is like a smaller version of New York City, shutting down late in the night (early in the morning, rather) with a bustle of people heading to and fro. I couldn't believe the book. Belgrade, Serbia? No way. I can count on one hand (and maybe one finger) the number of people that I know that have visited here. Could it be like a mini-NYC?

Ah, but it is folks. I highly recommend it and so does Damon. The Old Town area -- where we settled in for two nights in the oldest hotel in the city, the Hotel Royal -- is like a smaller version of Times Square. Damon and I just finished a lunch -- a spinach cakey thing -- in the middle of it all and even though we've been here for a few days now, we were still amazed at the bustle of the city center. There are lots of young and very well-dressed men and women and tons of designer brand shops. It's funny: any American designer or name brand has a shop here, and the prices are quite high.

Just north of the city is an old park -- don't ask me how to spell or pronounce -- and we have spent much of our time here. The park is unique, as it contains the old city fortress, basketball and tennis courts, a lot of green space, the national zoo, statues, a military museum, an outdoor theater, and more. We met up with one of my Serbian friends from ITU, Marija, last night and saw the sun set on the Danube River from atop the Old Fortress. Afterwards, Marija showed us around the city and we ended up on the oldest street in all of Belgrade. It is a scenic little area, with many traditional restaurants and shops. It kind of reminded me of Prague, or a scene from Epcot in Disney World. Continuing our tradition of dining at a local eatery, we feasted on more meat than you can imagine and sampled the local beers of this colorful city as we were serenaded by some traditional Serbian musicians. The meal was outstanding; all we could hope for at its end was a taxi to whisk us away to our hotel so we could cozy up in bed. Unfortunately, we found none ready and made the sweaty (more so for Damon) hike back.

This morning we got up -- Damon feeling sick as usual -- and tried to put our pictures online. As my friend Marija recommended last night, I will wait until Slovenia. Perhaps there will be a faster Internet connection there, as it would have taken 12 hours to upload the photos in the Plato Internet cafe. After a quick breakfast in the hotel, we went to the national military museum in the park. Damon was quite interested in going, and a good source had also recommended the destination. A friend of a friend was in Serbia and the surrounding area serving in the US Army during the NATO bombings a few years ago. I have been in touch with her, and she recommended the visit to the museum. As she pointed out to me in email (and in the book that she wrote - Let's Go Eastern Europe), there is quite an interesting relic in the military museum. Nestled away in a far-off corner of the museum is small display of items captured from a US soldier during the NATO bombings. You might recall that three American soldiers were captured and held hostage here in 1999. So there we stood today in semi-shock and awe, staring at a US Army uniform and other gear on display with the label: Captured from US military in 1999. Wow.

We're outta here today, heading to Slovenia. We might stop in Croatia though, depending on the train schedule. So stay tuned!