From Belgrade to Istanbul

We arrived in Istanbul this afternoon and I'm totally beat. Of all the places we've visited, Istanbul is by far the most foreign and also the most overwhelming. But before I get to that, I have to finish up with some details and reflections on Belgrade.

Tina the Restaurant Hero

For our last night in Belgrade Tina once again landed us an amazing dinner through her usual mix of serendipity and apparent arbitrariness. Tina had a faint childhood memory of happiness on a restaurant/boat in Belgrade. Thus we set out to find Belgrade's "svats" or restaurant boats. After two bus-rides, many directions and a pleasant stroll along the river, we ended up in the neighborhood with all the boat-restaurants. After careful consideration, we decided to to got the boat with tiki-lamps because in Tina's words it "looks cool." And of course it totally was. We had a relaxing candle-lit dinner on the water. Prices were reasonable by US standards, the restaurant played good music and our waiter was friendly and jovial. He even spent 2 minutes talking rapidly to me in Serbian as I nodded my head and hopelessly looked to Tina (who was otherwise occupied) for a translation before he realized I had no idea what he was talking about and then kindly switched to English. It was good times.

Serbians = Chicagoans
I was very glad to make it to Serbia. Having Tina as a host was amazing. Serbia is unlike any of the other places we've been in that it was mostly absent of foreigners, and in the case of Banja, foreigners were totally absent. Thus for me it was a unique opportunity to peek into a culture and a country.

Also the Serbians grew on me, despite the fact that nothing in Serbia ever seemed to work. On my four hour bus-ride that had no AC, I sat next to Sasha a friendly Serbian programmer about my age. We had a lot of fun talking about travelling and programming and such. This was a surprise for me, because most of the Serbians I had seen on the street tended to be fairly stoic, and certainly not gregarious.

It all made sense, however when, Sasha had mentioned that the two greatest Serbian cities in the world were Belgrade and Chicago-- home to a a vibrant and thriving Serbian community. (Tina would know, she moved there when she first came to the States.) Anyway, Serbian cultulre is very similar to Chicago culture-- they may look and talk kindof tough but they are friendly all the same.

Goodbye Tina
It was sad to say goodbye to Tina today at the Belgrade airport. She's heading home via London. Tonight was the first meal Ethan and I have had without Tina in a long time. It was awfully quiet.

Tina: I know your reading this blog. Hope you had a safe flight home. This trip has rocked and wouldn't be the same without you.

Hello Istanbul
We're finally in Istanbul. Of all the places we have visited, this is by far the most foreign and overstimulating. Ethan and I just explored around today and evewhere we went restaurant owners accosted us with "special prices" just for us and shouted, cajoled or coerced us into their restaurants. One guy particularly annoyed me, although Ethan found him quite fun. This gentelamn yelled "Stop!" and demanded if we spoke English. He then wanted to know where we were from and pushilly demanded we sit at his restaurant. Upon hearing we were from california, he claimed he studied for 7 years there at.. you guessed it Stanford University where he got a degree in Econ. "Oh!" says I. "Who was your advisor?" "Oh, uh.. it was many years ago.. I opened a business here." He also lied about his ability to speak French, Spanish and Japanese, although I didn't catch him on the French until later.

It was interesting. This place is bustling and our hostel is literally meters away from the Blue Mosque and Aya Sofia. We'll tell you how that goes tomorrow. But I'm little overwhelmed with the whole Istanbul thing at the moment and ready for bed. Good night!