There isn't much "beo" in "Beograd" but just white is boring anyway.

I’m finally home in the U.S. It’s been a great two years. I just returned from a trip to Serbia to visit one of my favorite people in the world, my crazy comrade, Mladen Mojsilovic. I was a little skeptical about going down because of the country’s history and I didn’t know how I would be perceived as a Muslim and an American. But Mladen’s love for his country is really inspiring to me and so I just had to check out what all the fuss was about. After a week I could really understand why he feels so strongly. Belgrade actually felt like a proper city. My feelings about Czech Republic are rather mixed. One reason being the cities don’t feel like real cities to me. They’re extremely beautiful but they’re missing this life, this soul. It’s like walking through a museum. It’s really nice to look at but where are the people, the stories, the dirt? And Prague is so full of drunk tourists on the weekends that it can lose its charm.

I took a train from Pardubice to Budapest on Saturday morning. I had six hours to kill so I went walking around the city. I didn’t get as far as I wanted because carrying around such a huge bag when you’re so small can really exhausting. I ended up resting a café until sunset when I headed to the bus station. My bus was scheduled to depart at 11 p.m. and by 10:55 I was a little nervous the bus wouldn’t show up and then I would be stranded in Budapest with no place to stay and end up wandering the streets. I met some other people waiting for the same bus including a woman who was born and raised in Belgrade and currently living in Vienna. She said the bus was infamous for being late but at 11:00 on the dot, the Fudeks bus came racing around the corner. The bus driver didn’t speak any English so the woman translated for me. I was a little nervous about interacting with him because he seemed so annoyed with everything but he turned out to be a really nice guy and made everyone coffee or tea who wanted it. I sat next to a really nice with whom I chatted the entire way. He gave me recommendations of what to see and where to go in Belgrade. We reached the border at around 2:30 a.m. and we all had to get out of the bus and walk through the drive-thru border control on the Hungarian side. Of all the things to be doing at 2:30 in the morning when it’s around 40 degrees Fahrenheit outside and you’re extremely tired, that has to be one of the top 5. When we got to the Serbian side, the police quickly came on the bus to take our passports and within a few minutes we were back on the road. I arrived in Belgrade around 5 and Mladen was waiting for me at the station. We met a few friends of his who were on their way home from a night of dancing and stopped for a quick chat and then headed off to get some Borek and yogurt for breakfast.  After we were full and happy we headed to a flat that Mladen’s best friend lends to him when he wants to stay in Belgrade.

Over the next few days Mladen took me around to Kalamegda Park, downtown touristic area, his old univsity, Ada (where they have a beach and large park), ate lots of delicious fish and kebabs, went to his hometown of Čačak (which apparently I am still pronouncing incorrectly) where his mother prepared some amazingly delicious food, met tons of his friends, went to a basketball game of Partizan versus Red Star that I think left me terrified of going to basketball games in Serbia, went to concert, had an amazing barbecue at our friend Pajic’s place. Everyone was so incredibly welcoming and friendly. Even on the bus home, the old Serbian woman sitting next to me was forcing cheese and bread on me and paid my bathroom fare at the rest stop since I was out of dinars. I really love the sense of caring and community that I think Czech Republic and a lot of the U.S. tend to lack. I felt so overwhelmed with their generosity. I feel like I can understand my friend a little more as well. I think if I could find a job in Belgrade, I would move there in a heartbeat.

But for now, it’s time to start on my paperwork for South Korea. I am not so sure what to expect from living out there but I hope it will be just as exciting as my past two years in Europe.