Crusaders in Belgrade

Belgrade, Serbia

I never thought I'd be in Serbia, but here I am (we say this about most countries we hit these days). Today we arrived overnight from Bucharest and settled into a highschool hostel in the center of the city - the kids are out for summer I guess. How can I put this...we stink. The flies were upon us on the train in today, and it made us crack up knowing that we probably didn't even realize how dirty we must be. We have been wearing the same clothes for far too many days and are having trouble finding laundry services. Today I put on my last clean pair of boxers!

Our first friends in Serbia turned out to be a few Americans staying at the hostel, part of a group of 45 college students from all over the states on a summer mission for Campus Crusaders for Christ. They showed us around a bit to the main areas and pointed out the Parliament building, the former police and security offices which still stand half in ruins from our American smart bombs 6 years ago, and the old post office once used as Nazi headquarters during WWII (underneath there is a secret tunnel running all the way to the Danube.

It's funny explaining to people what we are doing here. The answer is we are not sure ourselves. They are here to talk to poeple about their feelings about Christ; we are here because an awesome bartender in Plovdiv, Bulgaria told us it should be included in our trip. And we have to then add the customary tale of two life-long friends saving up money after college to quit their jobs and tour the world for a while before life gets too serious.

The rest of our stay in Bulgaria, on the Black Sea, was nice but uneventful. Just relaxing on beaches and staying in private apartments of old women who pounce on us at bus and train stations for business. They never speak english, they're just adorable old people who escort you through town with your big backpack to their homes for a cheap place to stay. Not a bad business! Varna was unexpectedly cool; we spent the day there while waiting for a train connection, getting our last glimpses of the Black Sea.

Bucharest was a more exciting time, the capital of a country we planned to skip (everyone said skip Romania) but it just made more sense to go there to get to Serbia. I'm glad we saw it. A northern Italian man at the train station in Ruse, northern Bulgaria, tells me that the Romanian economy is growing at 8% a year. Isn't that approaching Chinese levels!? What is the US at, 3.5%? (Klaffky?) Mercedes and Hummers are not infrequently spotted in Romania. The wealth is there. After a couple days wandering the city, visiting the Peasant Museum and major squares, and staying at a hostel in a fancy neighborhood of embassies and government buidings with very sweet girls working and begging us to see more of their country; well, I really like Bucharest! It is broad avenues and bars and clubs, schwarma and pizza cafes and parks and cheap theatre and opera. It reminded me at times quite a bit of Beunos Aires. The only sad part is that the former communist dictator (executed on national tv Christmas Day 1989) uprooted a lot of the traditional neighborhoods and architectural relics, leaving a bland and scarred bloc-like feeling to much of the city. But the People's Palace (parliament) he built is impressive; it is the largest office building in the world after the Pentagon. I would like to return to Romania and go north, touring the mountains and Transylvanian architecture, and perhaps Moldova, which is now independent?

So that's all for the moment, not much to report. We are eating well and seeing the battered part of the Balkans (although you wouldn't know it from the main cafe and shopping areas of the city). The people are very friendly. We get the same standard reply as every other country when we inquire about thoughts on America: "we love your people; we hate your government." I think tomorrow we might try and locate what remains of the Chinese Embassy.