Belgrade and Zagreb

Belgrade, Serbia and Zagreb, Croatia

a.k.a Belgreb because us Americans couldn't keep them straight

Nine college students made it on time for our 5:30 a.m train!

 It was destined to be a great trip after conquering that feat.

The group! Thibault (French/Swiss), Morgan (American), Jeremy (French),

 Mari (French/Serbian), Darren (Irish), Alice (French), Clement (French),

me, Florent (French)
None of those names are pronounced like us Americans would think. I believe Morgan and I have finally mastered an acceptable level of pronounciation.

We did a bike tour around the river! I'm obviously becoming an expert cyclist and combined with my newly acquired skills in French I should be ready for the Tour de France next year.

All the French in front of the French embassy! We set out one day to find the American Embassy so that we could have our picture as well... We find the high-security building and Morgan and I were all happy and moved seeing the American flag blowing in the wind on Memorial day. As soon as we stepped in front of the embassy, on the sidewalk in the middle of a public street, the guards came out. They told us to move along, so we pulled out our map to see where we should go from there. Then the guard made it clear he wanted us gone that second and escorted us past the embassy. As soon as we were off the 'property' Morgan took a picture. The guard blew his whistle and came quickly towards the group, baton in his hand with his other hand on his gun. BECAUSE OF A PICTURE! Of our own embassy! He made her delete the picture and we moved along quickly. That's when we realized there really was a deep resentment for Americans still and it was dangerous to be American in Serbia. Luckily our nice French friends adopted us and we got to take a picture in front of their embassy later. I'm holding my McDonalds flag to make it a bit more American.

Probably the highlight of the trip: bumper cars

The Irish call cross walks a zebra cross... except they say 'sehbra' instead of 'zeeeeebra' like we say! One day it took a lot of repeating and explanation to understand what Darren was saying to us, so we thought it was hilarious when there was an actual zebra cross!

This looks like a nice enough park, right?

WRONG!

I almost died from flesh eating bacteria after that fountain.

Okay, not really, but close enough.

We were taking a break from walking around the city and I sat on the edge of the fountain. I had on one of my favorite headbands that was a special gift when I leaned back and lost it in the water. Everyone said it was a goner and I should just leave it, but I wanted to get it back! The water was so nasty you could barely see the bottom of the 2 foot deep pool. I finally spotted the headband, so Alice held my legs and Jeremy held my hair and I fished it out! Everyone helped me clean up and recover emotionally...

Belgrade by day and by night

Olympic countdown!

There was so much graffiti in Serbia, but a lot of it was really pretty. It totally changed the look of the city, arguably in a positive way.

Can you guess who this famous Serbian is?

This is a hospital bombed during the war.

We boarded our train in Belgrade at 9:30 p.m. and arrived in Croatia at 5:30 a.m.! We got woken up (from the little sleep we got) numerous times by customs, the train was freeeezing cold, and there were birds chirping in the ceiling of our car! Zagreb was worth it though-- totally beautiful and when else am I going to go to Croatia?!

Backpack buddies! (Oh and I'm officially European

because I wear colored pants)

And the foooood!

The food was delicious! The first night in Belgrade 7 of us went out to eat- side salads, meals, wine and beer for around $45. I think that's when we fell in love with Belgrade...or it could've been when we discovered that beer was 50 cents.

New obsessions.. above is a Serbian salad- cucumber, tomato, onion, feta, with dressings. Probably the yummiest thing ever. I've literally had 10 since we've gotten home. Below is Serbian sausages. Soo tasty and I'm not even a fan of sausage!

Baby strawberries! Alice was telling me about them and I didn't know what she was talking about, but the next day in Croatia we ran across them!

It took nearly an hour to get the water hot enough to cook pasta-we never even got it to boil (we later learned that the front burners don't really work, but the back ones are super). We used 1/3 pasta from Austria and 2/3 what we bought in Serbia... The serbian spaghetti basically dissolved and created this creamy texture that was absolutely horrible! We ate just enough to get by and didn't try to cook in the hostel after that.

Thanks to Darren and Thibault for some pics!