Now of course I am not off to a very good start. I have already been abroad for ten days and this is the first time I have even had time to remember that I wanted to keep a blog again. Considering this part of the trip has been mostly academic based, I supposed I should get a pass. However, I write to you on the evening before my groups departure back to the States and I must say that overall this trip has been a pretty awesome one.
We started in Belgrade on May 28th and stayed at the Hotel Prag right in downtown. It was a decent hotel and my wonderful Norwegian friend Aurora was my roommate. We got in and of course everyone was exhausted as normal after a long flight but luckily we arrived in the early afternoon. After freshening up and getting settled, we walked to our first group dinner that had already been arranged and paid for at Restaurant Caruso. This place was beautiful! It was up probably 5 stories and was located on a balcony that overlooked the entire city. When we arrived we learned that the men on the trip could not enter because they had on shorts-this was pretty funny because normally us ladies were worried about what to wear and if we were dressy enough and the boys almost always wore jackets and slacks. SO as a solution, the restaurant actually provided them with swishy/stretchy black pants that they put over there shorts. Quite worth a chuckle. Dinner was delicious, authentic Serbian cuisine with a beautiful view and the company of the woman travel agent who had helped arrange our entire trip. I must say it was a fantastic welcome.
Once we had finished our first evening that was very relaxing and enjoyable, we started off the next morning bright and early for a full day of meetings. I will say we started with probably the best speaker of the trip at the National Assembly of the Republic of Serbia, Gordana Comic, the Vice President of the Serbian Parliament and a member of the Democratic Party. She. Was. Brilliant. Wonderfully candid, funny, intelligent and addressed crucial issues of women and gender in Serbia. After that, we got to meet with another MP, tour the Assembly, eat lunch and then go to the home of Jean-Daniel Ruch, the Ambassador of Switzerland to Serbia. There, we had a very unique opportunity and evening, discussing social action and nonviolent resistance with his other guest Srda Popovic, who is the director of an NGO and leader of the student resistance movement during Milosevic. We were given wine and little snacks while we mingled in his garden. I can tell you that was a pretty awesome experience and one I never thought I would have. The remaining time in Belgrade we spent going to the US Embassy and then meeting the Foreign Policy Advisor to the President of Kosovo. A cool note to mention here is that we met the Advisor at the Office of the President of Serbia in the room which used to be Milosevic's office.
That evening we had one of the most amazing dinners of my life. Professor Grigorev's friend hosted and paid for our dinner at this classic Serbian restaurant that turned out to be a five course meal. Possibly more then that. It was soooo much food but so delicious! There is no other way we would have had the chance to try so many great things without this dinner. He also brought a guest speaker to the dinner, Tanja, who is the Chief Negotiator for EU Accession for Serbia. So naturally it was not just dinner but also interesting intellectual conversation. It was seriously so amazing. Unfortunately, I cant leave this post without stating that apparently people in my class do not have any manners and were having super inappropriate conversation with the hosts wife and daughter.... Add in that a handful had HORRIBLE table manners, it ended up being a bit embarrassing since I was so honored to be there and I felt like my classmates shot it-and our reputation in the foot. A huge downside to traveling as a group.
Regardless, after that evening we met a couple other people who were interesting but not particularly worth mentioning and then it was already time to move on to Kosovo. My first impression of Serbia was that it was a pretty interesting place, super cheap, with lots of history. We were super lucky with the weather and I only wanted to kick people a handful of times, which is quite a success for me.
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