Belgrade – Serbia
Monday May 25
We arrived around 10am to the main train station in Belgrade. From there we got a tram for around 15 minutes to the Star Hostel. Well we thought so but apparently the instructions on the net were wrong as we were exactly where it said it was. I asked Steve what was the address so we could double check them, but he hadn’t written it down. So we put all our gear down and I went for a walk to find it or some clue about where we were supposed to be. I walked for ages and asked someone in a restaurant and he sent me in a different (wrong) direction. I eventually went into a travel agent and asked for help. They were serving a customer so I had to wait. And wait. And wait. I was thinking, geez I hope Steve doesn’t get too bored. The lady finally finished with the customer and we looked up the directions. The directions were right. But the hostel was down a side street on the opposite side of the road. On the corner where I had left Steve. Like that exact corner. So the lady called the hostel and talked to the guy, and he asked if Steve was wearing a white T-shirt and I said yes. The guy could see him from inside the hostel. So I asked them to get him and said I’d be along soon. I walked back and Steve had checked in and dumped our gear and come back out to meet me. He said it was lucky the guy came out when he did because he was getting really worried about me. I had been gone for well over an hour. He was ready to dump our gear and come looking for me! The guy couldn’t believe we couldn’t see the sign but it wasn’t visible from the road, hidden behind some trees, so we were a bit miffed. We checked in, well into the afternoon. We didn’t really do much on the first day in Serbia, just a bit of grocery shopping and catching up with people online as we had access to free internet. But then finding the hostel had been enough of an adventure for at least the first day.
Tuesday May 26
There was no availability for hostels anywhere in Belgrade this night as AC/DC were playing and people had traveled from all over Eastern Europe to attend. So we headed off for our 4th couch surf. We stayed with a couple Natasha and Goran. We got the tram down the road to meet Goran and we walked to their place from there. Their house reminded me a lot of the houses in the Greek Islands, low curved ceilings and white painted walls, but it was down half a flight of stairs into the ground so only one wall of the house had windows which were above waist height. We chatted with Goran and his friend about music for a few hours before Natasha got home from work. As it turned out Goran was into heavy metal so we listened to metal (and I reminisced about my teens :P) for most of the afternoon. We also went down to the local tattoo studio to book in for our next tatts also. The tattoo studio was run by women, everyone who worked there was a woman. There were around 6 tattoo artists and piercers. Steve booked in for his Serbian shield and Cyrillic D but they didn't have anything I liked and I knew I had a design on my laptop that I wanted so I said I'd bring it in when Steve got his done.
When Natasha got home from work we headed out to a local restaurant to sample some traditional Serbian food. Goran said there were places (they have a special name but we can't remember it) that were more like having dinner at your house and only had traditional food and this was one of them. It was very low key and comfortable. We ordered traditional bread and were informed they had run out so we had to have normal bread. We ordered 2 plates of kebab/sausage things called Cevapcici (chevap chi chi). They were spiced mince meat in the shape of a sausage and had a weird soft cheese-like substance with them. Goran said the cheese like stuff was actually milk and salt – it was very tasty.
After dinner Natasha went to bed as she had work the next day so we headed out and about for some drinks with Goran and his friend. We walked around and checked out a massive church and an area that had been destroyed during the civil unrest in Serbia. It was once the local TV station. Other than this, we didn’t really see too much evidence of the war. I thought it would be more evident, but other than that and 2 other bomb sites listed on our map that was it.
Apparently Serbians still have lots of problems getting visas to other countries and that was one of the reasons why Natasha and Goran wanted to host people couch surfing. The other reason was that the wages are quite low in Serbia so it is hard for them to save as much money to go traveling. I think the average wage is around 300 Euros a month, compared to 500 in Romania and 700 in Greece from what our various couch surfing hosts have told us. That is one good thing about couch surfing – you find out different things about the different cultures than you wouldn't in a hostel. Hostels are fun because you meet other travellers but couch surfing is cool because you meet locals and do what locals do.
We went to a bar where some n00b who had been to AC/DC that night got into an argument with me because I had called them Acca Dacca and he said he had read that on Wikipedia that morning and didn’t believe it was true. He just didn’t believe anyone would ever call them that even though I had (and I was Australian) so we left and headed back to Goran’s place and crashed for the night.
Wednesday May 27
We slept in quite late, as late as we could before Steve's tattoo appointment. We felt quite wrecked from our night of drinking so we didn’t do much for the day other than that. I booked in for the Thursday to get mine done. After that we just had a few beers in the park that evening and went home to Goran’s and crashed.
Steve's Cyrillic 'D'
The Serbian Emblem
Thursday May 28
I went in to get my tatt done at lunch time. I decided to get my nose pierced too.
We left our gear at Goran and Natasha’s place while we went back to the tattoo studio. For some reason they didn't sell Bepanthen in Serbia so we had to use what the sudio recommended - Jekoderm. It is a fish oil based product and on the tattoo care instructions it said not to get it on the skin surrounding the tattoo as it can leave a rash when the skin gets saturated. It's a bit hard not to get any of the stuff outside the tattoo and have it completely covered though. They also only put a cotton pad on them rather than cling wrap like they do back home.
After that we went to collect our gear from Natasha and Goran’s but we ended up getting stuck there for the rest of the afternoon drinking and talking about Serbian history and the war. It was good to get to talk to the locals about their view on what had happened as we rely on the media for our information on what happened. Goran didn’t really have a good opinion of the UN since they had bombed and killed so many civilians. It started to get into the evening a bit so we had to head off and move back to the Star Hostel as they were back to having availability again. Again we didn’t really get up to much, one of the reasons we had come to Belgrade was the clubbing (it was supposed to be the best in Europe) so we just had a fairly low key evening, kicked back relaxing until the weekend.
Friday May 29
The weekend was here and I was excited about the Belgrade clubbing. We asked the guys at the hostel for a good traditional restaurant to go to and they recommended one fairly close by. We went and had a big hearty feed with apple schnapps as an entree (out of a funny vase like cup with a tall skinny neck and bulb like bottom – they have a name for it but I can’t remember). We had checked out a few places we might be able to go clubbing and it seemed in summer most clubs closed if they were indoor clubs and they opened out on boats on the river for the summer. We headed down to the river on the tram. Since we have been travelling we have been going out earlier than we would back home, so clubs are often just opening when we get there. This was the case when we went to the river, except the main club we were looking for was actually and indoor soccer field for the night and the other clubs didn’t seem like our scene musically and were empty due to the early hour. There was one boat that had a cool local punk band playing but we figured we’d already missed most of the show so we got the tram back to the city and started lucky dipping with clubs that were marked on our map.
We found one built into the side of a ‘cliff’, it wasn’t much of a cliff but it was built into a sheer rock face and looked like one so it’s the best way I can describe it. Then we found one that was full of Goths and ‘alternative’ people and was playing something that resembled cheesy dance music and sometimes had goth like vocals in it. It was listed as "New Wave" so I guess that's what it was. It had a cover charge so we headed to the fortress to try and find the one we had heard about that was under the fortress. We wandered around it at night and didn’t find it so we headed back to the goth club and paid the small entry fee. We went down some stairs and appeared in what seemed to be a basement, complete with concrete walls and pillars – all very raw and painted all over with random graff art. I asked a local if they ran that style of party here often, and she said that it was the closing party – it was closing for summer. It appeared we had come on the cusp of clubbing seasons – so we thought perhaps it was a bad weekend to be in Belgrade (from a night clubbing perspective) We had a few beers and hung about for about an hour or so but we weren’t feeling the love so we headed back to the hostel. We found out later the club built into the 'cliff face' was the club at the fortress that we'd been looking for.
I feel the need to point out at this point I was feeling slightly ripped off by the whole “Belgrade is one of the party capitals of Europe” so I was very hopeful but not optimistic that the clubs would be better on the Saturday night.
Saturday May 30
I didn’t wake up excited that it was Saturday thought I really should have. We headed out to do a little sightseeing and take pictures of nice buildings etc – the usual touristy stuff. We had a feed at the ? Tavern (yes this is right, it was the question mark tavern) which was apparently the oldest tavern in Belgrade and served mid-priced traditional food. Belgrade had been very cheap so far so we wondered if mid priced was still quite cheap, which is was. Belgrade was probably the cheapest place we went in Eastern Europe, closely followed or perhaps equal with Bulgaria.
The tiny tables and chairs at the ? Tavern
The ? Tavern
After that we headed back to the hostel and I did a bit more “research” on clubs in Belgrade. I had found a psy trance night but it was a taxi ride away just out of the main city area. I spoke to Andy online and told him I wanted to go, but Steve was almost not going to come out with me, the weather was shit and he wasn’t feeling very well. Andy said we had to go as it was his birthday weekend. I told Steve that he had to come :P. I messaged a DJ who had added me on a facebook a few weeks earlier who was from Belgrade and asked him since I figured it was a safe bet, DJs know the best places to go ;) Right at the last minute he got back to me and recommended XLagoom, which I hadn’t heard of before, but it was in the main city area and semi close/stumbling distance or a short tram ride home. So we decided to head there before the night that was out of town.
Before heading to that club though we met Natasha and Goran out in the park and had some beers before going and checking out a band they wanted to see at one of the venues that frequently had live music. It was a largeish hall and the sound was pretty bad and the dickhead from the AC/DC concert was there. Natasha said that it was always bad sound unless it was absolutely packed – it was still very busy IMO (Brian and Julie: IMO means in my opinion). After that we headed to a club where Goran had a mate working security so we got in free. It was a university and it was in a courtyard in enclosed by 4 quite tall walls with a temporary style roof over it right at the top. There were windows in the walls and it felt kind of like a vertical tunnel in a way as it was that tall. The music was really really 80s. Like really 80s. All of the uni students (or uni student aged people) were loving it. Really loving it. It was quite surreal! Not really our thing so after an hour or so and a few more drinks we headed out to find XLagoom.
Natasha, Goran & I in the park
The live music venue
Natasha & Goran
The University bar
Steve and our taxi driver :P
Andrea
XLagoom
Andrea & I
Sebastjan & I
Steve & Sebastjan
Apparently the club is not always so packed but due to the shite weather an outdoor party had been cancelled and so everyone had gone there instead. We ended up partying with those guys until well after light, which in Europe is earlier than Australia, but even still, we must have left around 7 or 8am (I think?) as the music was sooooo good... And because the club closed and booted us out lol... (again, Brian and Julie this means laugh out loud) I asked security to keep their eyes open for my ear plugs and they said they would call Damian if they found them. Afterwards we headed to one of their friend’s places to hang out for a few hours (and keep drinking :P). We met a few more cool people there and chatted until around midday. At midday we headed back to the hostel to catch some sleep before our train to Hungary. We realised we were due to check out at 12, but the dude from the hostel met us when we arrived and said “oh you’re back! If you need to crash for a while you’re welcome to, we won’t charge you” I breathe a sigh of relief and we crashed out.
Sunday May 31
Yes I realise some of the last blog was half of Sunday too but I’m going to count it from when I woke up.
I woke up around 4pm and sat bolt upright in bed. I remembered where my ear plugs were. They HAD to be in the park we stopped in as it was the only place I got stuff out of my pockets and they had been in my pocket. I tried to get back to sleep but I was agitated, I couldn’t sleep again until I got them back. I got up and showered and then walked about half an hour back to the park and it was starting to rain but sure enough, they were pretty much exactly where I thought they would be. I breathed a massive sigh of relief. My one hour round trip had saved me $350 and would help to slow my inevitable hearing loss...
I returned to the hostel only slightly seedy expecting to find Steve in a panic because he didn’t know where I was (again) but he was still sound asleep. Phew. So I gathered all my gear together and got ready for our train. At this point I realised Belgrade was worth it and I didn’t feel ripped off anymore! Steve woke a while later and had a feed and got his stuff together ready to head off. The guy from the hostel said if we needed more sleep we were welcome to stay another night no charge, which was really cool of him. We had already paid for our train ticket so we said we had to go but thanked him for the thought. We got the tram back to the train station and boarded our train at about 9.20pm. It was only a 7 hour trip this time, but we had opted for the night train anyway so as to not lose a day in transit – we were racing towards our flight from Germany to the UK on the 10th of June – that was the next thing we were locked into at this point. We had a “room” to ourselves again, and this time discovered how to lock the door. We were just hoping we woke up for border control! We did luckily... And Steve had to get my passport back again as I’d fallen asleep before they returned again.
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