I woke up at 8:30 AGAIN! I was even okay! I don't know how I am doing this. I think the warmth of the daytime vs. nighttime is making my body happy with being awake during the day instead of night. I really don't know though. Either way, I made it out the door in time and arrived at the train station exactly when I said I would be there (9:45am). We bought tickets and hopped on the train with time to spare. The train miraculously left on time, and we were off! Dominic had a lot less sleep than me, but told me about his schedule back in Vienna and how much he worked... so it made this seem like nothing.
Dom is in the service industry back in Vienna, working at 5 star hotels in the mountains doing bar work and other service stuff. He works the dreaded split shift often (I remember those) and has worked 40 hours consecutively (wtf). At the verrry young age of 20, he might become a fine-dining bar manager already. Basically he works his ass off so getting 4 hours sleep is okay. It was interesting talking on the train :)
We got out of the train station and found our way towards the city center by guessing. There is a big street right in front of the train station so we just started going down that assuming it would take us where we need to go. We found a market, and some cute side streets with hidden gems like this ex-coffee place:
The apartments we could see from the train were more brightly coloured than the bland grey in Belgrade, but there were still communist looking buildings. Not sure if this looks communist really, but certainly grey:
We randomly ended up finding the center! There was a big pedestrian street right in the middle, with a cute trolley cafe in the beginning:
As you can see, the buildings were painted different pastel colours on this entire street. A big church came into view which really helped with our mapless navigation:
Here is the main street, which was very nice! I was expecting a cute city center, but this was even nicer than what I was expecting. After the rough and smooth of Belgrade this was a totally different Serbia:
Still found some street art! I am thinking of putting together an album of just graffiti art I've photographed after I am home:
Dom and I were just taking random streets around that looked cool. Alleys, streets, hidden things and obvious things. He didn't like to walk with maps and after looking at one on display somewhere I decided it was too small to get lost in anyhow, so we just wandered. It was great! I love this style of aimless traveling. We found a street full of cafe's with silly things like pots hanging and this one with big fake lamps outside (which I am pretending to turn on in case you were wondering):
There were some lovely buildings hanging out everywhere. Don't forget to check out the random people that get in the pictures haha:
This is quite possibly the most intriguing painting on a building I have ever seen. I have no idea what it means, what it's for, what it is, or why it's there. WTF. It reminds me of a frog, but I don't know. Someone please tell me because I really like it! I should have asked someone!!!
I wanted to go through the park (I always go through city parks if I can) but Dom was not seeming too interested. We went through anyway mwahaha. I explained my opinion that if you see lots of people using the parks then I feel like a city is more alive and engaged. If nobody are in the parks, then they are probably just going to work, going home, and sitting in front of the TV or the like. Not alive. So I go through the parks.
With no guidance, we found the bridge to take us to the fortress. Dom hadn't heard of EXIT festival before, so I told him about it and that it's in this fortress thing:
The other side of the bridge looked like stepping back in time. It was shabby, old, peeling, and awesome! Dom described it as an open air museum:
You can see the roofs caving in on themselves a little
Since I was with another person I was able to get a photo! Woo!
This is the first time I've seen a graffiti drawing of the city it's in! I thought it was a cool and original idea. Someone should paint a street art version of Vancouver somewhere in Vancouver. It's very clever :)
We walked down this street towards the big yellow bridge building and saw this funny sign. Translation error I assume?
We found the way up some stairs to the fortress. On the way up there was a view point with a single bench sitting facing the city. The view was spectacular! You could see all the roofs of the old part we had just walked through:
It was cloudy so the sky didn't turn out so well, but oh well:
Here is the bench. I sat on this and looked around for a while. It was really peaceful:
On the top of the hill, you could walk next to the clock tower:
I enjoyed these glasses:
We walked around the entire place. I could see all the old walls and stone, and there were broken down guns and cannons from wars strewn about:
The view from the other side was also quite nice. You could see the river and what I assume is a park. I was trying to imagine a big festival taking place around me with sunshine and chaos. It was still very nice without the insanity too of course. We practically had the place to ourselves!
After the fortress it was time to eat. I was starving, but we had passed some place that looked pretty cool when we were walking around. It had bookshelf wallpaper. We walked by the tourist center by accident and went in to get a little map (my idea - I like maps!) and ask about lunch in case there was somewhere better unknown to me.
The bookshelf place still seemed best, so we went on a little hunt. It actually took a while to find, but surprisingly it was my orientation that led us back. I must be getting better at this since I had this weird feeling about the general direction and it was right. Could I be developing a sense of direction!?!?!!?!?!?!
So we ate. Ate and ate and ate. We had a big lunch, desert, and two pops and the bill was still less than 12 euros for both of us! I ate like a king and it was still less than a normal meal in Vancouver. It wasn't even fast food - the place looked swanky and nice:
Here is Dom, the super-waiter:
Here I am:
I waddled out of that place. I had this huge chocolate/vanilla ice cream crepe for desert and that was eaten out of yummyness not hunger haha. We had already walked the entire city (the tourist store guy confirmed this) so we wandered a bit then sat our asses right back down somewhere different for after lunch/dinner coffee.
Eventually it was time for a FOX photoshoot on the way to the train station! Here he is hiding, can you spot the FOX?
Dom approached these girls to get a photo with FOX. It seems FOX is a very good way to meet girls! They liked him. Dominic now wants to get a traveling buddy hehe:
FOX posed near this church too:
We went in a second hand store on the way, since Dom admitted that he had never bought second hand clothing before. I was shocked! He was newer to couchsurfing, and had stayed a hostel once but before that was always nice hotels. He felt that now he was going to be a traveler, he should buy second hand clothing to fit the role lol. He was blown away about prices being so cheap in there, it was funny to see. I don't know how much he thought second hand clothing costed, maybe he never thought about it.
Meanwhile, FOX was enjoying some time out and about! I zipped him into my jacket for a while, until it started unzipping on it's own and I deemed it unsafe. Then I held him.
We made it to the train station and the ticket was even cheaper on the way back!
The train, however, was late. It was more ghetto, which explained the discount, but the seats were more squishy. I was getting tired and fell asleep on the train for a few minutes while I listened to my German lesson thing. Most of the time I was learning though :)
We arrived in Belgrade and it was raining there. Ugh. It wasn't raining hard though, so that was okay. It was a shorter walk to the bus stops where Dom and I parted ways. A dog with a collar had followed us half the way, and now followed me across the street. I was wondering where he belonged since there are so many strays in Belgrade and he was not. I heard barking.
Eight fucking strays came running through the park. Many of them were really big dogs too. The smaller collared one barked back but there were four against one while the others stood back and barked. It was a fur frenzy with biting, barking, and growling. I thought for a minute that smaller dog was about to get torn apart literally. They were biting it all over and it was running in circles biting back and growling. It seemed to be holding it's own though, since all of them would back off occasionally while it bared teeth at them.
Once it would turn though they would attack again. It was a busy street beside them too, with a fence in between the two directions except at the designated crossing. I waited until the dog was backed off and growling again then I ran and yelled at the strays. They backed away more, but then they started barking at me. That's when I realized maybe eight big dogs might be able to take me out too. I didn't want to leave the other dog though. I started slowly walking away monitoring the situation, and I saw the collared one run across the street without getting hit until the fence. It stood there and the strays didn't dare cross the street. I figured he knew the way back from there so he was okay. I got on the bus and went to the house.
Nobody was back yet though, since Hogar wasn't supposed to be back for another hour or two. I talked to his neighbor who let me try to use his phone, then I headed to a cafe down the street to hang out at for an hour or so. They had a magazine in English and the bartender was cute so I was fine. I was writing my postcards when I got a text from Hogar saying he was home. I took off and watched Law and Order till 3am. Indre came in later so I knew I could sleep in the next day too!
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