The Trout? You Can´t Handle the Trout!

So I have been eating a ton of tasty trout, pulled from Bosnia´s rivers and set upon our plates with heads and tails on... and Sarah and I keep joking about Jack Nicholson´s famous line from the movie, A Few Good Men... ˝you can´t handle the truth!˝

Yesterday we ate at a Cafe that was called, ˝To Be or Not to Be˝ before the war. During the war, the proprietors crossed out the ˝or not to be˝ part. For them at that time, not surviving was simply not an option. Sarah ate what she described as the best tuna salad of her life, and I had a pretty mediocre but filling chicken risotto.




They also had this interesting and bizarre image posted where I could see it throughout the meal. I am told that people ate everything they could find in Sarajevo during the war, including the pidgeons. I assume that is what this artwork refers to, but perhaps there is a deeper humour that I do not understand.


This morning we went to Club Bill Gates (yes, really) and the only thing we could distinguish on the menu was ˝nutella˝ so we assumed it was crepes (which it actually was!).

They came with very heavy whipped cream and a whole bunch of tiny blueberries.

The crepes were so heavy and sweet (and it was so hot out--over 100 degrees F) that each of us could only finish half of 1 crepe... but they were tasty!!!


I also tried doner kebob for the first time yesterday. It is a kind of meat where they cook it slowly on a spit and slice off pieces which they put inside pita with tomatoes and spicy sauce. Actually very yummy and also cheap!

Today we found a new hostel where we can stay the next few nights, which is closer to the old town (and not up a heinously steep and cobblestone hill like our current hostel). For only 2 euro more than I was paying at the current hostel, I get a very large room to myself and also a private bathroom!!! They have a kitchen which is free for guests to use (the other place where we are stying now you have to pay to use a knife/fork and they only have a small fridge, not a kitchen for guest use). They also appear to have air conditioning at the new place, which I have to say will be a Godsend. AND IT HAS WIRELESS INTERNET IN THE ROOM!!!! So I can chat or video chat for free (instead of paying like a million dollars a minute on my cell phone) starting on Wednesday!!!

Sarah and I have decided that today is ˝Happy Tuesday˝ because we keep having the most awesome windfalls and easily finding things we are looking for, etc. For example, Sarah found a translator for her project today who is affordable! And Club Bill Gates was such a funny experience and a cheap meal!

I am literally melting in the heat. It is unbearably hot by 8:00 in the morning and it stays that was until at least 8:00 at night. The apothekas (pharmacies) tend to have AC (˝klimatarizando˝ is now my favorite word which I look for with a certain hypervigilence that can only come from melting brain syndrome). So Sarah and I have been looking at lots of unnecessary medicines in the name of cooling off a bit. (By the way, they sell Viagra over the counter here to anyone who wants it). Siesta is the name of the game for beating the afternoon scorch.

Everyone concerned about my alabaster skin will be pleased to know I am bathing in sunscreen repeatedly during the day, staying in the shade, wearing my hat and cover-up shirt (long sleeves in this heat-- ugh!). So far, so good. I am not even pink!

One of the things I like best about Sarajevo are the mosques. They are on every street: small ones, big ones, simple ones, fancy ones... but the thing they all have in common is a fountain or water spout outside with cold, clear, fresh water which you can drink or splash on your face. Very refreshing!

The other nice things about the mosques is that they have a call to prayer 5 times per day. At these times, the entire city is filled with the sounds of singing in Arabic, reminding people of the importance of connecting with their faith. The main mosque has rugs outside where you will see people praying at all times of the day, but even more respond to the call to prayer and then the mosque and courtyard are filled with people kneeling, laying down, then kneeling, then standing up and repeating this sequence in a beautiful and full-body prayer. I would like to learn to pray in this way. It seems so much the best way to pray, because the whole body, voice, mind, and spirit are engaged in the connection with the divine.

Here is me, first thing in the morning, with mismatched socks... gotta love it!

And here I am in a ˝mall˝ where you can buy every kind of western fashion that you can imagine.

We also saw these Barbie dolls yesterday and it was so funny to see the Muslim Barbie next to what looks like a ˝streetwalker˝ Barbie.