Touchdown in Serbia

Touchdown in Serbia

Our lucky find in the Doha duty-free shop!

After realizing that you just can't sleep on a plane when you're 6'1 and strung out on excitement, you tend to appreciate saying "no" to the warm and inviting flavors of java and "yes" to the liquor-filled chocolates that you sometimes buy at the duty free store. It was 12 hours of combined travel via  midnight plane plus a stopover in Abu Dhabi and then 6 hours of getting settled into our hostel and finding out where the train station was before we succumbed to the sweet slumbers of sleep. We were very tired to say the least.

One neat thing was that we randomly ran into my old friend Bruce and his family at the airport in Dubai.  Since there is nothing to do in the transit terminal in the airport in Dubai, it was a nice way to pass the time between flights.

Next morning we awoke refreshed and ready to enjoy the wonders of Belgrade.  First we walked to a big park where we saw the old fortress and the military museum.  The fortress was built on the foundations of ancient Roman ruins.  We saw lots of little lizards and also a little creature that we couldn't figure out whether it was a tiny hummingbird or a bird-like butterfly. 


I really liked the way the military museum was set up, because the displays were very aesthetic, and they were put together with artworks done in styles from the corresponding historic period, starting with mosaics for the Ancient Roman period.  It was neat. 

brutal weapons

The brutality of fighting in ancient times was eye-opening when considering that there were no quick deaths on those battlefields, only slow and agonizing pain followed by infection and finally death. Serbia has a long history of warfare and has been at war with many different peoples who have tried to conquer its land.  The suits of armor were shiny and reminiscent of what you would see in a Hollywood film such as Bill and Ted's Excellent Adventure.

It will probably not fit.

 Outside of the military museum were rows upon rows of every artillery cannon imaginable, ranging from pirate ship cannons to world war two cannons and beyond. There were also tanks, torpedoes, anti-aircraft guns and lots of other things for killing people with. It was a plethora of madness and potential bloodshed. I am glad to know that Serbia is finally at peace and her people are thriving and able to put that behind them by displaying their violent past in a military museum where it belongs.

Stuffed mushrooms stuffed us!

Serbia has yummy food.   We ate stuffed mushrooms, stuffed peppers, cheese, and salad and we were stuffed. 

Finally we are on our way to Romania.  We bought train tickets from Belgrade to Bucharest, but took a bus to the border, apparently because Serbia uses a different gauge track than Romania, then got on a slow train for Timisoara, and now we are on a slow sleeper train for Bucharest.  We upgraded the sleeper-portion of our ticket to first-class, and got lots of great train stuff, like our own train toothbrushes and toothpastes, train refreshing towelettes, train shoe-shine towelettes, train disposable picnic blankets, and train water bottles.  Time to go to sleep and continue our adventure tomorrow!

Our free first-class sleeper carriage train stuff