Last weekend we (RIT students) rode in a couple of vans to Bosnia and Herzegovina. To quickly summarize, we left early on Friday and spend that night in Mostar, drove to Sarajevo the next day, stayed the night there, and drove back from Sarajevo to Dubrovnik on Sunday afternoon.
I was mostly lethargic, homesick and miserable. However, I'm glad I went. Bosnia was hit very hard by the war, and a lot of the damage is still very evident. I've never seen anything like it. Walking down the street in Mostar, I saw two tall buildings next to each other - one new and modern looking, and the other bombed and empty. It struck me how besides us (the tourists) people didn't seem to give these things a second glance. War is something very abstract in my mind. To see it this close, even if it was over a decade (only a decade!) ago, is rather shocking.
There's a really cool bridge in the old town of Mostar, and just like Evil Zoran told us, there were golden-brown Bosnian guys in speedos soliciting money from tourists before jumping into the river. I walked around a bit, looked at stuff in stores, had a Turkish coffee (mmmm) and then sat on some rocks in the sun and read Fahrenheit 451. Got sunburnt.
Sarajevo also has an old town. I'm starting to notice a trend in Balkan cities having old towns. It's really nothing like Dubrovnik - the streets are smaller and rockier, and the buildings are shorter. Mostar's old town was similar. I bought my little brother a football/soccer jersey from a Sarajevo club team from a guy with two teeth on a side street that smelled like pee. Good Zoran helped me, since he speaks the language. We got some lunch and then took a cab back to our hotel.
The entire time I was there, I kept thinking, "How did I end up here?" because of all the places I imagined I'd go in my life, Bosnia and Herzegovina was never on the list.
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