Been a while. I’m going to do what I can to get caught up.
Won’t be easy given all that has transpired since the last posting but, given
that I use these posts as a bit of an archive of what I (we) have been up to, I
need to get back to the pen (laptop).
This particular entry was begun back in June. I returned
from Belgrade, had to make a quick trip to Somalia and then was sucked into the
vortex of vacation. Now that I have been ejected from said vortex, “normal”
life can resume.
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Belgrade - June 3-10
One thing I regret about my rather extensive past travel experience is how little documentation I have from it, particularly that which transpired during the 80s and 90s. A lot was going on but there isn’t much to show for it except what is inside my head. I have a few bad photos and a few notes. For the latter, however, I have somewhat of an excuse. At one point while traveling with a friend in northern Spain we were robbed. We had stepped in a café to have a quick breakfast before hitting the road. In less than an hour someone broke into the car and stole everything. My journal, where I had a couple of years’ worth of handwritten notes, was in one of the bags that was stolen. Needless to say I felt violated. We figured that either the journal would end up in a dumpster or a chapter of my life would end up in an obscure Spanish movie.
One thing I regret about my rather extensive past travel experience is how little documentation I have from it, particularly that which transpired during the 80s and 90s. A lot was going on but there isn’t much to show for it except what is inside my head. I have a few bad photos and a few notes. For the latter, however, I have somewhat of an excuse. At one point while traveling with a friend in northern Spain we were robbed. We had stepped in a café to have a quick breakfast before hitting the road. In less than an hour someone broke into the car and stole everything. My journal, where I had a couple of years’ worth of handwritten notes, was in one of the bags that was stolen. Needless to say I felt violated. We figured that either the journal would end up in a dumpster or a chapter of my life would end up in an obscure Spanish movie.
As such I was burned by the fleeting nature of handwritten
documentation of my experiences. I stopped keeping a journal at that point and
never picked it up again. When blogging became a thing, I eventually began
using that as a means to record my experiences, more or less from the time that
I arrived in Africa in 2005. It’s likely that it won’t disappear as easily but
it does require a keyboard (at least for me) to enter my travel thoughts. I
realize that much of the world can draft stuff on two thumbs at breakneck speed
but I’m not one of them.
---
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| view from my room |
So yes, Belgrade. It seems so long ago now. I went to Serbia
for meetings. It may seem an odd destination for such things, and I sort of
thought so prior to going, but in the end it worked out quite well. It’s not
overly expensive. It’s beautiful. The hotel was a very good host for such a
thing. It was more flexible than many countries for visas (we often have
problems with such things due to the fact that we have people on staff that
come from countries are often on other countries’ restricted visa lists).
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| some of the great architecture not destroyed by war |
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| some that was destroyed-in this case the Min. of Defense building hit by NATO forces in 1999 |
I had been to Belgrade before. If I remember correctly it
was around 1990. I drove through there with a friend of mine on our way to
Greece. I don’t remember much about it. It was still Yugoslavia at the time and
it seemed considerably poorer than it is now. This time I was able to spend some
time, when not in meetings, to get out and walk around. I was impressed, I have
to say. The weather was perfect, which helped, but there are a lot of things to
like even if the weather had not been so good.
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| view from the Belgrade fortress overlooking the Sava and Danube Rivers |
On my first day there I ventured out on foot to explore some
of the key sites I found on my tourist map. It’s a very walkable city and I
found that getting an early start gave me plenty of time to see the key things
before retreating to my hotel room to get caught up on some emails.
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| lots of people playing chess |
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| St. Mark's Church as seen in reflection |
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| yep, they have some Nazis too; fortunately all they could afford was chalk |
I’ll refrain from going into details about what I saw. I
suggest you go there yourself. But I’m including photos. They’re not great but
that’s how it goes sometimes. I think I was more fixated on learning about (or
re-learning about) the history of the place and less on taking photos. However,
as is my nature, I did take quite a few.
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| sunset on St. Micheal's Cathedral |
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| Belgrade by night; lots of wonderful traditional music |
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| Cathedral of St. Sava - world's largest Orthodox church |
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