“Peace is its own Reward”
-Mahatama Ghandi
So it is Sunday, King Alexander Boulevard is almost a ghost town, from being the main arterial route out of the city the only thing roaming are stray cats and dogs.
I have managed to sleep in today at it is 11.30AM and I haven’t been nearly as disciplined with my blog as i would have liked to be!
I have navigated my way to a wee pub in the old part of the city and locked myself down with a 1L jug of beer and will start doing the planning for the next step of my journey, i have decided on Poland, it is about 1000KM north of Serbia and the lonely planet guide tells me that it is filled with history and colourful buildings.
I have booked my ticket out of Belgrade and it leaves from Nikolai Tesla International Airport at 5.05PM tomorrow and arrives at 6.30 PM
I have thoroughly enjoyed Serbia however as much as i love the city i feel that Belgrade has given me enough to carry on my journey, i was going to head to Romania next however the public transport here is ridiculous and i cannot understand any of the street names or train station names and feel that i would get lost vertically quickly.
The other option was to rent a car but petrol is 2 Euros per litre and the journey would cost around 150 euros in fuel, plus a days rental at 20 euros and then i have the risk of navigating some of the craziest drivers in the world.
The beer here is very good and very cheap which makes social occasions very cheap and friendly.
Draft beer seems to be the local flavour on tap and its actually pretty good i must admit!
I decided to take one last walk through the old part of the city and came across the local gardens, yet again its filled with families playing in the fountain and locals lying on park benches taking refuge from the peak sun.
The gardens are located on the hill looking across the Danube river and are only about 1/12th the size of dunedin gardens, i thought this was the perfect time to get my Souvenir from the local market, i settled on the Local Serbian coat of arms and features the Orthodox Church cross on it.
After the gardens it was time for lunch. As i wandered the streets i came across a restaurant that specialised in Balkan styled cuisine, lucky the english was fluent and they had an english menu
I tried the Balkan pork burger, expecting a traditional burger to come out…… i was pleasantly surprised but a marinated pork style patty with cheese on it and thrice cooked potato slices, the waiter then delivered 2 huge Ciabatta roles that were fresh from the oven and also a cucumber salad, over here you make your own burger.
The vegetables here are full of flavour and the tomatoes are what i would call heaven on earth.
Before i left the restaurant the local staff were dying to know why i carried a stuffed alpaca with me, i explained he was from New Zealand and he was traveling the world with me, the hostess and waiter wanted a photo with him before i left so we took a few shots for “the gram”
It was about 4.20 pm and i went back to the hostel to confirm my booking and also book a hostel for the next week in Warsaw. The weeks accomodation cost about 178NZD and is a 9.9 on hostel world, so i should be safe there.
As i was confirming my booking an Argentinian man checked in , he is Fredrick and put me onto a great app called “Couch surfer” it is a hive network of travellers who arrange meet ups in cities and also if you need a place to crash you can put a call out on the network and if you get a response you get a free couch for the night!…. brilliant i thought
I have taken one last excursion back to the Haos 1001 Sheesha lounge to say good by to antonio.
I tried the local shipshape flavour called “2 apples” it is red and green apple tobacco with a hint of aniseed i wouldn’t call it a delicacy, however if it is what the locals enjoy it has to be tried.
I slowly made my way back up to the Hostel for my final night,
Tomorrow is a new day with new objectives and obstacles to overcome!
Quantum Entanglement 