Belgrade, Serbia

Last weekend I went to Belgrade, Serbia with five other students. I haven't done any travelling outside Hungary yet, and I'm glad I've finally started.

You can see Serbia's dark history in Belgrade. We spent our time in the "old" section of the town. Many of the streets are filled with gray buildings with lots of concrete, reminiscent of its communist past. A section of the city still has bomb damage from the NATO bombings in the late 90's. Graffiti is also ubiquitous (violent crime is rare, however.)

It would be unfair to describe Belgrade only as a gloomy, recovering city. There is plenty of excitement and interesting history in the city. The food, for one, was fantastic - Serbs are famous for their grilled meats, and also a delicious pastry called Burek. The restaurants we had dinner at had live music accompanying it. Everything is very inexpensive too.

Near the center of the city is an old fortress. When we went to the fortress, it was very foggy, so it felt like I was in a fantasy novel. Inside the fortress is a zoo. It was very different from any American zoo I've been too. Several of the zoo's birds would roam freely, so the walkways were filled with peacocks. Since it was in a fortress, some of the exhibits simply used the old fortress walls to contain the animals. It was perfectly acceptable to feed and pet the animals. It would have been easy for me to pet one of the tigers, for example - the Serbs seems to have an attitude that if you're dumb enough to touch a tiger, you deserve to get hurt, so why bother to prevent visitors from touching the animals? While all the dangerous animals were of course secured, some of the other fences were startlingly low. One of the fences was not more than three feet, and the animals inside easily could have jumped over.

We also saw the church of St. Sava. The lights in the fog gave it a divine look, and the sheer height of the dome is hard to appreciate from the pictures alone.

Overall, despite Serbia's reputation, Belgrade is an overlooked gem for tourists. It's very affordable, making it even better for students - I had veal with an appetizer at a high-end restaurant for less than $20, and spent $3-$5 at less fancy places. 

Building bombed by NATO.

The fog gave the fortress an eerie feel

Thomas the Tank?

Belgrade Fortress

Turrets

Peacocks freely walked around the paths.

"Don't worry - the fence is completely secure!"

Visitors pet the elephant as it stuck out its trunk

Lion contained by fortress walls

Church of St. Sava

My First Opera, and Art Nouveau

I saw my first opera this evening. It was bizarre. The first act was called Mario and the Magician, an opera based on an anti-fascist story. 

The weirdness started right away. The evil magician is entrancing a crowd, but the chorus had a strange assortment of characters. To wit, there were characters resembling Albert Einstein, the Joker, Lucius Malfoy, an alien, Superman (in a wheelchair no less), among others. The magician himself looked like Jesus Christ. The opera really gets weird when the magician confronts the hero, Mario. Presumably using evil magic, he dons a mask of Mario's lover's face, and seduces Mario in front of a crowd. And yes, Mario actually starts to kiss and lick the mask - at this point it was hard to take the opera seriously. Mario is of course embarrassed by the crowd, and he retaliates by shooting the magician. The magician conveniently is wearing a bulletproof vest, but it doesn't matter because in the end it turns out to be Mario's dream anyways. 

As peculiar as it was, I suppose the opera was at least entertaining. The second act was more traditional opera, much more what I had expected. It's name is Prince Bluebeard, and follows a creepy old count and his newest wife. The singing and the orchestra were terrific. I'm not crazy about opera, but I can still appreciate it - I'm glad I went. Of course, Hungarian is an unusual language for operas, which made it more interesting. It was only 500 Forints ($2.25) anyways. 

That morning, I also went on a tour around Budapest to learn about art nouveau. The architecture in Budapest is very old-fashioned, with lots of neo-gothic, neo-classical, neo-everything buildings. While it's charming, it can get a little bland because all the buildings look so similar. Art nouveau tries to buck the trend of slavishly copying the past. Here's some pictures. My favorite was when we got to look inside a high-end hotel.

St. Martin's Day

The Monday before last was St. Martin's Day. It's a minor holiday celebrated in many Central European countries. The traditional food to eat is goose liver, or goose in general. I took a trip to the grocery store to try some. It was surprisingly good - I hadn't expected to like it much. Besides, its the closest thing I'll have to Thanksgiving while I'm in Hungary.

Caving

Yesterday, I went with a group of fellow students on a guided cave tour. Budapest has a deep, extensive cave network, and it was really an adventure to explore them. Navigating through the caves can be difficult. At several points, we had to army crawl through tight spaces and maneuver ourselves around awkward gaps. However, there were also spacious rooms in the caves. The irregular shapes of the caves are intriguing.

The caves have a strange beauty to them. It's fairly warm, and the moisture on the rocks has a glitter to it. Mostly though, it's the sense of exploration that I enjoyed. Without a guide, it would be easy to get lost.

At one point, everyone turned off their helmet lights. The cave is of course completely dark. This might not seem special, but when you think about it, in daily life there's very rarely ever complete darkness; there always seems to be a little bit light after your eyes adjust. According to our guide, after a couple of hours in complete darkness, your brain hallucinates and starts seeing things.

Thin layers of clay surround some of the rocks, so we were all quite dirty when we finished, not to mention a bit sweaty from army crawling. We were in the caves for about two and a half hours. We all enjoyed a refreshing drink afterwards at the nearby bar.

Of course, I tried to take a few pictures, but the lighting from people's lights is too wonky for good pictures. It was a real adventure, and I only regret that there are no caves in Minnesota.

Without the helmet, you would definitely get a concussion navigating the small spaces! Not to mention falling rocks.

Besides the helmet light, everything was dark.

Giselle

The Sunday before last, me and around 9 other students saw the ballet "Giselle" at the opera house. We even had our own box.

It was the first ballet I've seen, and I'm glad I went. The orchestra was fantastic, the dancers were graceful, and the set was unbelievable. The story was a little lacking - spoiler alert: there is a love story - but I don't think that's really the point of a ballet anyways. The second act features undead women who force unfortunate men who come to their graveyard to dance until they die of exhaustion, so it's basically an old-school zombie show. In all seriousness, I enjoyed the music and dancing.

 The opera house itself is gorgeous and has a high-class, old-fashioned feel.

Outside view. You can sort of see a balcony at the top. We watched a dog parade from there during intermission.

The venue was filled with chandeliers like these

Some champagne during intermission

Tour My Apartment

I share an apartment with two other Americans attending the same program (both are very kind). It's located in the center of the city on a nice street. It's very spacious, though somewhat lacking in conveniences.

My bedroom used to belong to a child, hence the free mural on my wall...

It's hard to get a feel from just the pictures, but the apartment has a lot of space. Here's my roommate's room, for example:

We have a humble sitting room, with a television so advanced it has color, and a large stuffed animal included. The old tenants even left behind a mini-trampoline, but I don't think the neighbors downstairs appreciate it.

There's even an entry hallway, as if there isn't enough space already.

Of course, the kitchen has lots of great cookbooks included - in Hungarian. The best part is the stove. You need to light it with a match, and you if you don't hold down the knob for at least 30 seconds the gas will go out once you let go. My roommate saw the same stove elsewhere, selling for 5000 Forints (about $22), so you know it's top notch.

In Hungary, drying machines aren't common, but we do have a nifty drying rack:

Many doorknobs are very wobbly because several screws are missing. Also, the windows have no screens, so when you open them to cool down the room, lots of bugs fly in. Sure, the apartment isn't anything fancy, but it's in a good location, has lots of space, and has some interesting quirks. I know I've poked fun at it, but it's afford-ably priced and comfortable enough for me. I enjoy looking out my window every morning to see Budapest. It's a great place to live!

Bike Tour

On Sunday, the school organized a biking tour. We took the train out to the countryside and rented some bikes. We biked approximately 35 km (about 22 miles). I had forgotten how much fun it can be to bike, and the villages and country we drove through were gorgeous. We had many interesting stops along the way.

We biked through a couple charming villages, but I only had time to take a couple hurried photos.

A Hungarian cottage

A bird-watching tower

When we stopped for some drinks, a really nice cat greeted us. He would come up to strangers asking to be pet, and he would just purr if you picked him up.

A war memorial of the failed Hungarian revolution against the Communists. 

After biking, we went to a Hungarian hot bath. It was very relaxing on our sore muscles after biking for so long. After an hour or so, we played some pool games.

At the very end of the tour, we had some goulash cooked over an open fire for dinner. We also ate bread with goose fat on top. It sounds gross, but it tastes similar to butter. 

So far, this has been my favorite day in Hungary. It felt so exhilarating to bike, and I loved the sense of exploration as we stopped in different places. The food was terrific, and there weren't tourists crowding everywhere when we went to all the sites. The views were fantastic, but unfortunately I couldn't take pictures most of the time as I was biking. Overall, it was a great day.