Cyrillic sign at Belgrade train station (it says "Beograd")
My book says that Belgrade "is not a beautiful city." In a sense, this is very true: colors, other than gray, rarely show up in the cityscape. But many of the buildings, even in the cloud-covered blah that characterizes this day in particular, have ornamentations that would fit well in Paris or Prague. Of course, there are also plenty of Communist-era monstrosities of concrete, glass, and metal. (I think it's interesting that glass can be so cold and utilitarian here, but in the John Hancock Tower in Boston, or the Dancing Building in Prague, it can be organic and vibrant).
A street in Belgrade, with the various styles of architecture.
I went to the Republic Sq. last night and walked around. Everyone was out, 12-yr-olds, punks, stilettos, middle-aged women, business men. Several times I saw people pressed up against store windows of shops that were closed, dazzled by the things they could buy within.
Republic Square in Belgrade. I forget who the guy on the horse is, but I'm sure he's important. The building on the right is the National Museum, which, evidently, was closed for renovation.
The large pedestrian area of Belgrade, which starts at Republic Square, is filled with stores, popcorn and ice cream carts, and, at it seems every time of day and night, plenty of people.
I bought some popcorn as a snack/dinner - it was about 75 cents, and then I passed a bar where a band was playing to the people sitting outside on the terrace. The whole thing was underneath this international-style building, very hard and heavy. The band was on a sort of balcony above the crowd. It was a drummer, a keyboardist, a bassist who looked like a bassist, an electric guitar, and then an acoustic that looked like it was straight off Johny Cash's back. The lead singer looked sort of punkish, with a sort of faux-hawk that was well gelled and a long thin braid of dark hair, almost a rat tail, that whipped around to as he thrashed his head and gyrated to the music. He also had a thin line of facial hair that traced his jaw line just until his chin, when it arced up to his nose and back down on the other side.
They were playing 80's music.
I mean, they were playing it. The singer was almost crooning, bringing the mic away from his mouth as he belted out a long note. And he was into the music, too, sort of conducting it absentmindedly with his gestures, relishing every crescendo. He dug Toto's Rosanna.
Afterwards I went to a bakery and got a burek, a very greasy and very salty pastry filled with cheese, potatoes, meat, "pizza", or anything else you want to put inside. It was good for the first several bites, but then the salt got to me, and I decided to go back to the hostel.
The people at the hostel were very nice. The hostel was a dump...but did I mention the people were very nice?
They advertised on hostelworld.com that they are less than a kilometer from the train station, but what they didn't say that they were less than a kilometer, uphill. And that they are located in a weird sort of back alley. Or that neither of the toilets have attached seats. But the people were very nice. And they had free internet, though it was on a laptop so old they had to prop the screen up on a box because the hinge was broken. Plus, for me it was a bed and that was about it, and it was cheap, so I didn't care that much. And it certainly made me feel like I was in the former Yugoslavia.
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