A new country down! And boy, let me tell you--Serbia is awesome! It's nothing like what you hear or think on tv. Because we all know that the media (especially CNN) is always spot on about world news. Sure, there may have been several men walking around suspiciously in track jackets carrying handguns, but the pros definitely outweighed the cons.
To begin with, there were castles in Belgrade. I never have been a tough cookie to please but when castles are involved, it's always easy for me to have fun. But before I get to that point, let me tell you about my journey crossing the Bulgarian-Serbian border.
Now I know that American's geography is a bit sketchy, so I'll give you a refresher course. You may remember Yugoslavia and how it got split up into many smaller countries. Well, in my job--I concentrate heavily on EU member countries or those who are applying to become EU members. Bulgaria is a current EU member (no clue how or why but that's besides the point) and Serbia is not. That being said, I'm American so it doesn't really apply to me because whenever a border patrol officer sees blue he immediately smiles and says in slavic English, "American blue, eh?!" This statement is me followed me laughing and acting like I've never heard that one before.
But being American and having that fancy, beautiful, work of art passport (you should really look close at the new American passports.. they're amazing! amazing quotes and sweet pictures) did not help me out this time. We didn't have the registration in our car so it looked like we literally stole the car. My reaction? Well, I pulled out a picture of our team with the Bulgarian Prime Minister and asked if I could call the American Embassy. Only problem was... we were already past the Bulgarian border into No Man's Land at the Serbian border. They didn't a rat's *cough* about me being American or who I'd met.
We had to turn back around and get our registration which was a hassle. But 5 hours later we made it to the great city of Belgrade, Serbia! Nice construction, clean streets, and new buildings all around the city facing the Danube river with a huge castle as its center. It's definitely in the top 65 European cities I've been in...
But things went well and had a nice drive back to post-communist Bulgaria which has a number of stray dogs and gypsies at every crossing. That being said, lunch never costs more than $4-$5 to get full and I can drive like a maniac and never get pulled over. So fun is had by all.
I updated a few pictures from Belgrade as well. Hope all is well your way.
Cheers.
Wyatt
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