Globe Corner Blogs

I was sad to leave Belgrade, Serbia. I had stopped there briefly to visit a friend on my way from Romania to Croatia. But the journey had to continue and my next stop was Sarajevo, Bosnia. I assumed that buying a one-way ticket would be pretty straightforward. I was wrong.

The friend that I was visiting knew all of the ins-and-outs of getting from Belgrade to Sarajevo, and thanks to her, I knew that I had to ask for a ticket to “Lukavica” in Sarajevo – not for the main bus station. I knew how many buses went daily. I knew what time I wanted to leave and how much cash to bring to the bus station. Even though I have studied Serbian for several years, I still get a bit nervous speaking it, so I even reviewed the vocabulary necessary for the transaction.

I made my way to the Belgrade bus station and had no problem finding the correct desks. I got in line and readied everything I could possibly need to buy my ticket. When I got to the front of the line, a woman at the ticket counter barked, “SLEDECA!” NEXT! I was trying to maneuver in the line to end up at the window of the grandmotherly woman’s who looked very sweet and kind. However, she was still nicely helping another person. The woman who was yelling “NEXT” was at the counter beside the grandmother. This woman didn’t look too friendly. I summoned some courage and walked up to her. Continue Reading »

I am generally not a big sports fan…which can be a bit of a problem living in Boston. I grew up on Pac-10 football and golf, but every four years I do catch World Cup Fever.

During the last World Cup I was spending the month of July in Sarajevo, Bosnia. I had rented a small room from my beloved “adopted” Bosnian Grandma, Tecvida. She soon began to treat me as family and not just as a traveler that she had taken in to help support her meager pension. She is a Bosnian Muslim, but explained to me that I could eat all the pork and drink all the alcohol I wanted in her house; she just asked that I please not disturb her during her prayers.

During my stay, I learned many things from her. She taught me how to cook some dishes -  including some vegetarian dishes, a lot of Bosnian vocabulary, how to properly cover my head so I could enter the non-touristy mosques, but maybe most importantly she taught me about football and the importance of the World Cup. Continue Reading »

The Lazarus Project - by Aleksandar Hemon

Love and Obstacles, the new book of short interlinked stories by Aleksander Hemon, arrived just in time for me to browse it before I went to hear him speak at the Harvard Bookstore. These stories are linked by a common character: a young Bosnian from Sarajevo who leaves for the United States right before the war in Bosnia erupted in 1992 and ends up sort of stranded abroad. The narrator is a familiar voice, and it is very similar to characters’ in Hemon’s previous books, The Question of Bruno, Nowhere Man, and current Globe Corner Bookstore Staff Favorite and highly acclaimed The Lazarus Project. The books are not autobiographical, but Hemon’s biography and the character’s share many common traits so I kind of felt like I knew him–I was very curious to see what he was like.

I was a little shocked when he first came to the podium, as he looked a bit different from the author photo on the back page. But, soon I was laughing along with the crowd as he read the witty dialog from the final story, The Noble Truths of Suffering. I became completely charmed if not completely smitten with him. As he was reading a passage describing “his” Sarajevo (one of my favorite places in the world) I was lulled into a dreamlike state and started to think of one of my most favorite places in Sarajevo…the cevabdzinica. The sausage shop.

Continue Reading »

Mostar, Bosnia & Herzegovina--photo by Lisa

So, I decided to tear myself away from Dubrovnik and make the trip to Sarajevo. I absolutely adore Sarajevo, Bosnia and Herzegovina. It is one of those unforgettable cities that always leaves a lasting impression. Unfortunately, a lot of the attention seems to be on the recent history and the siege of Sarajevo, as almost all visitors are quite curious about what happened. The city is still visibly scarred, but it wears its scars with a bit of elegance. Every year it seems like there are new renovations and construction around the city. The Old Town is inviting with its leisurely pace and seems to be like a smaller Istanbul, but on Valium. The Turkish influence is quite profound, and it seems worlds apart from the Dalmatian coast, even though it is only a six hour bus ride away. Just a block away from the Old Town, you seem to step into the Austro-Hungarian Empire, and then a few blocks down the street you step into the days of Communism. (I am not the biggest fan of the architecture of this area, but it is there.) Sarajevo seems to be gaining more interest as a tourist destination and even has an eco-tourism agency. Check out the slightly expensive, but wonderful, Green Visions if you want to go hiking or whitewater rafting. But when chatting with fellow travelers in the Balkans, we seem to unanimously agree that we love Sarajevo. Continue Reading »