Going where?!

I'm sure a lot of you are wondering what I'm doing with "all that time" I've got since I quit my job and started preparing for this trip. For those of you who know me only as a barista or bookseller, I'm also a pretty intense academic (read: GEEK!), with specific interests in language (I'm a linguistics major) and social history. So, aside from boring stuff like getting recertified for my apartment, I've been giving myself an intensive course on Balkan history, language and culture.

Yeah, I know -- Balkans?! Usually when you tell people you're going to Europe, the first places that come to mind are Paris, Rome, Milan, Madrid. Allow me to explain.

I started out telling people I was "going to Europe", because I had no idea where I was going, only that I was starting out and ending up in London, and there were six weeks in between. After that I got a guide to budget travel in Europe and started reading about everywhere I could possibly go. I started with Paris, Amsterdam (yes, snicker all you like), and maybe Iceland. Several people suggested Prague (far!), and I solicited advice from family members who've been to Italy (on the way!). Everything became sort of a mess (a very expensive one!) with all the places I wanted to go.

Then I read an article on Croatia, which is apparently the new hot spot to vacation. The only association I had with Croatia before that moment was the Bosnian conflict; I was immediately attracted to this odd juxtaposition of reputations.

The more I dug, the more interesting things got. I read some articles on hot nightlife in Belgrade, and saw some pictures of the coastal towns of Croatia and the mountains of Montenegro. My "Let's Go Europe!" guidebook didn't even have Bosnia or Serbia in it; there are only a few guides available at all for the area. I suppose not a lot of people want to go to a part of the world that coined the term "ethnic cleansing". Being the sort of person that loves unusual destinations, this of course sealed the deal.

I bought everything I could on the Serbian and Croatian language(s), as well as relevant travel guides and started reading. The first thing any of these books mention right away (unless they're dated before the late 1980s) is the war, as it's effected even the language they speak. So, after I acquainted myself with the geography, I took recommendations from a friend (and poli sci buff) for books to read and movies to watch on the war in Bosnia.

This is intense stuff.

The only thing I remember from the war as it happened was that it was on TV all the time, with pictures of a dark, rainy place with tanks and trenches, as if the world wars were taking place all over again. I was old enough to understand something was going on, but way too young to connect with it in any sort of meaningful way. What can I say? I was barely a teenager. By the time I hit 7th and 8th grade, we were learning about the Holocaust, but I had no idea the same stuff was going on at that very moment, just on another part of the continent. And that the rest of the world didn't seem to know what to do with it.

Anyway, I'm not here to depress you. At the risk of seeming naive, it's just interesting stuff to me, and quite simply, I want to go see for myself. Apparently the three countries (Bosnia and Hercegovina, Serbia and Montenegro, Croatia) have bounced back quite well and have begun to thrive in their own ways. Part of me wants to see life as it is in these countries, apart from its past, but obviously since it was so recent, you'll still see stuff everywhere like bombed-out buildings and newly rebuilt historic sites. And every guidebook on the area will tell you not to stray from the worn paths, as there's still the occasional sporadic mine left over from war-torn times.

There's always the question of brave or just plain stupid, but in the end, curiosity gets me. I always saw Croatia, Bosnia and Serbia depicted as these dark, gray, dismal places, but when you look at the guidebooks and people's flickr pics, all I see is old Roman- and Muslim- influenced architecture, misty green lakes and forests, and bustling city life. Some part of me zeroed in on this little pocket of the world, wanting to make it mine, if only for a brief moment.

So I'm going.