Home sweet Sarajevo.

I just returned from the language school; I will be taking private lessons in Bosnian for the next two weeks here in Sarajevo. The lessons are only two hours long, so I'm not sure how much I'll learn. I hope to push myself and learn as much as possible; however the only text I own is for Serbian, so I'm afraid to learn stuff I might have to just unlearn soon thereafter. And I'm not eager to find out the hard way by being overtly offensive with Serbian dialect. (I have yet to hear a "Zdravo!" (Hello!) which is the first thing they teach you.)

I'm starting to get a bit of the homesickness; at times it can be quite isolating to live in a city where no one speaks your language unless you are speaking to them. I remember how elating it's been the last few times I ran into an English speaker and now I've entered an expanse of time where I might not encounter any at all. It's a bit daunting. I've made a few places into regular stops in town; my new favorite is the little bookstore/stand next to the university's economics department. And of course my home away from home is this internet cafe -- Albatros, that's just a few blocks from the house I'm staying in.

Unfortunately the newness of this place wore off the first few days with my travel partner, so I wasn't really able to capture it by blog. And I've reached the point where there's so much to say, but where to start?

The train ride from Mostar was recommended in the travel guide, and while the sights were quite beautiful -- scenes of small villages and orchards interspersed with deep and fast-running rivers characteristic of this land -- almost half of it was spent in one tunnel or another. Nevertheless, it was indeed worth the price of admission in order to sit in awe and wonder at another one of man's "cool things" -- a railroad through the mountains and over rivers. A few of the more rural train stops were greeted with folks sitting on the porch of their cottages, taking in the view as much as we were.

Arrival in Sarajevo was a moment for me. I hadn't seen many pictures, even in movies, so the tall (tall!)buildings and spread of suburbia was quite a scene. It reminded me a bit of California in ways. This city has a population of over 600,000, so it's not small, although the main downtown (composed of Novi Grad and Baščaršija) is only about a mile from end to end, and several blocks deep.

The architecture is so varied in this town; there are mosques and synagogues and both eastern and western orthodox churches. In addition, there are the influences from Austro-Hungarian times (beautiful) to Communist-era structures (real eyesores). And there's Baščaršija, the traditional market shops which have been here for probably centuries, with coppersmiths and restaurants and craft shops, and Novi Grad, the new town modern shopping walks, with places like United Colors of Benetton (but no Starbucks, and no McDonalds).

There is construction everywhere; the roads, buildings -- everything is being worked on. Evidence of war is not glaring, but still there if you want to see it. Bulletholes still riddle some buildings, and some of the most beautiful structures, like the National Library, are still yet to be reconstructed; they sit gray, empty and lifeless. In the modern part of the city, there are "sarajevo roses", which appear in the ground as red splotches, right in the middle of the walks. This is where mortar shells fell and left their mark -- the holes have been filled in with hard red paint, and sometimes there are gold plaques on the walls with the names of the lives taken by those mortar shells.

In the Baščaršija, you can buy wartime memorabilia, like pens and vessels made out of empty shells. I remember in Mostar there were actual helmets for sale, and patches. The bigger shells have been carved with designs by the coppersmiths, usually a relief of the cityscape and "Sarajevo" in large letters. I have very mixed feelings about these.

You can still see NATO people driving and walking about everywhere, although I'm not quite sure what they're here for. Mostly I see them driving in pairs in jeeps, or eating at restaurants. And at the corners of the main city are graveyards with new, white gravestones, all with the same death years: 1992-1995.

I'm under the impression that these things are part of the norm for people living here in Sarajevo; they don't really affect daily lives, although they have not forgotten the war. They're just moving on.

Daily life here is much more lively than the depression one might think would exist here. That's probably at best an outsider's perspective. At times I wonder if the people ever work, because midday on a weekday the cafes (with mostly outdoor seating) are full of people drinking coffee and people-watching in both parts of town. And they sit there all day. Or they shop. It's quite lovely, actually. And the coffee is so so good.

So I've made this my new home for a while. I could drink Bosnian coffee and eat burek for the rest of my life, so I guess I found a pretty good place to settle. There'll be more stories soon, but for now this is my general painting of Sarajevo, my "resting place".