Bouncing Through Beograd

Belgrade, you saucy minx, we tango again.  Belgrade was just a quick stopover as I de-planed and made my way to the centre of the city by bus and spent the afternoon totally enjoying every aspect my life basking in the Balkan sun, after shivering feverishly in the icy, salty Baltic gales.  So I did what I have done every time I have visited Belgrade since 2007: I went to Ruski Tsar for an absolutely delicious calzone and went to a park with a beer to sit and just soak it up, you know?  I also used this time to do some reading (on the Wikipedia app on my iTouch) about…Russian literature or something.  Yes, Soviet dissident lit.  My fav.  It was a review some American girl had written about Children of the Arbat.  I agreed with her general synopsis, even if I only read the book in 2006 and can only remember a couple of really intense details that made me pretty happy I was born in the West.   

I also bought my ticket to Korcula, which was an insane 50 euro, and then I went and sat on the fortress walls on the cliffs over the Danube to watch the sun go down.  If you have never done this, then there is actually nothing you can tell me that will impress me.  This is probably the most beautiful view in the world and a pretty straight-line vision to the Austrians approaching from the north via the Great Hungarian Plain, as well as offensive graffiti below and hot Serbian babes posing for pouty pictures taken by their hulking bouncer boyfriends in tracksuits.  It's really the most perfect place on earth. 

The bus ride was pretty horrific though.  I actually have no idea where it even went.  I recall at one point getting out to get stamped into Croatia, and I am assuming I went through Bosnia, but try ascertaining that from looking at my passport.  Anyway I woke up totally disoriented somewhere outside of Neum and I was all "lolz, been here" and then we finally arrived at the ferry to begin the less-than-arduous journey to Korcula, which I could see from the terminal.  It was all pretty simple, actually.  Then at the bus terminal in Korcula my parents were there to casually greet me and were all, "Oh hey"--you know, the way you do when you're in Marco Polo's hometown and it's NDB.