belgrade part one
My first overnight sleeper train. I wasn't familar with the way these things are arranged. Six sleeper cabin, four sleeper or two sleeper. The guy behing the glass told me that only two sleepers were available. No matter. 42 euros. Fine. Martin wisely advised me me this could be a good option as maybe there wouldn't be another passenger so I'd have the whole claustrophic cabin to myself.
I got on board and settled. I was sightly happy to note no others had joined me. The ticket guy came around and told me I would be joined by another in Bratislava. Two hours after departure. Ok, that's grand. Ten hour journey so by that time I would be happily in Blanket Street. The guy took my interrail ticket along with my reservation ticket. I happily obliged. Once he left I was filled with an anxiety that the guy was a con artist and I fell for it. Why did I give up my ticket? Surely seeing it was enough for a ticket inspector? I resigned myself to waiting till arrival in Budapest to see whether I had been mugged.
On cue, the other passenger arrived, a stately and well dressed middle aged man. He apologised to me in English for waking me. I said no problem. He climbed to the top bunk and I wasn't aware of his presence for a while. Then woke up and recalled that I was dreaming of talking to other people while eating an egg sandwich. I could taste it! When I woke up I was overcome as this chap was farting like a maxim gun. I grunted to express my irritation. At 5am, I was talking to him in a the gangway while waitimg for the train to pull in at that platform. He was going to Belgrade as he's part of a committee that oversees the health of the river Danube. He's from Bratislava. EU funded. His profession; an enviromentalist. Please, how can one be an envirnomentalist when one stinks out a confined space by farting all night. Surely that's aform of pollution. I recoil just thinking about it.
Found my hotel easily although it did involve an uphill trek. I managed to figure it out but the cyrillic aphlabeth was p*ssing me off. I came across many surly Serbs en route, I was tired, less than tolerant. The hotel was cheap. 22 euro. Ensuite bathroom. The lamp shade was broken, the plug socket was smashed, the TV had no usable buttons (I had to stick my little finger inside the casement to change channels) and it was too loud. I wrapped the speaker area in a towel to muffle the volume. My mobile failed to get a signal too.
All told I wanted to leave the next day. I picked myself up though and went for a beer....
It was snowing heavily and sticking too. I was thinking that I'd need to take it easy with the batter as coming back would be a problem if I was unsure of my footing and slipped over. A transcient thought! Of course, the first port of call was an Irish pub called 'The three carrots'. Funny name for an Irish pub. Met an American bloke, maybe 40-ish, who was extremely cagey about what he was doing in Belgrade. I only recall his surname, Doherty. Anyway when he started telling me that he was a close friend of Bernadette Devlin, I asked him some questions to kind of catch him out. They did. I made some excuses about needing to email my family and off I went, with the hope that he'd be gone when I returned. I estimated it to be an hour.
Went back to the hotel and promptly got lost but I was pleased I did. I came across the parliament and it has two great statues either side of its entrance. Great big ones. One of a bloke struggling with a horse. Fighting him hoof for hoof! And the other statue depicted his victory over the horse and now he was dragging the horse along. Got me thinking about the Serbs. Adversity, then strenght and determination. All looked great though, to me and the setting was to my liking too; snow everywhere. To get back to the pub I had to ask every young person I saw (they are educated, informed and mostly speak English) and like a drunken sap, I couldn't resist shaking their hand after each encounter. I was chuffed with they way they took their glove off before they engaged with my hand. Respectful.
Got back to the boozer and soon I was talking to two Serbs. It started like this. A middle guy turned to me (we were sitting at the bar) when his mate went to the bog and asked 'Is there such a thing as Western wisdom?'. I asked for a qualification, were we talking about culture, politics, arts or what. Needed to suzz him out a little. He seemed all right when I heard his response. I won't labour with the detail but it turned out this guy is a political editor for a Serb TV station and his sidekick, who seemed a right ejjit, was a TV presenter. They work for a station called 'Politica TV'. I was sceptical particularly as his sidekick, at the start of our conversation, said he was in the Serb Mafia and spent some time telling me how tough they are. I said fair enough, you haven't been to Sherriff Street though ! He rarely refrained from his catchphrase of 'nothing special'. In fairness we had a good chat about stuff (laced with little Ciaran style anti-American vitriol) and they exchanged email addresses, etc with me. Moreover, they told me to watch Politica TV at 9pm the following day and I would see 'nothing special' doing his thing.
And lo, it came to pass. 'Nothing special' was the presenter. Obviously I couldn't understand a thing being said but Serbia's very own Jeremy Paxman was on the box. Intrigued I searched his name online to see if I could discover any more information on this bloke. And I found something a little out of the ordinary butI need to research more to be confident of being correct. Here it comes, he's listed as someone being indicted for war crimes !! I reckon he's 37 or so. Built like a tank, tough but intelligent looking. Maybe journalism is his latest incarnation. Who knows?
I may have shook hands with a devil. Shameful.
I got on board and settled. I was sightly happy to note no others had joined me. The ticket guy came around and told me I would be joined by another in Bratislava. Two hours after departure. Ok, that's grand. Ten hour journey so by that time I would be happily in Blanket Street. The guy took my interrail ticket along with my reservation ticket. I happily obliged. Once he left I was filled with an anxiety that the guy was a con artist and I fell for it. Why did I give up my ticket? Surely seeing it was enough for a ticket inspector? I resigned myself to waiting till arrival in Budapest to see whether I had been mugged.
On cue, the other passenger arrived, a stately and well dressed middle aged man. He apologised to me in English for waking me. I said no problem. He climbed to the top bunk and I wasn't aware of his presence for a while. Then woke up and recalled that I was dreaming of talking to other people while eating an egg sandwich. I could taste it! When I woke up I was overcome as this chap was farting like a maxim gun. I grunted to express my irritation. At 5am, I was talking to him in a the gangway while waitimg for the train to pull in at that platform. He was going to Belgrade as he's part of a committee that oversees the health of the river Danube. He's from Bratislava. EU funded. His profession; an enviromentalist. Please, how can one be an envirnomentalist when one stinks out a confined space by farting all night. Surely that's aform of pollution. I recoil just thinking about it.
Found my hotel easily although it did involve an uphill trek. I managed to figure it out but the cyrillic aphlabeth was p*ssing me off. I came across many surly Serbs en route, I was tired, less than tolerant. The hotel was cheap. 22 euro. Ensuite bathroom. The lamp shade was broken, the plug socket was smashed, the TV had no usable buttons (I had to stick my little finger inside the casement to change channels) and it was too loud. I wrapped the speaker area in a towel to muffle the volume. My mobile failed to get a signal too.
All told I wanted to leave the next day. I picked myself up though and went for a beer....
It was snowing heavily and sticking too. I was thinking that I'd need to take it easy with the batter as coming back would be a problem if I was unsure of my footing and slipped over. A transcient thought! Of course, the first port of call was an Irish pub called 'The three carrots'. Funny name for an Irish pub. Met an American bloke, maybe 40-ish, who was extremely cagey about what he was doing in Belgrade. I only recall his surname, Doherty. Anyway when he started telling me that he was a close friend of Bernadette Devlin, I asked him some questions to kind of catch him out. They did. I made some excuses about needing to email my family and off I went, with the hope that he'd be gone when I returned. I estimated it to be an hour.
Went back to the hotel and promptly got lost but I was pleased I did. I came across the parliament and it has two great statues either side of its entrance. Great big ones. One of a bloke struggling with a horse. Fighting him hoof for hoof! And the other statue depicted his victory over the horse and now he was dragging the horse along. Got me thinking about the Serbs. Adversity, then strenght and determination. All looked great though, to me and the setting was to my liking too; snow everywhere. To get back to the pub I had to ask every young person I saw (they are educated, informed and mostly speak English) and like a drunken sap, I couldn't resist shaking their hand after each encounter. I was chuffed with they way they took their glove off before they engaged with my hand. Respectful.
Got back to the boozer and soon I was talking to two Serbs. It started like this. A middle guy turned to me (we were sitting at the bar) when his mate went to the bog and asked 'Is there such a thing as Western wisdom?'. I asked for a qualification, were we talking about culture, politics, arts or what. Needed to suzz him out a little. He seemed all right when I heard his response. I won't labour with the detail but it turned out this guy is a political editor for a Serb TV station and his sidekick, who seemed a right ejjit, was a TV presenter. They work for a station called 'Politica TV'. I was sceptical particularly as his sidekick, at the start of our conversation, said he was in the Serb Mafia and spent some time telling me how tough they are. I said fair enough, you haven't been to Sherriff Street though ! He rarely refrained from his catchphrase of 'nothing special'. In fairness we had a good chat about stuff (laced with little Ciaran style anti-American vitriol) and they exchanged email addresses, etc with me. Moreover, they told me to watch Politica TV at 9pm the following day and I would see 'nothing special' doing his thing.
And lo, it came to pass. 'Nothing special' was the presenter. Obviously I couldn't understand a thing being said but Serbia's very own Jeremy Paxman was on the box. Intrigued I searched his name online to see if I could discover any more information on this bloke. And I found something a little out of the ordinary butI need to research more to be confident of being correct. Here it comes, he's listed as someone being indicted for war crimes !! I reckon he's 37 or so. Built like a tank, tough but intelligent looking. Maybe journalism is his latest incarnation. Who knows?
I may have shook hands with a devil. Shameful.
posted by Ciarán at 2:22 p.m.
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