Dorm sweet dorm

Dober Dan!

Well I'm back from an epic trip to Serbia.  Boy oh boy was it interesting.  I can definitely say I enjoy Ljubljana more than Belgrade.  It was pretty interesting to look at but you could tell it was much more industrial and communism still lingered in the air.  The buildings were very grey and lacked character but it was still a pretty lively city with a lot of flavor.

After a lovely busride from midnight to 8 am (sleeping of course) we got into the city, checked into our hotel, and went for a tour of the city.  My favorite part was the park overlooking the converging rivers, Sava and Danube.  There were also a bunch of nice shopping stands where I got some cheap jewelry and homemade honey.  Then we had some more exploring and sightseeing, had some mushroom burek (yum!) and got ready for the evening.  The trip's itinerary had us going to the fanciest club in Serbia....big mistake!  We were not aware of this until we got there and realized all the girls were half naked and the guys were looking way too flashy.  Thankfully I had a friend who was there without the student trip to tell us where the better club was.  We went there and enjoyed cheap beer and good music.  After a cab ride back a group of us started on our second burek of the day and proceeded to go to bed.

The next day we went on a bus tour of "New Belgrade" and saw a lot of fancy embassies and Tito's grave.  Embarassingly enough I had no idea who Tito was until this trip, so it was good to get educated! We then were bussed out to an interesting "gypsy market" where we could buy a lot of cheap stuff.  I got some sunglasses and fancy things for just a few euros!  It was interesting to see because just a few kilometers away was the shanties the gypsies lived in.  It was really horrible conditions with trash lining the ghetto area and fences surrounding the area.  It reminded me a lot of slumdog millionaire! Its always interesting to see the real side of the city instead of just popular tourist attractions.  After a nap, we all got ready to go to a nice dinner on the river.  They had these nice boat houses and we could see all the nice lights from the river from the big windows.  We had a traditional Serbian dinner (meat meat and more meat) and a lot of alcohol.  The Slavic countries really have a passion for Rakije, a very disgusting tasting schnapps.  Every time we would take our shot the waiters would come to fill it up again.  Ugh after about 5 of those we left the dinner club and tried to get into another one that was scheduled on our itinerary.  Unfortunately the bouncer told us we were too drunk and kicked us all out :(  I can probably understand why because our tour guide and facilitators were drunker than most of the students, fancy that!  Anyway Heli, Dan, Adrian and I decided to find our own party and break away from the huge group of drunk students to improve our chances of getting in some place.  We had to take a mad dash away from the group to a cab so they wouldn't follow us!  We went to club Plastica and danced and drank till about 7 in the morning.  Oh goodness, my hearing is still not all here.  The music was all electro techno and booming everywhere.

After we got back from the club we went straight to breakfast and then to bed.  I woke up a few hours later and got on the bus.  Ugh the bus ride from hell began and didn't end until late that night.  fun fun fun :/  It was a great trip overall but I am so glad I'm back and rested up.  I'm giving my liver a break for a while.

Last night there was a huge party in my dorm.  The whole dorm complex was invited and so it was pretty packed.  I went to bed around 1 am so I was able to get some decent sleep but when I woke up at 9 people were still partying.  I don't know how this is possible but I give them cheers for their effort!  I really enjoy living here though.  Everyone is really nice and I'm improving my slovene by listening to everyone speak it :)  Tomorrow I'm going to teach them how to play beer pong.  What a great way to exchange culture through alcohol.  It is strange to look back at my posts and see that they are mostly about drinking but I'm not going to lie about it.  The culture is what it is and if I'm here I may as well enjoy it.  so there you have it.  Getting ready to head off to class right now and then dinner with a few friends before coming back to my dorm and hanging with the corridor mates.

cheers!