Србија & Београд (Serbia & Belgrade): Visiting the White City

We left Montenegro two days ago by train for Belgrade, Serbia.  With our entrance into Serbia came a new level of confusion: the substitution for the Cyrillic alphabet for ours.  The Cyrillic alphabet, invented by two of the most important Bulgarian monks, Cyril and Methodius, mixes Ancient Greek with the even older Glagolitic alphabet.  Cyrillic is used in a limited list of countries: Russia, Bulgaria, Serbia, Macedonia, and, of all places, Mongolia (Most of the Russian-esque languages also use it).  Adding Cyrillic to the mix essentially adds another level of necessary decryption that we have to go through to convey what we want or figure out what's going on.  I've taught myself Cyrillic by looking at train station signs and road signs throughout the Balkans, but I'm still far from a mastery and there are about 5 letters that I just don't understand (Luckily they're more rare in words).

Our trip from Montenegro to Belgrade was exhausting.  We were originally going to catch a night train, but Ghorgie convinced us the views are worth traveling during the day.  We woke up at 6:30 in Budva and caught a 1.5 hour bus to Podgorica (pod-gor-eat-za), the capital.  In Podgorica, nobody spoke English but we managed to get train tickets and figure out where we needed to be.  Our train was supposed to leave at 10:00.  It didn't show up until 10:30.  We were supposed to arrive in Belgrade just after 7:00, but we finally rolled into the station around 10:30 at night.  The train would just randomly stop nowhere near a station for extended periods of time.

We got in, exchanged money, and took a cab.  The cab driver kind of ripped me off ($9 instead of $4, so not too bad)...I knew better too.  It could have been completely avoided but I was so exhausted I wasn't paying attention.  Our hostel, Hostel Monmartre, is great.  The guys that run it are super friendly and outrageously helpful.  They greeted us at the door with a shot of Rakija, the local liquor of choice.  As I was standing around the common room waiting for the owner to finish with the formalities, I heard a girl's voice come up from behind me, "You're from Kentucky?" (Clearly commenting on the UK shirt I was wearing).  It turns out that she was from Independence, Kentucky (Near Cincinnati) and was in Belgrade with her brother and a friend, all of which went to OSU.

Kati at Pizza Hut

We were starving.  We hadn't taken dinner on the train with us because we thought we would get into Belgrade with plenty of time.  Now it was 11:00 and we hadn't eaten anything since lunch.  Independence (I never caught her name) told us about a secret place just down the street that we had to check out: Pizza Hut. It was the nicest Pizza Hut I've ever been to!  Unlike in the States, it was a sit-down restaurant with waiters, fancy menus, a full bar, and much healthier food than the pizza they serve at home.  It was fantastic, both because it was just ridiculous and because at 11:00 at night it doesn't matter what you eat, it's all going to be good.