one small (ish) post for one big city

Arriving in Sarajevo is an incredibly bizarre yet exciting experience. My first challenge was getting to the extremely Scottish sounding Haris Youth Hostel. Still unrecovered from my nightmarish night bus journey, I decided that the easiest option would be a taxi and being Eastern Europe I figured it couldn't be that expensive. I, however, lacked both the ability to speak Bosnian and any Bosnian currency - a five euro note, and a combination of pointing, four Bosnian taxi drivers and the Bosnian I learnt on the bus soon sorted that and before I knew it I was being rushed off at high speed. I was then promptly dropped off in a suspiciously residential area with no sign of a youth hostel - the taxi driver happily took my note, smilled, nodded, and walked off.

After a brief panic and wee scout around - the youth hostel appeared. Basically a converted house - you instantly feel like you're just staying at someone's home. The owner started the youth hostel when he was 15, by inviting people he met on the bus back home. Soon her was bringing home more and more to the point that he eventually moved his family out of a few rooms of their house and made a small youth hostel for them that he aptly named after himself. Haris is now 23 and the hostel has expanded so that his family have all been squeezed into one little room.

As you can imagine Haris is quite a character and is one of those people who always 'knows someone' and can sort you out with anything. His sister cooked us breakfast one morning which consisted of potato scone type doughnut things (delicious) with jam and cream cheese AND someone even does your washing which delivers your clothes back the nicest they will ever be. Everyone books this hostel and ends up staying later; the motto seems to be 'one more night'. So far I am on my sixth after just booking two...

When the home from home in the youth hostel is left; Sarajevo just gets better and better especially for those who love a bargain. I am unfortunately developing a name for myself asking constantly how much everything cost and completely obsessing myself with prices. But really this city excels itself: properly good ice cream is about 40p for a scoop, I have yet to pay more than 50p for a good Bosnian coffee, a bag of apples is like 60p, and best of all are the second hand shops. I now possess a 40p dress - YES 40p - AND the world's most multi-coloured and safari themed jumpsuit. In Bosnian this would be called a kombinezon and I would say dorbo mi stoje (suits me well) ;-). The 40p dress I have worn for the past three days and everyone now knows how much it cost me!

Markale Market and the Kombinezon (ignore the scratches on the camera lens!)
Even with the bargain prices, the abundance of coffee shops, banks and bizzarly opticians sorts you right out. Everyone in Bosnia likes to prolong their coffee experience as long as possible so having a coffee is a proper sit down, some Americans were complaning that they couldn't get a take out coffee - an idea that seems hilarious here! Fortunately though sitting down for your coffee means you very often get a bit or turkish delight and the cake selection is always good - they love nutella for some reason! While my experience in the bank was another awkward Bosnian moment; despite there being a bank every 3 metres I managed to find the only one with a queue. The 20 people behind me were not happy that I had a bunch of Traveller's Cheques that required all the cashiers and the bank manager to work out how to exchange. I think using traveller's cheques these days is similar to asking to send a telegram. To seek his revenge the cashier ensured my notes were in 50 marks (the equivalent of being handed 50 pound notes when everything you buy is a penny sweet).

The Bosnians have it sorted...
Drinking here is another cheap and exciting affar; Bosnia's spirit of choice is something called rakija which comes in every flavour under the sun. Plum rakija in hand we went to a bar in an old cinema which was full of Bosnian's dancing along to a live band that got more lively as the beer flowed. Afterwards of course we went to the traditional Bosnian Salsa Club (where is the market for these?!) that had salsa remixes of classics such as U2. My amazing dance moves were of course employed as who can resist Latino music!

Being abroad (especially after rakija) also makes accents more important, I bumped into another Scot (very exciting!) which means eventually I can be understood when using words such as 'wee' and we can speak quickly. Apparently when speaking together we are uncomprehensible. The word steaming is slowly becoming a Bosnian favourite....

So there we go a little bit of Sarajevo in a very small space....