5:45 pm. During breakfast this morning we chatted up 2 young women originally from South Korea. They are best friends. One came to Sarajevo for a conference on criminology in support of her PhD from Leeds in England. Her friend came from Amsterdam where she works as a food and beverage manager for a large hotel. Her previous job had been in Dubai. They were in their mid to late 20's.
Another couple we met later in the day were married. He was from Split, Croatia, former Navy skipper and she was from Amsterdam, went to college in England, has family in Zagreb, Croatia. They met when she came to Croatia to visit family and now they both live in Amsterdam for their careers. She speaks 4 languages and they are both in their early 30's.
Our waiter for lunch is an engineering student and going to Portland in a couple of weeks for a conference.
The world is indeed shrinking.
We took a guided walking tour of downtown Sarajevo this morning so I am going to write down some interesting things before I forget.
Sarajevo has 400,000 people, is 85% Muslim, 3% Catholic, 11,000 were killed in the most recent war, 40% unemployment overall and 65% for young people so many leave for jobs, English is taught in the schools.
Pictures below from downtown and old town Sarajevo. There was a small shop selling handmade metal goods and I could hear some banging going on inside so I investigated. There was an older gentleman working at a metal press, he never looked up or stopped working and mumbled a few words when I mumbled something. Neither one of us understood the other - a true Geezer to Geezer exchange and then I walked out feeling like we had connected. I think you had to be there to fully grasp the significance.
We saw where King Ferdinand and wife were assassinated resulting in the beginning of World War I, the bright colored building is city hall, and lots and lots of mosques. Our guide said there are 200 mosques in Sarajevo. The joke is that whenever the Saudis want to invest in building a mall or a road the deal is they also get to build a mosque.
9:00 pm. Bosnia Herzegovina national government is made up 2 "entities", BH and Skrpska and a nationwide govenment. What's your thoughts on how long that will last?
I (Sooz) did a bit of shopping in the historic district, loads of handmade rugs, leather goods, clothing, jewelry. I passed up a leather purse and will probably live to regret that! When Terry says "we" he usually means himself, he chats up everyone! Glad he does, we meet a lot of interesting people. The prices here are extremely affordable, about half what it would cost in US.
ReplyDeleteNice pictures, looks you're having a great trip.
ReplyDeleteThanks Fred. Yes we're having fun. This guy's metal shop reminded me of you.
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