Thursday, 2013/09/12

We are sleeping almost until 9 o'clock. Slowly we start the day. We pick up my laundry and let the chain-smoking host of the hostel Kimeta tell us about the war in Sarajevo (1993-1997). She has experienced all the time in Sarajevo herself and - for example - has not seen her parents and siblings for about 2 years during that time. For a while, Sarajevo was completely locked. There was only a secret tunnel under the airfield of the airport, providing some permeability. For five years no one would have entered the neighboring main square around the Turkish water well (Sebilj) because of the snipers. Her son has experienced this time as a four-year-old, but fortunately has no memory of it. There was often no running water. A bad time. And nobody can really explain how it came to this situation. People just live together here, there's no cross-ethnic issues here, she tells us.

Of course, we can not verify if that's really true, but on the streets, the ethnicities are mixed up and the transitions seem to be flowing. You can see many young, self-confident women wearing Islamic headscarves in the street, in the cafes. They sit together with boys their age and joke, as do the young adults in Germany. But there are just as many women dressed in the Western clothes, and there are often groups in which the styles are mixed.

Despite the rain, we stroll through the streets. In between, however, the rain is getting so heavy that I buy an umbrella and we flee in a food market with many individual stalls with ham and cheese. There we meet an elderly couple from Singapore, who has already traveled all over Europe. I speak to them and ask if they speak Chinese and put on my Mandarin for a while. But we quickly switch back to English because they say that I know Chinese better than they do. We then talk to them for a while in front of the covered forecourt of the market, until the rain is getting less a bit.

We make a detour to the Ali Pasha Mosque and hide from the rain in the art academy (there we look at current student works on book covers) and in another student cafe.

After a delicious meal (grilled bream) in the restaurant "To be or not to be", in which we have already dined yesterday, we stroll around in Sarajevo and come in the district Alifakovac. The beautifully located Islamic cemetery offers magnificent views over the city.

After wandering around, we end up in a coffee/tea house with a very relaxed atmosphere, like almost everywhere here. Here, too, headscarf-wearing young women are sitting around the tables in large numbers, together with girls in modern clothes and young men of the same age. We enjoy the relaxed atmosphere here. Because of the rain, we couldn't really do much today.

I stay in the tea house/cafe with the name Cafe slastičarna divan with it's multicultural audience and I am fascinated by all these oriental beauties, with their headscarves framing their nice faces, looking like Madonna pictures and yet hardly behave in a different way as young Germans of the same age do. They smoke, drink, chat, laugh loudly. And they certainly have an excellent education.

My fellow rider went back to our room to take a shower and we have appointed in the Hostel later. Until then, I drink some more Turkish tea and write my notes, even if it is almost a sacrilege to sit here alone.

I go to the hostel soon to talk to Brigitte via a video call. Soon my fellow rider shows up and we head for the city center. He wants to see the basketball play Italy against Slovenia. The Italians loose. Meanwhile, I chat with Brigitte and send her some more photos. There's also WIFI in the pub.

Finally, we get a cevapcici snack in a snack bar. Very relaxed day.