Anywho... We got to Belgrade and it was buzzing with activity. Lots of people walking and driving and heading everywhere fast. The part of Belgrade that I saw is like a mini-San Francisco. You walk uphill, you walk downhill. (My legs are still sore!) There were even functional trolley cars on the streets.
We had to head directly to the US Consulate. I had read that this place is considered US soil, so I was happy to be in the US for that hour.
I'm not a "my country - right or wrong" person, but I have to say that since I have been away from the US, I appreciate it so much more than I did. And, I have always loved my country. I miss it.
When we got to the Embassy, my fiancé was very hesitant about opening the door, he felt like we had to wait for someone to open it for us from the inside. I was like, let's go in! but, I deferred to him and soon someone came and opened the door to see what we wanted. As soon as I told him I was an American citizen and had an appointment he took my camera and my love's phone and got us through security quickly.
We sat in the waiting area of American Citizen's services with a couple of Americans, but mostly with people who were waiting to find out if they were going to get a Non-Immigrant visa to the US, for various reasons. I was a little irritated at the procedure that they used for these people. They call them by number to a little booth (like at a bank teller counter) and the consulate person is inside an enclosure and speaks to them through a microphone...forget privacy! The person who is requesting the visa doesn't have a microphone, thank God, but since some of the people spoke English, I could understand everything that was said. And for those that spoke only Serbian, the people in the waiting room could understand everything. I don't see why the microphone is needed.
When they called me, by name incidentally, there was no use of a microphone. The officer just spoke to me through the glass.
Now, why wouldn't that work for everyone???
Anyway, we got our business taken care of there, only had to wait about 45 min. and I got to read some old Newsweek magazines while I waited and had access to a clean bathroom with toilet paper and paper towels to dry my hands with. (You will not understand how much this meant to me unless you come here for a visit!)
As we left the Consulate, I stopped to take a picture of the outside, since it was the first time I had ever been to a Consulate or Embassy. As I snapped away, my fiancé was conversing with the guards out front. As we walked away, he told me that taking these pictures is forbidden, but when he told them I was a US Citizen, they said OK. OMG!
Afterwards, we had to go to the Ministry for Foreign Affairs (hmmm....how appropriate) to get our documents stamped and pay our tax (fee) and I had to sign a big book. Everyone was friendly and wished us the best.
Finally, we had finished all of the work we had to do. I had no clue where the mysterious Commissary was, so we just decided to walk around and see what we could see in the time we had left before our train left. About a block away was one of those buildings you read about when you read about Belgrade being bombed. I had never seen a picture, so here goes:
It was very disturbing to see those images, but I also realized clearly that it was meant to be a surgical strike. This building was a military headquarters. There were all sorts of civilian targets nearby (it is a busy main street after all), so if killing civilians was the idea, it could have been done on a massive scale. Again, I'm not political, I'm just saying it obviously was a target, not just a place to drop a bomb. And yes, it upset me and made me ashamed...OK?
We walked on down the street and found a gorgeous park with beautiful flowers all around and as our walk continued we found a lovely area with a fountain and a reflecting pool. Here's the park:
We made a large circle and came to a really impressive building set up on a hill. My fiancé called it Capital Hill, because this building is the setting for important government meetings and such. Here's me on the steps of this huge building:
And here's a shot of the building itself:
It was a warm and sunny day so the walk was nice. We stopped by a pekara (bakery) on the way back to the train station and got a yummy, flaky bread with cheese inside and walked down the street grazing on it.
I slept most of the way back on the train and we got home to Novi Sad at 3:30. We'll go to the City Hall in Novi Sad early next week and turn all of this paperwork in so we can get married.
UPDATE: I posted the photos from the trip to my Flickr account.
