Sunday, September 21, 2008

Bosnia and Herzegovina = Bosna i Hercegovina





Back in Zagreb after my whirlwind trip through Bosnia.

Mostar was beautiful. It was the most heavily hit city during the war, and the scars are still visible everywhere. I discovered this to be true all over Bosnia and Herzegovina: bombed out buildings and gunshot holes everywhere. The money just isn’t there to restore everything, but in all other regards it seems life has returned to normal.  

Sarajevo was fascinating: eclectic, pulsing, diverse. Jelena, a girl who is starting the same program as me at LSE, met me at the bus station and graciously showed me around. She’s a Canadian who returned to Sarajevo four years ago.  

I took the bus from Sarajevo to Zagreb yesterday, a trip winding through green, fog-shrouded hills and tunnel after tunnel. I listened to music for 9 hours on my iPod. I had so much thinking time it was pure luxury.

I listened to these albums:

Alanis Morissette - Jagged Little Pill Acoustic Version
The Albertans - Sex With An Angel EP
The Arcade Fire - Funeral
Cut Copy - In Ghost Colours (twice)
Fleet Foxes - Fleet Foxes
Final Fantasy - Has A Good Home
Hot Chip - Made In The Dark
Joni Mitchell - Blue
M. Ward - Post-War
MGMT - Time To Pretend
Neutral Milk Hotel - In The Aeroplane Over The Sea
Sigur Ros - Takk
Summer Hymns - Backward Masks
Wolf Parade - Apologies To The Queen Mary

Three more nights in Zagreb with Veronika and her family before I head back to London and attempt to start a real life.


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