Sigidunum

Sigidunum: Open Wounds Amidst Simple Pleasures

Like several cities before it, Belgrade (which used to be called Sigidunum by the Romans) has grown on me because of the people who have been gracious to share the city’s diversity and refreshing simplicity with us. Everywhere the animals I see are hungry and lean, but also at play with each other- happy. Puppies from the Roma (the gypsies mixed in with refugees from Kosovo, according to our guides for the day) encampment just under the freeway across from our hotel (the raw truth of have and have not in Belgrade) are loving the manicured green grass.

Belgrade hosts the point where the Danube and Sava rivers merge


and has some lovely features but also many unrepaired wounds around the city from the U.S. bombing in 1991. Cherries still bloom outside a destroyed Chinese embassy and several buildings across from the prime minister’s residence are still half standing. The dictator Tito led the resistance against the Nazis and in 1945 started a tradition of having the city’s most accomplished young men and women run artisan crafted batons around the country to pay him tribute. He was a womanizer, horse-lover and he imprisoned the nationalists who instigated civil war once they were released when his rule ended.

Saint Sava was a 13^th century prince whose temple stands in the Senac area of Belgrade- it is a gorgeous church worth visiting.

In the afternoon, our guide Ljubisa treated us to a lovely tour around Zemun, an area of Belgrade where the locals go. We walked by the Danube to see dogs playing and families out for a Sunday and then had a fresh fish lunch, including riblija corba, the fish soup the locals enjoy.

Hellgrade to Bellgrade

I’m standing in a business class hotel tub in Belgrade that lacks any truly flat spots. The whole thing is entirely curved in some way. I keep losing my balance as I desperately shower off the smoke poison of the day- courtesy our train ride. This tub is just the tip of the iceberg for what I hope will have been our hardest day the entire honeymoon. All day long on our “non-smoking” section of the a traincar, I was not able to engage anyone with a smile—not the old woman sitting next to us nor the Hungarian version of Bill Clinton sitting a few seats down.

These are hardened people with nothing but empty stares for me. They talk with each other but even then, the apparent unspoken ban on smiling is evidence of the nation’s communist rule hangover.

Budapest heat (makes my temper short) and a growing unfriendliness of the natives make me desperate to get to the end of our 7-hour ride out of Hungary and into Serbia. I cannot believe the Hungarian people and government continue to leave the train doors open and not work more actively on curbing tobacco consumption. The lands are primarily agricultural, with lots of wheat, corn and animals being raised. There is also a fair amount of industry and what appears not to be the best waste management practices near some waterways.

In Kelebia, Serbia, our passports get checked as we approach the Hungarian border. We soon learn the modern passport controls leave many residents are unable to travel out of Serbia.

In the buffet car, I gradually move further and further away from the lascivious waiter as he and three other young thugs with cigarettes laugh at my discomfort with their secondhand smoke. If you don’t learn the language, you become an open target. Would it be rude to shove that burning cigarette down the waiter’s throat? He’d get all the same benefits. As I head back to our seat, he stops me asking for another 200 euros (a cost not specified on the English version of the menu). Dave did the first food run- and for sure didn’t get this treatment. Just another wonderful day with T&A.

The hotel isn’t so bad, except they only have a New Testament in the drawer—heathens. This painful day ended with yummy veggies and kind waiters for a late Saturday night meal.