Dancing with Myself

I cannot believe that it has already been a week since I arrived in Sarajevo, to mark this anniversary, I decided to take myself on some adventures this weekend. This morning I went on a free walking tour by a local hostel, and while the tour itself was not great, I enjoyed the people that I met from it. Another wonderful thing is that I happen to go out when it rains, and when I'm inside at work or at home the weather is nice and sunny.

When I went on the aforementioned walking tour, it was pouring rain, and poor me decided to wear leather sandals that morning . . . I have learned my lesson. We walked around Old Town Sarajevo looking at the artisan crafts and coffee sets since coffee-drinking is such a huge part of the culture here. One thing I did learn from the tour is the process by which you should drink Bosnian coffee - as a warning to my readers, this is just what the tour guide said, so it could all be a lie: 

When drinking Bosnian coffee, you must do the following in this order:

1) You will receive a small teapot of coffee and a cup, but you mustn't stir the coffee in the pot

2) First scoop off the foam of the coffee in the pot and place the foam in your coffee cup

3) Then proceed to pour some of the coffee from the pot to the cup

4) You may now stir the coffee

5) If it's too bitter, you will take a sugar cube and dip part of it in the coffee, bite of the part wet by coffee, then take a sip of the coffee so that they blend together and make it more sweet

I hope you're not as lost in these instructions as I was. To the dismay of many, I am not a coffee drinker, so I have tended to avoid Bosnian coffee in the past week because it is so strong and bitter; I prefer mint tea.

Anyhoo - after the tour, a man from Brazil and a man from Italy joined me on our journey to the National Museum of Bosnia and Herzegovina. Along the way, the rain poured and I stepped in several muddy puddles with my sandals - I thought that important to note. The museum itself was interesting, but since I could not read Latin I was not as intrigued by the tombstones as I was by the ancient jewelry from the 1st century. The museum cost 8BAM ~ $5, and I recommend to anyone planning on visiting that you arrive more than an hour before they close - for some reason the museum closes at 2pm on the weekend. 

Afterwards, we went to a small restaurant back in Old Town Sarajevo, and I was very proud of myself because I managed to order and figure out how much it costed in Bosnian because the owner did not speak English, and my Italian and Brazilian friends did not speak any Bosnian. We had Dolma and Sarma - two delicious dishes - along with some soup. Naturally, we went for some coffee afterwards and they drank their coffees in the manner presented above.

Later this evening . . . two Egyptians, an Italian, and an American walked into a bar . . . we did, but I had to put it like that since it sounds like a joke. We went to the Tesla Bar to watch Liverpool win the championship game, and it was a great time - I highly recommend this bar, relatively cheap, and lots of locals. This was a very fun night because afterwards we went to a delicious Turkish restaurant in Bascharchia for none other than Bosnian coffee and rice pudding. I enjoy trying new things and meeting new people - I always feel like it leads to adventures you would have never planned yourself.