Sunday in the Park

The past few days my Facebook news feed has been chock-full of my poor friends in Connecticut buried in the snow. Here in Bosnia on the other hand we've been enjoying one of the warmest winters on record, today it got up to 21 degrees Celsius or 69 degrees Fahrenheit, in the middle of February! Unprecedented. Sarah and I celebrated the lovely weather by  heading to Zenica, another city in Bosnia, with her host mother.

Zenica is the capital city of the Zenica-Doboj Canton (cantons are a long story, we'll just say its a state). It's a much smaller city than Sarajevo, but it makes up for it in character. Zenica is home to the stadium that national soccer team plays in, it has the largest Bosnian prison (think Alcatraz), and it has a wealth of greenery and parks that line of the banks of the River Bosne which is where Sarah and I spent our day.

We started off doing the normal teenage thing and exploring the nearby shopping center, but soon we got bored, bought ourselves a mini tub of ice cream and headed outside. The weather was absolutely gorgeous and we sat on the river banks for the rest of the afternoon. There's just nothing like a Sunday in the park.

ZOI '84

This February marks the 30th anniversary of the Winter Olympics in Sarajevo. Bosnians are very very proud of their status as a former Olympic city, even those who weren't alive in 1984 will "remember" the games with an aura of fondness and wonder.

There have been a number of events around the city to commemorate the occasion and last night Sarah Edgar, her host family, and I got to attend one! We went to go watch figure skating at Zetra Hall, the skating venue during the games that is now used for everything from hockey matches, to concerts, to basketball games.

The main event of the night was a routine performed by the famous skating pair Torvill and Dean. Jane Torvill and Christopher Dean are two figure skaters from Great Britain that participated in the Sarajevo Olympics. Their final performance of the games, "Bolero", won them a perfect score of 6 (it only goes up to 6 in the Olympics). They are the only pair of figure skaters in Olympic history to ever receive perfect scores and last night they recreated "Bolero" at the same stadium 30 years later. The energy in the room was electric. Some of the audience members had seen the routine back in 1984 and you could tell that you were witnessing something truly special.

Here is a video of  their award winning "Bolero" routine during the 1984 Sarajevo Olympics:

Today in Bosnia

http://m.bbc.co.uk/news/world-europe-26087946

The Newsroom...but real...

Today the YES Abroad Bosnia group visited the offices of Al Jazeera Balkans here in Sarajevo! The Sarajevo studio is the largest one of the Balkan network and handles most of the workload. This particular field trip was great because the world of broadcast news has always interested me, but I have never really known much about it, and boy did I learn a lot today.

A nice staffer at the Al Jazeera office gave us a full tour of the facility. We saw the control room, the offices, the studio, the editing bay and even the frenzied newsroom where headlines from all over the world roll in in real time. It was kind of amazing.

As she was walking us around she told us about how Al Jazeera's presence in Sarajevo has changed the media landscape here. Al Jazeera is funded by the state of Qatar so it does not rely on the advertising money or political parties in the region like most Bosnian press does making it a much less biased source for news. She also didn't shy away from addressing some of the criticism the Al Jazeera network has garnered in the US and across the globe. (They just launched Al Jazeera Americas, but did you know Al Jazeera was banned in the US for five years?! Why did I not already know about that?!) All in all it was a really interesting.

 I felt like I came away from our visit to Al Jazeera with more knowledge than what I went in with, which is always a plus. Our host even talked about maybe having us back for a day sometime in the spring! I'm pumped, I could never be a hardcore journalist like these people, but hanging around their office sure was fun!

That Time I Was In a Bosnian TV Commercial...

So this weekend fellow YES Abroader, Sarah Edgar, and I found ourselves in a Bosnian TV commercial for our gym. Yes, I realize how crazy that sounds.

Ok let me start at the beginning, this whole thing started after our workout on Friday, when the receptionist at our gym invited us to come to the gym at noon that Sunday for a free workout. "A FREE WORKOUT?!? THAT SOUNDS GREAT!" we thought. "But what's the catch?" She assured us that it was only so the gym could film a little promotional web video with a few of its members. It sounded simple enough and I'm a sucker for free stuff so Sarah and I happily obliged.

Cut to Sunday. Sarah and I arrive expecting to see the workout room teeming with fellow, average-fitness level members of our gym, but much to our chagrin it was just the two of us and all of the beautiful, Olympian-esque, trainers that were required to be there. We thought that maybe we had just arrived early or something but then a man with a very intimidating looking camera motioned for us to start. Sarah and I nervously got out yoga mats as the cameraman explained that we would do little segments of each class offered at the gym and then we would repeat those segments four times so he could get a variety of shots. We didn't even have to say anything! All of that didn't sound too bad until we had completed the first segment of the first class and were totally  exhausted, sweaty, and out of breath.

6 classes, 23 takes, and 2 hours later I was on the verge of tears and even the most ripped trainers looked like maybe they'd had enough. "Oh good, we're done." I thought, but then the cameraman announced that now he would film us on the machines. I dragged myself to the treadmill and mustered up one last haphazard smile for the camera and then retreated to the changing room. After getting dresses Sarah and I were asked to be in one more non-workout related intro scene and we obliged. As we were leaving our friend the receptionist called "Ok, look for this on Saturday morning television! Sometime around 10!"

HOLD UP! I THOUGHT THIS WAS A WEB VIDEO! But alas something must have gotten lost in translation and now you can see watch me dissolve into a puddle of exhaustion over your Saturday morning coffee. Your welcome Sarajevo, your welcome.

Don't get me wrong though, the whole experience was super fun and made for a great story when I got to school on Monday, I wouldn't take back that grueling, slightly embarrassing work out for the world.

Rastpust

I hate to brag, but while you were all stressing about midterms and lapsing on your New Year’s Resolutions this month I was enjoying this glorious Bosnian phenomenon called Rastpust, a nice and relaxing break from school that lasts the entirety of January. As any exchange student though, I could not sit still and relax, so instead I ventured out to find the parts of Sarajevo I had not yet seen.

I don’t think it would be very interesting for you if I gave a day by day account of my break, so I’ll just jot down a few of my favorite adventures.

I walked the length of Vrelo Bosne, a famous park just outside of Sarajevo, with Sarah. It was a chilly, foggy day so not many people were out and about which made the walk that much more enjoyable.

I ran into George Clooney at the Importanne Center; he was promoting coffee.

I visited Ecofutura, a environmentally friendly restaurant and sustainable farm just a small ways outside of Sarajevo.

I learned how to make pita, a traditional Bosnian dish, from my host mom and my host grandmother.

I visited the UN offices here in Sarajevo and we met up with a UN Programs officer who invited us back to help her on a new youth initiative she's starting!

I went to the Tunnel Museum, which is a museum devoted to highlighting the war and the history of a tunnel that acted as the one of the only ways for Bosnian to get out of the city during the siege and one of the only ways to get food and supplies in. It was really incredible, there is a section of the tunnel they left open so tourists can put themselves in the shoes of those who used it during the war, and let me tell you, it was not for the faint of heart. We even met a man who helped to build the tunnel and drove a U.N. truck through to crossfire to deliver supplies to those who needed it. The whole experience was kind of incredible.

This is the bridge that the man's team had to build in order to get supplies into the city. It was directly between two front lines of the war.

The break may have seemed long at times but it was really fantastic! I learned a lot, and despite how hard it was to wake up when school started back up again I'm confident that my second, (and final :( ) semester of my exchange year will be even better than the first.