Hey hey hey...

Well this is a flattering surprise! Thank you YES Abroad. It should noted, however, that I do all of those volunteer activities with my partner in crime, and fellow YES Abroader Sarah Edgar.

http://www.yes-abroad.org/impact/march-2014-yes-abroad-student-month

Tito's Bunker

Last Thursday the YES Abroad kids went on a field trip with our history class to a nearby town called Konjic. Konjic is a the site of  Josip Broz Tito’s Atomic Bunker. The construction of the bunker lasted for 26 years, from March 1953 to September 1979, but Tito never once visited it. It was one of Yugoslavia’s best kept secrets; our guide told us that workers were blindfolded when they were brought to the building site to ensure that no one would know of the bunker’s whereabouts.

Today the bunker is controlled by the Bosnian Ministry of Defense and functions as both a tourist attraction and a contemporary art museum. As our guide led us past at least 150 portraits of Tito we saw the air conditioning room and went inside some sort of giant fan chamber (it’s hard to explain), sat in conference halls, and past bedrooms that looked eerily similar to the dorm I’ll have next year in college. It was, without a doubt, one of the strangest field trips I have ever been on.

After the bunker, the whole class went out to lunch at a restaurant overlooking the Neretva River. Lunch was followed by an hour and half to explore the town and after a lovely day we hopped back on the bus and headed for Sarajevo.

Global Youth Service Day

Last week was Global Youth Service Day where partners from around the world organized a plethora of volunteer projects with the single goal of making the world a better place. (Its cheesy, I know but its still an admiral goal)

American Councils organized many projects in Bosnia, and in Sarajevo YES Abroad and YES Alumni banded together to clean up Bijela Tabija or The White Fortress which is this beautiful monument that overlooks Sarajevo. In recent years though, the monument has been kind of trashed by graffiti and well, trash. Last Saturday we tried to improve the situation a bit by cleaning it up. You would not believe what some people leave behind. At the end of the afternoon though we had filled up every trash bag we'd brought with us so I'd say it was a job well done.

Happy April 6th!

April 6th is a big day for Sarajevo. Its considered Sarajevo's city day and its the occasion for a lot of special historical events. In 1945, April 6th was the day that Sarajevo is liberated from German and Croatian forces by Yugoslavian Partisans during World War II and in 1992 after the war it was the day that the European community recognized the Republic of Bosnia and Herzegovina as an independent state. So happy city day! Sretan Dan Grada!

Over the hill and through the woods...

I don't think I've ever been more physically exhausted than I was last night after the YES Abroad group went on an all day hiking trip to the Skakavac (Skah-kah-vats) waterfall and beyond. Despite my ultimate exhaustion, however, it was an amazing and incredibly fun day.

After 45 minutes of walking through a dense Bosnian forest we made our way to the main attraction for the day, the waterfall. The Skakavac waterfall is the highest one in Bosnia and Herzegovina, its about 98 meters tall. At the base of the waterfall there's an almost overpowering onion-esque smell which we later learned comes from an edible herb that grew nearby called...something with an "s" maybe? We all gathered up some of the whatever-it-was to bring to our host moms and headed towards our next destination.

After the waterfall our hike took about a 60 degree turn upwards and it soon began to feel like a climb. The scenery was well worth it though, at times the woods were so think that when it rained you didn't even get wet and everything was dark green and covered in moss. We walked through just about every type of terrain on this hike, well, except for desert sands. The views and the scenery were fantastic and well worth the trek.

The next stop was a little restaurant and bar on the top of the mountain. It was so remote, it didn't even have a menu the owner would just kind of make up items and prices for you. The funny thing was, despite its location, it was a pretty packed house. All these old men had climbed up there to drink beer and watch the Manchester United game on television. We all enjoyed some hearty Bosnian mountain food and headed on our way again.


After lunch the hike down began. We got to the bottom about five hours later then we planned too, but it was all worth it because we caught sight of a gorgeous rainbow. To finish off the day I caught a bus back to Panjina Kula and gave my legs some much needed rest.

Adventure Time: World Cup Trophy Edition

Friday afternoons on our second class shift are always my favorite because I finish class at 12:20 and I get the rest of the day to explore, either alone, or more often, with my partner in crime and fellow YES Abroader, Sarah. This week our destination was a little more touristy than the usually fare, but as always it made for a great story.

So the FIFA World Cup is this summer and for the first time since becoming an independent country the Bosnian team has qualified to play. It was a really momentous occasion when they won. Anyway, Coca Cola has been bringing the World Cup Trophy on a big tour around the globe and yesterday it stopped in Sarajevo.

The trophy was being displayed at a concert/sports/shopping center in town called Skenderija and the security there, by Bosnian standards, was pretty tight. The whole atmosphere was a little strange, people kind of just pointed you down long, dimly lit hallways for a while. Sarah and I began to wonder if we had made some terrible mistake when we turned the corner and entered this FIFA-themed fair, party-thing. There were activities, music, mini soccer games, and of course copious amounts on Coca-Cola products. We started walking around and having fun at the fair thing when we saw a crowd of people exiting through these double doors at the side of the room to a place called the "Hologram Zone." Naturally, Sarah and I had to find out what that meant. It was, as the sign described, just a room with a few holograms of different soccer players. Next it was onto the big event. We were shuttled down a few more hallways and random corridors and then finally we got to take a photo with the trophy and then make our way out of the building. Once we were back outside Sarah and I kind of just looked at each other wondering what on earth we had just experienced.

An Independence Day Roadtrip

Yesterday was Bosnian Independence Day and YES Abroad celebrated by taking another road trip. I was a very busy day so I'll just give you the stop by stop rundown.

Stop #1: Trebinje (pronounced Treb-in-ye)

After a long car ride through the incredibly scenic Čemerno mountain pass (it was gorgeous, I'm talking purple mountains majesty) we arrived in the southern city of Trebinje. Trebinje is tucked into a valley with the River Trebišnjica running through it. We got out of the van and walked along the river and into Old Town. Stari Grad (Old Town) Trebinje is very different than Stari Grad Sarajevo; for starters, there are Serbian flags everywhere and all the signs are written in the Cyrillic alphabet, but also there were palm trees everywhere despite the need for my winter coat.

Stop #2: Stolac (Stol-ats)

 After Trebinje, we headed to Stolac, a town  listed as a UNESCO World Heritage Site. Stolac is one of the oldest settlements in the country. The town with its modern name, Stolacs, was first mentioned in the early15th century It’s a gorgeous little town, but much like Trebinje there was a serious lack of Bosnian flags even though it was Independence Day. Instead most shops and houses sported the Croatian flag because many in the town identify as Croats.

We walked along the River Bregava and noticed an old fortress perched on a hill above the city. Our coordinator told us that it was a very old fortress, but it was under construction at the time and we may not be permitted to go in. We took a chance and hiked up to it. Fortunately there were no construction crews and we were allowed to explore!I know I say this about every fortress and castle we’ve visited this year, but this fortress was one of the coolest I have ever seen! Pictures don’t quite do it justice.  After running around the like little kids on a playground for a bit we all headed back to the van and onto the next destination.

Stop #2.5: Stećci (Stech-tsi)

About 3km outside of Stolac there is a small area on the side of the road with these ancient tombstones called Stećci scattered about. Stećci ,or in the singular form stećak (stech-ak), tombstones date back to the 15^th or 16^th century during the medieval Bosnian Kingdom. These tombstones are all over Bosnia (they’re even in Sarajevo) and some parts of Croatia, Serbia, and Montenegro. They were really interesting so we got out of the car to take photos.

Stop #3: Mostar (You got this)

As you may have read in an older blog post, I’ve already been to Mostar, but it was just as fun the second time around. The first time we went it was in September and tourist season was still very much alive and well which meant that Stari Grad in Mostar was PACKED. This time though, the city was empty and we really got to fully appreciate the Stari Most (Old Bridge). After some dinner, some coffee, and plenty of photos we headed home for the night.

Happy Independence Day Bosnia!