butcher it today.

This has been a nice calm few days. The day after the riots everything was back to normal. It all happened very quickly really, even by Sunday evening. Cleaners sorted the streets out, smashed windows were boarded up and shops re-opened. Buses back on the roads. It was as if the old men walking their dogs during the riots were on to something, that the people of this country are just bored of all of this. Last night I was in a bar (my main reason for going was to test myself, I have gone 3 days without alcohol and wanted to see if I could go to a bar and avoid it. I did!) and the Serbia/Italy game was on TV. Except the game wasn't on, because the Serb fans were throwing fireworks and flares onto the pitch, delaying the kick off and eventually causing the game to be abandoned. The figures in the crowd were indestinguishable to the hooligans causing trouble on Sunday. Everyone in the bar was thoroughly embarrased, almost laughing it off. People were essentially saying 'here we go again'.

So thats that really. A small number of idiotic nationalists ruining the reputation of a country. It has been this way since the end of Yugoslavia, and probably beforehand. The Serbs came out of the conflict as the villains. Please be aware that there is a big difference between people in political power and ordinary people. There is also a big difference between hooligans and ordinary people. The nationalist thugs who murdered the reputation of this country during the war and who continually butcher it today are not human beings, they are primal thugs. Ordinary Serbs are wonderful people, really wonderful. Comic side note possibly, but the nicest service industry I've ever experienced is here! Even the supermarket checkout people are beaming!

All I am saying is that please don't lump everyone in this country with the idiots you see on the news.

Anyway, where was I? Ah yes, me. (HAH!). I walked out to Zemun on Monday, which was really nice. It's a whole 6km away, so that was pretty refreshing to do. Zemun is a small town just outside of Belgrade, very calm and very relaxing. Nice old streets filled with cafes, a little snapshot of the Balkans. I headed there, had me some coffee and a pizza, ambled around and walked back. The walk back was lovely as well, along the river, and my legs were thoroughly goosed. On my return I decided to buy a book to read alongside 'War and Peace'. I ended up buying 'Snuff' by Chuck Palahniuk, and settled down to read.

The next morning I finished 'Snuff'. Very funny book. In the last 2 days I've been to Sveti Sava, which is the largest orthodox cathedral in the world, Kalemegdan fortress and today I went to Tito's grave. Josip Broz Tito was president of the second Yugoslavia, and is genuinely missed by a lot of people in this region. The Yugoslavia that he created was by no means a socialist paradise, but according to the people I have spoken to it was a pretty great place to live. Travel was easy, jobs were plentiful, artistic creativity was abound and people were happy. I'd go so far as to say that 80 to 90% of people I have spoken to about this would go back to the Yugoslav years in a second. Tito's grave is found in the House of Flowers, as well as a small collection of Yugoslav memorabilia. It's well worth a visit, if only for the huge collection of batons. A must see for anyone interested in Yugoslav history, which I'm pretty sure out of anyone who would read this is only me.

So I'm still in Belgrade. A couple of days ago I said that I really want to go and travel a little bit around somewhere other than the former Yugoslavia before I go home. The direct translation of that has turned out to be 'I'm going to travel a little more around the former Yugoslavia'. PREDICTABLE.

Yesterday I had a bacon sandwich and watched Russia Today. It's like being in Wales but being in Belgrade!