To Mostar!

 11/26: Bob and I had hoped to go on a walk before leaving Sarajevo this morning as the forecast for the air quality was supposed to be much improved, but it was not. Eww. On our travels I thought we might have to stay inside because of the weather, but I never thought it would be because of the air quality!

We walked to our favorite local fruit/vegetable stand around the corner and bought our last items from the friendly owner.

Goodbye lovely place and new friends next door!

 We had an uneventful two hour drive to Mostar and arrived to our place about 2pm. We were greeted by a guy that works for the management company, and he had super curly hair in a big afro that sprung to life when he removed his motorcycle helmet. Later in the day I was having a conversation with Simone, and she politely listened. When I finished what I was saying, she looked at me and said, "Mom, all I keep thinking is can you get your hair to look like that guy's?" HA!

When he learned that we had come from Sarajevo, we mentioned how bad the air was. He said the city was at such a high level this afternoon that it was the worst in the world (level 438 - well into the 'Hazardous' range). SO glad we are out of there and that air quality wasn't the case for our whole week in Sarajevo!

Yeah Mostar!

There were a few items missing from the place that he said he would return with, but the most pressing item that we realized after he left was that the heat was not turning on. Bob went back and forth with the management company, and we thought we might have time for our grocery run before someone came over to check it out. We were halfway there (in our car) when they said they were en route to our place. So Bob dropped me off at the grocery store while he went back to our place. I grabbed our usual items, stopping mid shop to chat with the kids' dentist who called in response to the email I had sent to them yesterday. Simone has been having some tooth pain, and I had sent our dentist a picture of the sore area after chatting with the receptionist. I explained my hesitancy to take her to a foreign dentist if I didn't absolutely have to, and of course she agreed with me. It was great to connect with her, and learn that she thinks the discomfort is just from the loose baby teeth. Great news!

While I was shopping, Bob was back at our place with the management company representative (not the afro guy from our arrival, but a young girl) telling him that we just need to turn up the thermostat more and more and our place should get warmer. Wow. Thanks a lot. Bob was not impressed with her. She left and Bob came to pick me up, and we returned to our still cold place. Afro man ended up coming back while we were cooking Daddy's yummy chicken dish and was super helpful. He communicated with the owner (who is in Sweden and Bob told him we were in Stockholm and Aland earlier this year!) who walked us through how to turn on the multiple systems to activate the heat (some seems to be radiant heating). In the meantime, we kept all of our layers on until another person came back with two space heaters. Thankfully the company and the owner were very responsive, and the space heaters worked very well!

We finished off the night with a few Wonder Years and answering Simone's question of if it's ok to live with someone before you're married (brought on by 18 year old Karen in the show living with her boyfriend in college).

Sarajevo exploration

 11/23: We had an easy morning with an afternoon walk around the town. It was chilly!

Clock tower

We have never seen bullet/grenade holes on buildings in a residential area.

Watching the old men smoking and playing chess

Almost back to our place - so many of these buildings look really rough. We commented that we don’t see buildings like this in the States, and if we did, the area would probably feel really scary/unsafe. Here, though, it just feels historic and it adds to the character. It looks like old history (classic Europe) and newer history only 30 years ago (bullet/grenade holes) that our host experienced. Beauty and pain wrapped together.

The Latin bridge

Bob and I checked out the Sarajevo brewery

We see a lot of really rough buildings next to renovated ones

The smoke is moving in - we had no idea at the time how bad it could/would get

We taught the kids Gin Rummy in Bodrum and they play almost nonstop!

We played cards with HH and watched National Lampoons European Vacation, because we thought it would be appropriate given our travels. Wow! It was quite different than Bob and I remembered!

As we were turning out the lights to head to bed, Quinn noticed a lot of smoke over the city skyline. Bob googled 'fires in Sarajevo' to make sure we were aware of any dangers in the area. We didn't see any flames, and after awhile of watching, we didn't think the smoke was getting worse, so we headed to bed. We did learn that Sarajevo can be one of the worst cities in the world for air quality (after many cities in India) because of their continued use of burning coal and wood for heating.

11/24: Bob and I took a walk to the Olympic Stadium; unfortunately it wasn’t a great walk given the icy sidewalks. We tried to drive to the site of the old bobsled track, but ended up on a steep, narrow, icy road that even made Bob nervous! Simone and I got out of the car while Bob and Quinn backed down and turned around. Ok, zero for two so far on experiences today! We drove to an area of town called Sniper Alley, where the tall buildings gave snipers good vantage points during the war - more buildings with bullet/grenade holes. This part of town did feel more run down/rough than the Old Town where we’re staying.

We made a brief stop trying to find a shoe store for me, but it was closed. I knowingly left my boots in the US to save weight/space in my luggage, but now we are seeing rain/snow so walking around in my running shoes is not optimal. We called it a day and drove home, ready for a cozy night. Bob and I headed out to the grocery store to buy for tonight but also tomorrow (Monday) because it is a national holiday and we’re anticipating stores will be closed. Well - turned out they’re also closed on Sundays! Omg. We searched on our maps for a grocery that may be open, and they all said ‘open’… but we walked all over Old Town and none of them were. I stopped in a hotel and asked the employee if there was a grocery that might be open, and he told me they are ‘forbidden’ from being open on Sundays. 😩 I am beyond sick of Sunday closures. I know we could’ve been aware and looked at the hours signs on the doors over the last few days…but we just didn’t think of it. I thought we were done with this when we left Bavaria. And now tomorrow is the holiday and I’m sure they’ll be closed again. We feel like this day was all about swings and misses.

We have enough random leftovers to piece together one more dinner, and we have two nights left. Simone had the idea to go out to dinner tonight, as maybe the restaurants would be closed tomorrow on the holiday. Good idea - so we went back to the sausage restaurant we had been to before and enjoyed another filling meal. We came home for more cards and a movie - tonight it was Grumpy Old Men - we all had some good laughs.

All filled up with Cevapi (traditional sausage)

Bob and Quinn stayed up to watch the Packers game that started at 1030. Quinn presented a strong case for him to stay up late to watch it (on Thanksgiving break so no school/homework, no travel and no plans tomorrow), so we said 'yes' to our most devoted fan! Simone and I played a few games of double solitaire before bed, and all of us were noticing how our eyes were burning, and the smoke smell was a bit worse. The heating here is by hot water radiators, so unfortunately we don't have any air filtration inside.

11/25: I came up to the family room/kitchen and looked out the window to see a very different view. I didn't think that snow was expected, but I could barely see past the houses not far from our own...I looked at Bob and Simone with a very confused face, and they said, "it's smoke." Whoa!

YUCK! In looking at the hour by hour levels, it was the worst at 0300 this morning when it was in the 'hazardous' range. This is awful. We had no idea about this part of Sarajevo. On the IQAir site where it shows the air quality number, it also shows an image of a person wearing a gas mask. Gross. I guess we're skipping the walk we had planned on taking, as we don't want to go outside.

Today is a National Holiday - Bosnian Independence Day (1995). It's been pretty cool that we have been in a few countries for their Independence Days (Reykjavik, Saint Lary Soulan) and in Turkey on the anniversary of Ataturk's death (not an official holiday but Turks sure seems to love that man). We decided to try again to make it to the old bobsled track (Bob had researched a different way). We thought there was a chance it would get us above the smoke for awhile. The drive was much better than yesterday, and you could tell it was a holiday as there were a ton of cars and people. We were able to find a spot to park after a bit of searching, and walked the 1 mile through a bit of ice and slush to the top of the gondola. It looked to be a bit further to the bobsled track, so Bob went on alone to see it while the kids and I looked around a bit and headed back.

We're in another Olympic city! It's our 6th Olympic city: Oslo, Garmisch, Innsbruck, Munich, Cortina, Sarajevo

Cool! He found it! Awesome graffiti artwork.

We came back down into the smoke of Sarajevo and had some downtime before heading to our hosts next door. They had graciously invited us over for some traditional Bosnian food, which was so lovely of them.  We were very excited to go, but felt very awkward arriving empty handed - when Bob accepted their invitation, he apologized to Esmir that we did not know the stores would all be closed yesterday on Sunday! Sidebar: not only could we not get the food that we wanted yesterday at the grocery store, we were also running dangerously low on tp. Now at the end of the day today (Monday) we had almost 'made it' to the stores being open on Tuesday morning to get the true necessity of tp. Simone asked me (jokingly) if we should sneak a roll of tp out of their bathroom when we went over - ha!

We had a fantastic time with Esmir and his wife, Janana. They had a delicious spread of smoked meat, hard boiled eggs, cheese, and fresh bread that she had just pulled out of the oven set out for all of us. We drank fresh juice that they had made themselves, including a 'rose drink' that Emir's mother made from local rose petals. She also had the 'spaghetti sauce' that Bob stumbled on for our first dinner in Sarajevo. It's a roasted red pepper and eggplant mixture with sunflower oil, called bas ajvar. When she was explaining it to us, we smiled and said 'we love that stuff!' Apparently she had it out to have as a topper for the fresh bread. Later, when we watched a Rick Steeves video on Bosnia, he described it as 'Bosnian ketchup.' We love it! After dinner, they served fresh tea from leaves/herbs they had gathered themselves, and two different kinds of cinnamon rolls that she pulled fresh from the oven. Everything was delicious, and my usual gluten reduced self was relishing in all the warm fresh bread I was consuming!

Rose drink and homemade currant juice

Jenana serving the fresh cinnamon rolls

Quinn and Vedad

The best part, though, was the real, in-depth conversation that the four of us had (our kids and their son, Vedad, were playing Fifa :-) Both of them had grown up in Sarajevo and were 10 years old when the war started. They were impressed with how much history we knew, and I said right now I feel like I know more about the Bosnian War than I do about a lot of US history. Bob and I commented that we thought it would be hard to live in Sarajevo where there must be so many horrible memories (they both had family members that died/were wounded in the war). But it seems like they feel a kind of obligation to stay - all of their family is still there and their past family fought for Sarajevo. I guess I can understand their perspective - but I can't imagine staying in a place with such awful air quality for almost half the year. Esmir said the smoke is because people are burning coal and wood for heat because electricity is "too expensive." On my list to research is the definition of first/second/third world countries, because we would think that Bosnia is in the first world category, but I can't believe the capital of a first world country would have this level of air pollution.

Highlight of our time in Sarajevo!

Winter Wonderland; Powerful Museums

 11/21: We awoke to quite a bit of snow on the ground! It was beautiful, and Bob and Simone headed out for an early morning walk.

Iconic Sarajevo tv tower

Back home and the sun starting to peek through

Bob headed out to take more pics:

I learned the star and crescent is a symbol of the Ottoman Empire and of Islam (though apparently the Turkish flag does not have religious meaning)

We met our host's son, Vedad (10), and he joined us on our trip to the War Childhood Museum

Quinn: playing kick the can/capture the flag in our yard

Simone: Christmas Eve night with Mom, Dad, brother

Me: finally getting up on 1 ski at sunset with my mom and Karl in the boat

Bob: playing double dodgeball with neighborhood friends

This swing was supposed to hang outside, but ended up in this girl's basement during the war. Her mom couldn't pay as much attention to her as usual because of the war, so she put a bell on it to hear when the little girl climbed into it. It meant so much to her - the only fun she had amidst the fighting. She cherished it so much, and gifted it to her Neice many years later, but she found it dull and boring. It's interesting how objects can have such different meaning and value for each person. So - she decided to gift it to the Museum.

They rotate the objects every so often so it's always changing

Simone, Quinn, and Vedad (cemetery behind the metal grate)

Another beautiful sunset - we can't get enough of this view!

Out to a local restaurant that our host, Esmir, recommended. We had the traditional Bosnian cevapi (sausage in a pita with a side of cream cheese) along with liquid yogurt to drink. It's growing on us!

11/22: Bob started the day with a walk and saw the actual place of Franz Ferdinand and his wife’s assassination:

A bit later the two of us went to the Museum of crimes against humanity and genocide 1992-1995. We had planned on taking the kids, but multiple reviews cautioned against taking kids under 18. We decided we’d check it out first, and take the kids back if we thought it was appropriate. It was incredibly strong and graphic, and we’re very glad we did not take the kids. The evil and atrocities that people have endured is so hard to see. One of the most horrific things we saw was a video showing soldiers shooting civilians - it said this video was a Serbian war tribute and could be rented in Serbian video stores. It was nauseating. I feel like I have researched and learned so much about this conflict in the past 24 hours, but I’m left feeling like I have only scratched the surface.

We walked home around lunchtime in the pouring rain, had some lunch together, and Bob headed to the airport to pick up our rental car. The weather got colder and the rain turned to snow - it was beautiful to watch from our cozy place - but I felt terrible that Bob had to be out driving around in it! Thankfully he returned safe and sound. Our host allowed him to park next door in front of his garage door. The kids finished their weeks work and we celebrated with HH and cards - they're off for a week for Thanksgiving! We had our spaghetti leftovers and watched Ace Ventura (lots of laughs!)