Big spenders

I agree with Ammon that Serbia was really fantastimatasmical! Possibly my favourite European country so far. This new "Couch Surfers" (or couch potatoes as mom calls it, haha) thing that we've been doing has definately given us a better understanding of each country. We get to hear the people's stories through the wars and their perspectives. For example, in 1999 Belgrade had three months of intense fear as they were bombed by NATO. How could you ever get any sleep with terrified children and shattering air-raid alarms going off right next to your house?! It must have been awful. Everyone we have stayed with has showed us nothing less than exceptional hospitality and welcomed us into their homes as royal guests. Everytime I find myself wanting to move in and stay forever but I know we have to keep moving. It wouldn't be hard because they are always saying they want to keep me and find me a local husband! That must be one of the biggest downfalls of travelling, meeting so many great people and constantly having to say goodbye....
On the day of arriving in Bosnia we had to wake up at 4:45 a.m. to catch our bus to a town, then another one to Sarajevo. The journey was a total of 8 hours plus 1 1/2 hours waiting. The best part about changing countries, other than getting stamps of course, is spending our left over coinage from that country. This time we had a little more than just a chocolate bar's worth left over and had a hard time getting rid of our money. Now THAT just demonstrates how often we splurge. We just aren't any good at it, even when we CAN!
We arrived in Sarajevo yesterday and today went out to see town. It's pretty amazing what happened not too long ago in 1992-1995! We could still see lots of remaining damage done to buildings in town. It's crazy to be walking down a civilized street and look over and see dozens of bullet holes in the walls..... you'd think we were in Afghanistan all over again or something!! This city is really busy on the pedestrian streets and full of young people. I hardly saw any old folks. I really like this town and mom got to see her favourite.... graveyards!! She's sooo wierd, eh?!! Tomorrow Ammon is going to participate in a fund raising quiz contest on geogrophy and politics with our host. He'll be the fifth member on their team and I KNOW he'll kick butt!! That should be fun for him!!!
Later,
Savannah