hahaha! so, I'm sure you can assume from the title of this post that I have decided to travel back down towards Mostar and go rafting! I am really pumped about it! Bree and I are going to be leaving Tuzla around 2:30pm and heading down to Sarajevo, and then catching a bus from there straight to Mostar! Though it is a 6hr trip there and back, I don't even care! I just want to have fun this weekend!
I realized a few things during this whole charade, that even though I was trying to make a gracious and responsible choice in regards to my finances, I feel that I have been doing pretty well at budgeting myself (with the help of Frank and Mom of course, for realizing that). Also, I sort of lost sight of the whole 'this is once in a lifetime' kind of mentality. I think that had to do with the fact that I closely approaching my end date here in Bosnia, and maybe I was just trying to prepare myself for the 'real world' once again. Well, I'll push that task till next weekend! :D Just kidding. But seriously, I think I just need to enjoy the little bit of downtime that I have left in these next coming weekends.
I love you all! I'll update as soon as I can to let you know how the trip went! I'm sure I'll have tons of stories! :D
Friday, July 17, 2009
Thursday, July 16, 2009
attempting to be responsible with my $ in a foriegn country
Jessie! (that's another greeting that I've learned)
So.. I'm in a pickle folks. I received an email from one of my fellow IDPer's that a bunch of members of the BiH stationers are going to be taking a rafting trip this Saturday!! My predicament is more internal than anything, but its a frustrating situation nonetheless! The ladies who are organizing these festivities are my lovely Mostar girls, who I visited to ring in the 4th abroad. It looks as though this water rafting trip will be about 90km, which is about $65 in the US, which really is a good deal, because it includes transportation to and from the site from Mostar, breakfast and lunch, the equipment, rafting for 3-4 hrs, and pictures of the days events on a cd! The only thing is that i'm going to be spending a lot of money, just to go rafting (which fyi, I have never done before!) I guess the question I'm asking myself is, is it worth all the money?? One side says, YES IT TOTALLY IS! : You are doing something you have never had the opportunity to do before, you are going to be with your friends, you are getting the hell out of Tuzla, it will be a blast, and the weather is supposed to be relatively good. The other side of me says WELL I'M NOT SO SURRREEE... : you are spending a lot of money in one weekend (nothing I haven't already done though!) what if you get there and the weather turns out to be crappy (well, I guess I save 90km then & I'll get to see more of Mostar!, it's a lot of money that you may need when you get home.. (ok, fine, this is true..)
So, you see?? I can't seem to make a decision!! I have 3 weeks left here and one more trip I am taking to Dubrovnik, Croatia on 7/31 (which is 2 weeks away! but I have $$ put aside for that) I just want to be responsible, but I am about to throw all to the wind and say 'COUNT ME IN!' Well.. we'll see, I have to make my decision in a couple of hours....
So.. I'm in a pickle folks. I received an email from one of my fellow IDPer's that a bunch of members of the BiH stationers are going to be taking a rafting trip this Saturday!! My predicament is more internal than anything, but its a frustrating situation nonetheless! The ladies who are organizing these festivities are my lovely Mostar girls, who I visited to ring in the 4th abroad. It looks as though this water rafting trip will be about 90km, which is about $65 in the US, which really is a good deal, because it includes transportation to and from the site from Mostar, breakfast and lunch, the equipment, rafting for 3-4 hrs, and pictures of the days events on a cd! The only thing is that i'm going to be spending a lot of money, just to go rafting (which fyi, I have never done before!) I guess the question I'm asking myself is, is it worth all the money?? One side says, YES IT TOTALLY IS! : You are doing something you have never had the opportunity to do before, you are going to be with your friends, you are getting the hell out of Tuzla, it will be a blast, and the weather is supposed to be relatively good. The other side of me says WELL I'M NOT SO SURRREEE... : you are spending a lot of money in one weekend (nothing I haven't already done though!) what if you get there and the weather turns out to be crappy (well, I guess I save 90km then & I'll get to see more of Mostar!, it's a lot of money that you may need when you get home.. (ok, fine, this is true..)
So, you see?? I can't seem to make a decision!! I have 3 weeks left here and one more trip I am taking to Dubrovnik, Croatia on 7/31 (which is 2 weeks away! but I have $$ put aside for that) I just want to be responsible, but I am about to throw all to the wind and say 'COUNT ME IN!' Well.. we'll see, I have to make my decision in a couple of hours....
Tuesday, July 14, 2009
& the music plays on...
So it is the beginning of week 6. Only two and a half more to go. And I can't wait. Don't get me wrong, I've enjoyed my time here, but I'm done; I'm ready to go... but since I have nothing else going on at the moment, I will update you on this past week..
Thursday, Alma, Amir, Christina, and I traveled to the municipality of Milići and we got to see some more CRP/ Red Cross trainings being conducted at the local health center there. It was good to see, and there was a completely different dynamic at this one than we had seen in Srebrenica. We interviewed 6 people, getting their perspective on the trainings and what not. It looks like Christina and I will be giving a presentation to the rest of the staff, explaining to them the details of our interviews and what not. I think that may be happening in 2 weeks, since most of the staff will be gone that last week of July because they are all going on holiday.
Then Thursday night Amir's band was playing at Club Privilege at Hotel Tuzla. It was a great time! We got to hang out with a lot of the CRP & Mercy Corps staff and it was nice to see them outside of work. Amir's band was awesome! It was great sounding music, even though I hadn't a clue to what the lyrics meant since it was all in Bosnian (hahaha) but it was a great time. And since we were supposed to be going to Srebrenica on Saturday, Alma decided that we should just take Friday off, because 'it's going to be a very draining experience', she said. So that is percisely what we did. And I took full advantage of the R&R and dragged my tush out of bed early on Friday and went to the salt lakes, solo. I got to work on my tan and enjoyed the time by myself, getting to 'people-watch' everyone in Tuzla who joined me at the salt lakes.
Unfortunately, our trip to Srebrenica on Saturday was canceled. It was pouring rain and my supervisor at the hospital, Dr. Esmina, didn't want to travel in such conditions. Also because we would have had to be walking in the mud and what not. So, needless to say I went back to bed after having gotten up at 6am, and proceeded to have a lazy Saturday. Me and the other girls just hung around for a bit and watch movies on the tv and then Bree and I decided to venture out into the rainy day for some retail therapy (which was very much needed). It was nice, we strolled into the center of town and had pizza for lunch, then we went and had traditional Bosnian coffee, and then treated ourselves to some ice cream for the walk home. All in all it was a pretty good day, aside from the rain.
Sunday strolled around and Bree and I went to the salt lakes to just sit by the lake and enjoy the relaxing sunday, like sunday's are supposed to be. We were invited by some of my coworkers to attend a bbq at another coworker, Sabina's house, so we were really looking forward to that. However, I guess bbq's here don't start at the normal time of 1 or 2pm but instead at like 10:30am! Bree and I had just arrived at the Salt Lakes when we got a call saying that our ride would be coming to get us in 20 minutes! Needless to say we canned that idea and told the group we would just take a cab... which we did... which was 20 KM, but it was totally worth it! I had a great time hanging with all of my coworkers and just sitting on the porch drinking beers and relaxing. Especially, because we got to play some volley ball! haha! And Eddin, one of the guys who works in CRP cooked dinner for us all and it was soo delicious! Bree and I ended up getting back to the apartment a little after 9pm, and we both had work the following day, so we were pretty exhausted.
So, as you can see, I am having a really great time. I think part of 'the debbie-downer' in me is that I am just sort of over it, if that makes sense to anyone. However, I can imagine it doesn't to some, because I can totally sit on the other side of my argument and say 'why the hell are you complaining?' But truth be told, it's all just monotonous a lot of the time and it's getting old. The work I'm doing is interesting, but it doesn't make it feel any less like busy work, sometimes. I mean, yea is having mundane work part of, well, work? Yes. But, I don't know.. I think 8 weeks is just a bit too long...
Thursday, Alma, Amir, Christina, and I traveled to the municipality of Milići and we got to see some more CRP/ Red Cross trainings being conducted at the local health center there. It was good to see, and there was a completely different dynamic at this one than we had seen in Srebrenica. We interviewed 6 people, getting their perspective on the trainings and what not. It looks like Christina and I will be giving a presentation to the rest of the staff, explaining to them the details of our interviews and what not. I think that may be happening in 2 weeks, since most of the staff will be gone that last week of July because they are all going on holiday.
Then Thursday night Amir's band was playing at Club Privilege at Hotel Tuzla. It was a great time! We got to hang out with a lot of the CRP & Mercy Corps staff and it was nice to see them outside of work. Amir's band was awesome! It was great sounding music, even though I hadn't a clue to what the lyrics meant since it was all in Bosnian (hahaha) but it was a great time. And since we were supposed to be going to Srebrenica on Saturday, Alma decided that we should just take Friday off, because 'it's going to be a very draining experience', she said. So that is percisely what we did. And I took full advantage of the R&R and dragged my tush out of bed early on Friday and went to the salt lakes, solo. I got to work on my tan and enjoyed the time by myself, getting to 'people-watch' everyone in Tuzla who joined me at the salt lakes.
Unfortunately, our trip to Srebrenica on Saturday was canceled. It was pouring rain and my supervisor at the hospital, Dr. Esmina, didn't want to travel in such conditions. Also because we would have had to be walking in the mud and what not. So, needless to say I went back to bed after having gotten up at 6am, and proceeded to have a lazy Saturday. Me and the other girls just hung around for a bit and watch movies on the tv and then Bree and I decided to venture out into the rainy day for some retail therapy (which was very much needed). It was nice, we strolled into the center of town and had pizza for lunch, then we went and had traditional Bosnian coffee, and then treated ourselves to some ice cream for the walk home. All in all it was a pretty good day, aside from the rain.
Sunday strolled around and Bree and I went to the salt lakes to just sit by the lake and enjoy the relaxing sunday, like sunday's are supposed to be. We were invited by some of my coworkers to attend a bbq at another coworker, Sabina's house, so we were really looking forward to that. However, I guess bbq's here don't start at the normal time of 1 or 2pm but instead at like 10:30am! Bree and I had just arrived at the Salt Lakes when we got a call saying that our ride would be coming to get us in 20 minutes! Needless to say we canned that idea and told the group we would just take a cab... which we did... which was 20 KM, but it was totally worth it! I had a great time hanging with all of my coworkers and just sitting on the porch drinking beers and relaxing. Especially, because we got to play some volley ball! haha! And Eddin, one of the guys who works in CRP cooked dinner for us all and it was soo delicious! Bree and I ended up getting back to the apartment a little after 9pm, and we both had work the following day, so we were pretty exhausted.
So, as you can see, I am having a really great time. I think part of 'the debbie-downer' in me is that I am just sort of over it, if that makes sense to anyone. However, I can imagine it doesn't to some, because I can totally sit on the other side of my argument and say 'why the hell are you complaining?' But truth be told, it's all just monotonous a lot of the time and it's getting old. The work I'm doing is interesting, but it doesn't make it feel any less like busy work, sometimes. I mean, yea is having mundane work part of, well, work? Yes. But, I don't know.. I think 8 weeks is just a bit too long...
Tuesday, July 7, 2009
More pics!
#1 this is the old guy on the bus back from Sarajevo a couple of weeks ago.. yeah you know.. how for the 1st 10 minutes I thought "aww," then the next "eww gross, get off of me..." thank Christina for the documentation...hahahhaha
#2 Some of the girls hangin out in Mostar!
#3 The Stari Most bridge
finally! some visual!
Ok, so the 1st is Bree, Christina, and me, after we just finished having a delicious and authentic Chinese food meal!
2nd- is the front entrance to the health center in Srebrenica..where the hold the re-certification trainings for the volunteers in the surrounding villages. The nearest hospital is 1 hour away....
3rd- That's me sitting on the overlook when we went to see the Kula Grad Castle ruins in Zvornik, Bosnia. The river separates Serbia (on the right) and Bosnia (on the left).
4th- Christina and I posing in the window over looking the landscape and river at the castle.
p.s.
ok, so real quick, this is more for my dad... but I had espresso! Me! I know! And I actually enjoyed it. I didn't just have it once either! I had it 2x throughout the day on Sunday!! hahaha ok
Love you all!!
Love you all!!
Stari Most
What a weekend! Seriously.. I think I did more in this entire past weekend than I have in a really long time! Crazyness! So Bree and I caught a bus out of Tuzla this past Friday... holy jesus.. it took us 6 hrs to get to Mostar. And yes, that is the actual travel time. It took 3 hrs to get to Sarajevo, then we hopped on a bus after meeting up with Miss Emily and then it was just under 3 hrs to Mostar from there. But, it was totally worth it! We had such a blast!
As soon as we got there, we all got ready and headed out to this restaurant to have pizza. And I know what you're wondering.. it actually wasn't served with ketchup. However, if I am recalling correctly, I feel as though we were asked if it was wanted. After dinner we headed to the old town of Mostar and went to this bar/club called Ali-Baba. It was IN A CAVE!!!!!!!! How sweet is that!?! We didn't stay very long since it was packed with people, but long enough to have an awesome time! Also we had to get up super early the next morning. The reason, you ask.. well, one of the girls who resides in Mostar that is in my program booked a touristy type of thing for all of us through this local hostel. It was sooo cool! We had to be there by 9am and 3 tour guides took us in separate cars to all of these destinations surrounding the city of Mostar. It was beautiful.
The first place we went to was in a town called Blagaj. It had this fortress right near the river (seriously, the river flowed right outside the house!. A former Duke who once ruled Herzegovina had ordered that a Dervish Monastery be build at the source of the Buna River, which is where we were. Since we were entering a place of worship, all of the girls in the group had to wear head wraps and long skirts. It was so interesting to have to do something like that... it gave me a very very small understanding of the culture. The architecture of the house was beautiful. It had obviously been restored, but apparently was from the 16th century!Can you believe that??! From there we headed towards a famous town called Počitelj, where there were ancient ruins and a huge fortress that stood up a hill. It was quite a work out climbing all of the stairs that were once there. The mosque that sits midway on the hill had been destroyed during the war and recently restored. At the entrance of the mosque and to the side of it, they had some of the original stone work that was salvaged from the wreck. Unfortunately, we (meaning the girls) couldn't enter because we didn't have any head scarves. So we climbed to the top and were walking around the once upon a time fortress and there was such a beautiful view at the top....then... my camera died. what the hell?? ugh such unfortunate luck! anyway, it was somewhat good, because since I no longer had anything to take pictures with it made me realize that walking through neck-high grass may not be the best of ideas. Then the crazy person in me kicked in, and I was convinced I was going to have a tick on me.... I didn't though, so we're 'A-OK' in that department!
From there, we headed to Međigorje, which is somewhere I really wanted to go, and it just so happened that the tour was leading up to that destination. So I first heard of Međigorje through my Bosnia & Herzegovina book that I bought.. the story goes, that back in the 80's a couple of teenagers were up on the hill and the blessed mother appeared and spoke to them. No one at first believed these teens, but a priest did. Since that day, the little town of Međigorje has become the second largest pilgrimage site for Catholics.. apparently.. I had no idea. Nonetheless, it was really neat to see and witness. I went into the church that was there.. there was a mass going on, so I just decided to stay in the vestibule and a listen a bit. then I lit and candle and was on my way. Unfortunately, we weren't able to actually go up on the hill where the apparition was seen (I call it that because that's the actual name of the hill, Apparition Hill) because it is a 3hr hike one way to get up there. But they had the statue of Mary outside the church for those who are unable to trek all the way up. The also had this huge statue of Christ symbolizing his crucifixion, and water came out of his knees and there were a lot of people there collecting the water to bring it into the church to be blessed. There were some people there holding Jesus and praying. It was intense.
While we ate lunch, it unfortunately began to rain.. but it was just like the 4th of July spirit to do such a thing. And I don't care if I was in another country, I was celebrating July 4th damn it. So I continued to enjoy my American inspired meal of a hamburger and french fries, accompanied with a delicious beer. hahahha. Our next stop was supposed to be Kravice Waterfalls... but the tour guides were hoping that if we waited a bit it would the storm clouds would pass. So we stopped at this new Ethno Village, which was sort of weird and yet interesting at the same time. It was basically this resort type of place.. but I kind of felt like I was walking around on a compound, and was expecting to be asked to join some sort of freakish cult at any moment. And our tour guides prompted us to go here because there would be free wine.... they lied.
So we left that joint and headed to the falls. I was determined to jump off a cliff. However, I really didn't feel like breaking my leg, or you know, possibly my neck.. so I opted out of jumping off the slippery rocks and decided that I didn't travel 6hrs one way to just see these waterfalls... I was damn well going to jump in. It's once in a lifetime, right? So I did! IT WAS FREEZING! Neil, Abbie's friend who was visiting her jumped in too & then I talked Abbie in to doing it as well, by telling her I'd jump back in and quickly get out! That was a blast! Really cold, but totally worth it.
We were all pretty freakin tired from the days events so we headed back to the apartment and got ready to go to dinner.... 4 hrs later and we were out the door *(well, what do you expect with 7 girls, 1 guy, and 1 bathroom??)* Dinner was pretty freakin awesome. We had Italian at this little place and then we decided that we wanted to hit the Mostar scene once again... but after a very filling dinner and just from being tired we decided to have one drink and hit the road.
The next morning we woke up early because Bree and I had to catch an 11am bus back to Sarajevo. So we wanted to go have coffee and see more of Mostar and the Old Town. While having coffee, the girls totally talked us into staying until 3pm! Which we were really excited about... however, we decided against it after we found out that the last bus leaving Sarajevo for Tuzla left at 6pm and that only gave us a half hour to play with. Could you imagine if we had missed the last bus out of Sarajevo to come back! That would have sucked.
So to make my extremely already long story short (hush Mom, I have huge blisters on the bottoms of my feet from walking in my sandals but it was totally worth it!
As soon as we got there, we all got ready and headed out to this restaurant to have pizza. And I know what you're wondering.. it actually wasn't served with ketchup. However, if I am recalling correctly, I feel as though we were asked if it was wanted. After dinner we headed to the old town of Mostar and went to this bar/club called Ali-Baba. It was IN A CAVE!!!!!!!! How sweet is that!?! We didn't stay very long since it was packed with people, but long enough to have an awesome time! Also we had to get up super early the next morning. The reason, you ask.. well, one of the girls who resides in Mostar that is in my program booked a touristy type of thing for all of us through this local hostel. It was sooo cool! We had to be there by 9am and 3 tour guides took us in separate cars to all of these destinations surrounding the city of Mostar. It was beautiful.
The first place we went to was in a town called Blagaj. It had this fortress right near the river (seriously, the river flowed right outside the house!. A former Duke who once ruled Herzegovina had ordered that a Dervish Monastery be build at the source of the Buna River, which is where we were. Since we were entering a place of worship, all of the girls in the group had to wear head wraps and long skirts. It was so interesting to have to do something like that... it gave me a very very small understanding of the culture. The architecture of the house was beautiful. It had obviously been restored, but apparently was from the 16th century!Can you believe that??! From there we headed towards a famous town called Počitelj, where there were ancient ruins and a huge fortress that stood up a hill. It was quite a work out climbing all of the stairs that were once there. The mosque that sits midway on the hill had been destroyed during the war and recently restored. At the entrance of the mosque and to the side of it, they had some of the original stone work that was salvaged from the wreck. Unfortunately, we (meaning the girls) couldn't enter because we didn't have any head scarves. So we climbed to the top and were walking around the once upon a time fortress and there was such a beautiful view at the top....then... my camera died. what the hell?? ugh such unfortunate luck! anyway, it was somewhat good, because since I no longer had anything to take pictures with it made me realize that walking through neck-high grass may not be the best of ideas. Then the crazy person in me kicked in, and I was convinced I was going to have a tick on me.... I didn't though, so we're 'A-OK' in that department!
From there, we headed to Međigorje, which is somewhere I really wanted to go, and it just so happened that the tour was leading up to that destination. So I first heard of Međigorje through my Bosnia & Herzegovina book that I bought.. the story goes, that back in the 80's a couple of teenagers were up on the hill and the blessed mother appeared and spoke to them. No one at first believed these teens, but a priest did. Since that day, the little town of Međigorje has become the second largest pilgrimage site for Catholics.. apparently.. I had no idea. Nonetheless, it was really neat to see and witness. I went into the church that was there.. there was a mass going on, so I just decided to stay in the vestibule and a listen a bit. then I lit and candle and was on my way. Unfortunately, we weren't able to actually go up on the hill where the apparition was seen (I call it that because that's the actual name of the hill, Apparition Hill) because it is a 3hr hike one way to get up there. But they had the statue of Mary outside the church for those who are unable to trek all the way up. The also had this huge statue of Christ symbolizing his crucifixion, and water came out of his knees and there were a lot of people there collecting the water to bring it into the church to be blessed. There were some people there holding Jesus and praying. It was intense.
While we ate lunch, it unfortunately began to rain.. but it was just like the 4th of July spirit to do such a thing. And I don't care if I was in another country, I was celebrating July 4th damn it. So I continued to enjoy my American inspired meal of a hamburger and french fries, accompanied with a delicious beer. hahahha. Our next stop was supposed to be Kravice Waterfalls... but the tour guides were hoping that if we waited a bit it would the storm clouds would pass. So we stopped at this new Ethno Village, which was sort of weird and yet interesting at the same time. It was basically this resort type of place.. but I kind of felt like I was walking around on a compound, and was expecting to be asked to join some sort of freakish cult at any moment. And our tour guides prompted us to go here because there would be free wine.... they lied.
So we left that joint and headed to the falls. I was determined to jump off a cliff. However, I really didn't feel like breaking my leg, or you know, possibly my neck.. so I opted out of jumping off the slippery rocks and decided that I didn't travel 6hrs one way to just see these waterfalls... I was damn well going to jump in. It's once in a lifetime, right? So I did! IT WAS FREEZING! Neil, Abbie's friend who was visiting her jumped in too & then I talked Abbie in to doing it as well, by telling her I'd jump back in and quickly get out! That was a blast! Really cold, but totally worth it.
We were all pretty freakin tired from the days events so we headed back to the apartment and got ready to go to dinner.... 4 hrs later and we were out the door *(well, what do you expect with 7 girls, 1 guy, and 1 bathroom??)* Dinner was pretty freakin awesome. We had Italian at this little place and then we decided that we wanted to hit the Mostar scene once again... but after a very filling dinner and just from being tired we decided to have one drink and hit the road.
The next morning we woke up early because Bree and I had to catch an 11am bus back to Sarajevo. So we wanted to go have coffee and see more of Mostar and the Old Town. While having coffee, the girls totally talked us into staying until 3pm! Which we were really excited about... however, we decided against it after we found out that the last bus leaving Sarajevo for Tuzla left at 6pm and that only gave us a half hour to play with. Could you imagine if we had missed the last bus out of Sarajevo to come back! That would have sucked.
So to make my extremely already long story short (hush Mom, I have huge blisters on the bottoms of my feet from walking in my sandals but it was totally worth it!
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