Though I've been surrounded on all sides by all things Istanbul for ten days now, Beograd (not to mention the Balkans in general) is still often at the center of my thoughts.



It's like daydreaming about a girl you've met -- and thinking about nothing other than when you will see her again. It's been over a week, but I still dote on my darling Belgrade.

This might not make much sense to most people. Isn't Istanbul supposed to be the most beautiful city in the world? It is pretty damn close. Isn't Belgrade supposed to be Communist Central? In a lot of ways, yes. So what the hell is going on with this kid? To understand, you've just got to experience Beograd nights and the Three Black Catz way of life.

The issue here is about living, not sight-seeing. Wringing the sponge dry, rather than saturating it beyond capacity under a faucet of Lonely Planet "musts" and bullet points from a to-do checklist. I guess it's the difference between traveling to travel, and traveling to say you've traveled, but in Belgrade, I felt alive every single day -- even the ones where I felt close to death, my face even closer to the toilet.

My Balkan education began in Croatia. There were some exchanges with Jure and Zila in Split, and some time spent with a pair of Dubrovnik heads, Krešo and Denis. But my first few twists of the Yugoslavian Rubik's Cube came mainly by flipping the pages of history books, not by really reading deep into the minds of Croatian people. It was but a scratch on the surface, but it was a start.

After a two-day dash into Montenegro -- admittedly made just so I could say I had traveled to the world's newest nation -- I came to Bosnia-Hercegovina, all and all still my favorite country yet. BiH captivated me in a way no place had ever done before. The stories of human survival that I heard there were inspirational. Sure, I continued to build a base knowledge of the problems these people had experienced by reading about the war, and by reading about Yugoslavia in the more peaceful times of the 1930's. But the continuance of the Balkan education I received in Bosnia-Hercegovina came from a hybrid lesson plan: Facts from books and wisdom from people, with visuals such as Mostar's destroyed buildings and Sarajevo's "Roses" reminding every second of the day that stories are things which first must happen in the flesh and blood.

After a two-week break from the Balkans, I returned, and landed in the heart of Serbia: Belgrade. In my 12 days there, I read maybe 12 pages in total. But it didn't matter, because the final chapter in my Balkan education wasn't printed in a book.

It was written on the eyes, heard in the voices, and felt in the energies of people like Mladen, and Zivko, and Zoka, and Dragana, and Marija, and all of the other people I spent countless hours talking to until the late hours in Beograd, the White City.

Aesthetically, it's clear who would win in a pageant between Belgrade and Istanbul. And as fascinating as Serbian history is -- you have no idea, guys, trust me -- it's got nothing on the legacy of Byzanti.... I mean, Constantino...... I mean Istanbul. In a city coveted by three of the greatest empires mankind has ever known, you can get a headache just trying to decide where to begin your self-education. Ancient Greeks? Constantine? Justinian? The Schism? The sack of Byzantium? The rise of the Ottomans, or the fall? The Young Turks? Ataturk? Modern Turkey's identity crisis between East and West?

And still, with all the beauty and history that is around me, I miss Belgrade. This should come as no surprise to anyone that knows me. I have always had a problem with forcing myself outside of my comfort zone, once I find something that fits with me.

• In college, my favorite waitress at my favorite restaurant quit asking me at some point what I would like to eat -- she started to asked simply if I wanted a menu.
• I have one pair of pants -- Carhartts whose color depends on the amount of time they have gone without washing -- that, if you count the original pair waiting on IR in case something goes wrong with their replacement, I have worn every single pant-weather day since August 2003. (Okay, fine, I had some sweatpants in college that got some occasional play, but you catch my drift).
• Since that same summer, whenever it got hot, I had a single pair of hemp shorts that got the same treatment.
• Don't even ask about the variety of music on my iPod -- there isn't any.

I know what I like, and I like what I know. Is that so bad?

So why don't I just return to Belgrade right now? Other than the fact that I would have to be back here Dec. 27 to meet my parents and little sister, there is nothing holding me back.

But it is exactly for the reason that it would be so easy, so comfortable to return to what I like, and what I know, that I am staying in Turkey for the moment.

I miss my life -- even if it was for only a week-and-a-half -- at the Three Black Catz. I promised my friends there that I would return, though without an idea of when. I intend to keep that promise. But Lord, like Robert Nesta said, I've got to keep on, movin'.... even if the streets of Istanbul don't feel as much like home as my beloved УЛИЦA ЧИKA ЉУБИHA, whose blue-and-white sign greeted me every time I left the Three Black Catz. But when I'm on those Istanbul streets, I will have plenty of friends: Thousands, if not millions, of stray black cats.

Reminders of the friends that I have waiting for me in a town called Beograd.

Editor's note: With all this talk about expanding horizons and pushing out of comfort zones, I have no plans to:

• buy new pants
• ever order anything other than the buffalo chicken sandwich at The Virginian
• go into reggae rehab

Some things that I like, I know a little too much; and somethings I know, I like a little too much to change.

Is that so bad?