Daaaa Bob!

Never try to wake a bear in hibernation.

It doesn't work.

Louise Parsley is woman.

Roooaaaaaaaaaaarrrrrrrrrrrrrrrr!!!!!!

HEAR HER ROAR!

This is my sister.

Very nice, how much?

Garland is number 4 prostitute in all of Kazakhstan!

Sexy time!


Wa wa WEE wa!

Great success. Dequi.

"He burned my head!"

More Serbia stories -- I could only hope to write them all down -- will come later. For now, let's focus on the present.

The Bob, my mom and Garland have been with me in Istanbul since Wednesday. But all The Bob has wanted to do since arriving was make a visit to the hamam.

"The Buddha" -- Haven't I seen this statue before in the Chinese food restaurant by my house?

I've been to two different Turkish baths in Budapest. Those are basically really nice, really old school swimming pools, with a steam room attached. There's nothing Turkish about them. From now on, I'm referring to those as "Austro-Hungarian baths."

A hamam -- the real Turkish bath -- is a pretty much a cross between a spa and an all guys BDSM conference. You lounge in a room with a bunch of other sweaty dudes, all wearing only a Turkish loin cloth, and wait your turn to get manhandled by a sweaty Turkish man, also wearing nothing but a Turkish loin cloth. When your number is finally called -- trust me, there is no rhyme, nor reason, to how they select who is next in line -- he simply grunts at you to follow him to the nearest available spot on the heated, circular slab of rock situated smack dab in the middle of the room.

The hamamer (I made that word up) who grunted at me was just about to strap a rubber ball in my mouth when some other hamamer came up, and basically tried to cut in on his colleague's game. The new guy just swooped in out of nowhere, and he started to take control of the situation. This was much to the chagrin of my original man. Shockingly, an argument ensued.

I'm not sure how many of you have ever heard the Turkish language spoken, but it is without a doubt the closest thing to organized gibberish known to man.

"Jamukah payukah, JAMUKAH PAYUKAH!"

"Shabbaday boo, kodoyay pah!"

"Kadikoy shoo lay nah! Rah tahh boo boo rah!"

This is going on right in front of me, and I don't know what to do. Sitting in only a towel, a first-timer to the Turkish bath(house) scene, desperately looking across the room at The Bob, whose eyes are shooting back a "What the hell did you do," my eyes answer in turn: "Nothing!" It was, without a doubt, the first time in my life that I'd ever had two sweaty, hairy, old Turkish men -- in towels -- fight over the right to rub their powerful hands all over my body, for money.

The intruder won the argument, and proceeded to go to work, but my original man wasn't happy about it, and kept making snide remarks in gibberish throughout the session. For about 15 minutes, though, my new guy treated me like his own personal rag doll -- soaping me up, cracking my back, wantonly attacking various pressure points, contorting my neck every which way, and indiscriminately pouring buckets of piping hot water on top of my head, without warning.

Most people don't complain about the rough treatment -- either because they're so rough-and-tumble that it doesn't bother them, or, like me, because they're too intimidated by the chaotic environment to speak up, especially in a language no one in authority is likely to understand.

But there was one guy...
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I saw him after I had had my post-steam room massage, which was also pretty damn rough, but slightly less public. I was coming out of the shower, and was being draped in towels by the Turkish towel man: One for my waist, one for my head, one for my shoulders. This dude, who was coming out of the room in which I had witnessed the argument over the rights to my body, was absolutely jacked. Absolutely zero body fat. He was like an extra on MTV's "The Grind." Designer hair cut, ear rings in both lobes, tattoos that screamed out, "Badass," it was the kind of guy you would never want to mess with. He had nipple rings, for Christ's sake. And though it is almost January, his body was perfectly tanned.

And then he opened his mouth, and it was, well, not what I was expecting.

"Excuse me, do you speak English?" he asked the man putting towels on me.

His voice made Sacha Baron Cohen's "Bruno" character sound like Andre the Giant. That means that he sounded gayer than San Francisco -- not that there's anything wrong with that!

"No, Turkish," the man answered. "Problem?"

Bruno was hot and bothered. Just as he began to vent, the door opened behind him, and out came a fat, hairy Turkish hamamer, who looked very similar to Borat's sidekick Azamat.

"That guy," Bruno complained to the man who had just told him that he didn't understand English, "BURNED my head!"

I immediately started to laugh. Immediately.

"The water, it's too hot! He burned me!"

Towel guy started questioning Azamat in Turkish. Azamat motioned towards Bruno, and started going on about something, in rapid fire. The two of them volleyed back and forth, in Turkish gibberish. I stood there in my multiple towels, cracking up. Bruno tried his best to look injured, but succeeded only in resembling some kind of pampered, Paris Hilton-style chihuahua, whose bowl had just been filled with dry dog food, instead of gourmet canned stuff.

Then, the manager came in.

"Kashashabady tayla di??" he asked towel guy and Azamat.

"Sta! Kalaby! Shadasheedekoy!" Azamat screamed. He glared at Bruno.

"Fa dee lay loo pie?" towel guy shrugged.

"He burned my head!" Bruno interjected, pointing at the accused. "Don't you know how hot the temperature of the water is??" As if they heated it up especially high, just for him.

The manager said something to Bruno to try and calm him down, which I couldn't make out because I was laughing so hard, virtually unable to move, I was clothed in so many towels. But Bruno wasn't having any of it.

"No! I don't want ANY massages from you people!" He was pouting at this point. "He burned my head!" Azamat looked like he was ready to rumble with this nipple-ringed American.

That was when I was ushered out of the room, sadly. But I was still laughing when I made it to the little compartment The Bob and I had left our stuff in.






And I will always associated my hamam experience with my memory of Bruno, and his rather surprising voice.

Not that there's anything wrong with that!

And the award for the best way not to get a girl goes to....

I almost forgot to tell the GREATEST Belgrade story of all time.

I don't understand why everyone films me all the time!

And of course, it involves Pete.

Stop filming!!

And it also involves the "Sexy time!" neighbor chick who was less than thrilled with my executive decision to post her MySpace picture on the Internet a few weeks back (although, isn't a MySpace picture already on the Internet?? I'm not really sure I understand where she's coming from).




Quite frankly, this neighbor-who-is-to-remain-anonymous is a good-looking feminina. So when she walked into the Three Black Catz for the first time, with all four of us brates all sitting around the table, the unanimous reaction was pretty amusing to see: Silence. And lots of staring.

Gawking, if you will.

I was content to just continue gawking. But Pete, who had been trying to learn a bit of Serbian whenever he was sober enough to read his Teach Yourself book, wanted to get to the heart of the matter.

He started to speak to her in a language that only he could actually understand.

Here's what it sounded like to onlookers:

"SerbianSerbianSerbian, uhhh, SerbianSerbian, uuhh, Serbian." Anonymous neighbor chick just squinted, not understanding. Pete continued. "Me?" Points to himself. "Ili, Kris?" Points to Kris. "Ili, Vincent?" Points to Vincent. "Ili, Bayless." Points to me.

I looked at Vincent and Kris -- they had no clue.

Neither did the neighbor chick.

"Excuse me, what are you asking?"

Pete looked at her impatiently, and translated what he had just said into English. "Which one of us do you want?" he blurted out.

I am just glad I hadn't taken a sip of whatever it was I was drinking at the time, because it would have gone all the way to Republika Srpska, I started to laugh so hard.

WHICH ONE OF US DO YOU WANT???? REALLY??

No one could control their bodies, it was so funny. And so random! Out of nowhere.

But we were still waiting on an answer.

"No one," she said, and then proceeded to get online to talk to her e-love. Sexy time!

БEOΓPAД.

The White City.

Belgrade.

Beograd.

You say tomAEto, I say tomAHto.

How did Vincent get Dragana's first-ever "Guest of the Month" badge?


"He's always washing dishes," she claims.

SO AM I, DRAGANA.

This is outrageous.
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Pete, passed out, has no idea what's coming.


"My name's Kris, and this, is the Morning Slap."
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Both of these poses sum up Pete and Vincent, respectively.

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Serbia.

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JAШTE, БPATE!

A Belgrade remembrance, more than a week after leaving the Three Black Catz Hostel, heavy hearted, for the second time in six weeks.
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"Do you speak any Serbian?" I get the question a lot when I'm traveling around that country.

The short answer is, "Not really." The honest answer is longer: I do speak some.

I know the numbers, from 1 to 999,999. I can say "What up," and all of the other pleasantries, too. Dragana calls me Bayless Peršun. Zoka taught me how to call an effeminate man a "pile of sticks." And ordering a coffee with milk is easy as pie.

But there's one more sentence I know -- slang from the Deep South of Srbija. And I use it as my answer to the question every single time.

"Jashte, brate!" (YAH-SHTUH, BRAH-TAY)

Sure, bro!

Me saying that to a room full of Belgraders would be like a traveler from Serbia busting out with a "Fo shizzle, my nizzle" at a Greenwich cocktail party.

Gets their attention every time.
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Back when I used to say my prayers every night before going to bed, I always made sure to ask for two things: That I get accepted into Notre Dame, and that the Big Man send a stork my way, loaded with a little brother.

I got in early to UVa and never applied to South Bend. And God never hollered back on the other.

Seven-years-old, with a cowlick. Was I not cute enough?

I mastered the Sign of the Cross, served my time at the altar, had genuflection down, fit into Catholic guilt like a brand new sweater, and did it all without a frown. Was I missing a sacrificial lamb?

Mass with The Bob, front (or back) and center (or in the corner, with all the other families who showed up late) without fail, every Sunday. Did it not count unless I "paid attention"?

There must have been a hanging chad somewhere in the mix, because when The Bob worked his magic for the third straight time with my mom, their newest love child was -- big surprise -- another girl.

What did a brotha have to do to get a goddamn brate round here?

Sixteen years later, I have the alternative answer to adoption:

Just go back to Belgrade, and back to the Three Black Catz.

"Brothers don't shake hands. Brothers gotta hug!"

Pete, Vincent and Kris -- these were my Belgrade brates, if only for two weeks.

And what a two weeks it was. Fo jashte, my nizzle.
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Couldn't be the same if I ever went back. There was no way. That's what I thought, at least, and that's why I originally didn't even include Belgrade into my plans for a return trip to Serbia. Didn't want to tarnish the memories with a flop sequel.

My first time in the White City, I planned on staying for three or four days. Then I found the first place that showed up on www.hostelworld.com, and got sucked in for two weeks. If Elizabeth hadn't made plans to meet me in Istanbul for Thanksgiving, I don't know if I ever would have left. Though I was just a stranger passing through, the Three Black Catz made me feel like I lived in Beograd. Nadine and Carmel became my sisters; Gricko, my cute-as-can-be Japanese house pet; Joe, the crazy cousin in town for a few days; Mladen, my dad; Dragana, my hot babysitter.

For a traveler alone on the road for as long as I had been, a family of any kind is most definitely where the heart will be. My "family," then, was a big reason why Belgrade became Belgrade in my mind.
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"Last time was great," I explained to my new friend Vincent, a crazy, bearded Canadian who had arrived four days before, and was seemingly the king of a pretty sedated castle. "Maybe it's been different for you, but when I was here my first time, it was out of control. Everyone was best friends, everyone went out together, everyone chilled. It was like I had a temporary family, ya know?"

From the looks of it, Vincent hadn't been experiencing the same kind of luck. When I had walked out of the elevator at 11:30, ready to surprise whoever was working that night's shift, the streaking red flashes of the disco ball, visible through the window, prepared me for a continuation of what I had left behind. Expecting to find a new family sitting around the table, laughing, drinking, talking and smoking -- about to go out if they hadn't already -- I opened the door to find something quite different:

A quiet, dark room, with only Mladen, Vincent, and two, uhhh, "Sheeeee's .... nice" types from New Zealand, sitting calmly around the table.

There was no way this could last.

"But I can't get sucked in again, man," I continued. It was now just me and Vincent sitting there. "I don't have time for this 'Black Hole' stuff this time. I came all the way here from Istanbul, through Sofia, and I've only got three weeks before I've gotta back-track that same route to meet my parents and my little sister in Turkey. I want to see as much of the Balkans as I can, man, not just f***in' Belgrade! Ya know?"

By the slightly insane look in his eyes, I could tell that Vincent definitely knew. The hostel may not have looked like much right then, but it was obvious he had already experienced a little taste of what Belgrade had to offer.

Directly above my head, taped to the solid white wall I was leaning against, was the poster Carmel and I had made three weeks prior. I had drawn the block letters: 'Welcome to the One Black Hole Hostel.' My Kiwi sister had put the drawing of a screaming, Jap-afro'd Gricko in the bottom right corner, with the caption: "Sofia! Tomorrow! Yes, Sofia! I be here 17 days!" on it.

It was a foreboding image.
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A black hole exerts a powerful force. Peer pressure, a slightly less powerful one. But together, the tag-team is stronger than anything else that exists in the cosmos.

When I've got three dudes saying "Yeah, right," or, "Just stay one more night," every single time I try to gather to initiative to leave ...

Peer pressure in action: Vincent, who was legitimately sick, trying to "take it easy" for the second night in a row. Kris, who legitimately didn't care, forcing him to take his medicine, and get his ass out with us to Plastic, for what proved to be quite the Grand Finale for our family.

... I end up staying 12 days.

And for the second straight time, I only left because I had to be somewhere. "Leaving after a few nights," my ass.

Welcome to Belgrade, and welcome to the One Black Hole Hostel.

At first, it was just the rookie and I. Then, another first-timer: Kris, from Australia -- 18 and the kid brother. That same night, our quad was completed, when we acquired that veteran player which every group needs so badly: Pete, the "I bring my own tea in my suitcase" Brit from York, who was making his third visit to what was for him, too, a (Balkan) home sweet home.

Our very first night as a complete unit -- along with Dragana, Bane and Alida (a.k.a. "the German girl," if you asked the other three for her name) -- we stayed out until most of Belgrade was taking its third coffee break of the morning. Thank God the six-bed room wasn't housing anyone else at the moment, because after going through about three video takes of Kris giving "Pass Out Pete" the vicious "Morning Slap," we would have had some unhappy family members to deal with the next afternoon.

Come to think of it, though, I don't think there were any other guests in the entire hostel that night. Everyone there was together, as one. And Dragana?

I could be wrong, but I really think she went out with us during her shift.

That is what I'm talking about, people.
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In a word...

Everything about the Three Black Catz's environment can be summed up in a word.

Kitchen: small. Mattresses: lumpy. Prices: low. Water pressure: awful. Privacy: huh? Employees: cool. Cigarette smoke: there. Internet: free. Guests: family. Night: day. Day: night. Bedtime: late. Wakey time: later.

There's always someone to talk to at the big, wooden table that dominates the main room. It's the same table which greets you when you walk in the door of the fourth-floor flat, situated in the center of old Belgrade, just a few minutes walk from the Kalemegdan. The lucky ones -- on their first day -- are serenaded with a "Happy Birthday" song, and given fake names to boot, as soon as they pass under the door frame. The unlucky ones are told that there aren't any rooms available.

And my Lord, is everyone always drinking something, anything, at every second of the day. It's a full time duty if you're sitting at that table. After 6 -- unless you're Pete, in which case there is no way to predict -- it's pivo: Either Jelen, BiP, MB or Nikšičko. Before 6, it's a mug of Turkish coffee, or a cup of tea (both are free).

No matter who is working -- whether it's Mladen, Dragana or Sladja -- one thing is a constant on the television: Veliki Brate, the first ever Serbian "Big Brother." Every day we watched it. Every day I made fun.

"I don't understand who would want to be on this show," I said the first time it was on. Can anyone say Fahrenheit 451? "I mean, they never leave! They NEVER LEAVE. It's like they're prisoners!"

(Turns out that Kris was amongst the final 100 candidates for Australian "Big Brother," but what can you expect from someone with that haircut?)

I never really grasped the irony of my criticisms until after I had left, when I remembered what it was like to go outside before 6 at night.
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That brings us to these two jokers, Pete and Vincent.

Sexy time!

I was taking a break that day from the Three Black Catz routine. My body was hurting. Only tea for me.

Plus, Zoka -- my personal tutor in all things Serbian, from life, to politics, to "chilling" -- was back in town after being home in Jagodina, so we were meeting up at the Trg Republike. So there I was, sitting outside, Zoka late again, when I saw Pete and Vincent emerge onto the wide open plaza next to "the horse."

Vincent, in classic Vincent form, immediately approached the first good-looking girl he saw and switched to guns -- he was too close to her face for missiles.

Pete, in classic Pete form, meandered away from his buddy, in anything but a straight line, and then made eye contact with me. He made his way over to where I was sitting.

They had been drinking rakia alllllll day. Cheap rakia.

"Hey, mate," he said, happy to see a familiar face.

"What are y'all doing?" I asked. And where was Kris?

"Oh, we just needed some fresh air," he said. "Ya know, we've just been stuck in the hostel all day, and it's like you're in this box, you know?" He started to make an imaginary box shape with his hands, and pointed over to where the Three Black Catz was. I was aware of all this, but apparently Pete felt the need to explain it to me. "But I just love Belgrade. I LOVE IT!" He started to do his Pete laugh -- the one that always accompanies his declarations of love for Beograd. "I came here the first time a couple of years ago, and I just stayed until I ran out of money, mate! And this is my third time," he said, holding up three fingers, and looking at them to make sure he was flashing the right amount. "Third time!"

It was at this point that I started to wonder if Pete even knew who he was talking to.

"Nahhh," I thought in my head. "It's just the rakia."

Well, I was right about one thing: It was the rakia. But I was wrong about another.

All of the sudden, Pete's eyes began to focus in on my face. He had been talking to me -- and I listening -- for almost a minute, but he hadn't registered who it was sitting below. Until now.

"Bayless?????" He absolutely could not believe it. "Is that you?"

The man had no idea he had been talking to his brate the entire time. It was incredible.

Zoka showed up about a minute later, and when we started to walk away, towards the Kalemegdan, the scene on the Trg Republike stage was one to remember: Vincent, having creeped out the good-looking Serbian girl to the point of generating a CBR (Casual Boyfriend Reference), now chatting it up with a random Serbian dude; and Pete, right next to Vincent, repeatedly ramming his head into a plexiglass-covered advertisement, for no particular reason.

"Those are the brothers I was telling you about," I said to Zoka, with a touch of amused pride in my voice.
-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Pete was full of good ideas. "Rakia day" was one. Suggesting that he get a little trim the last night, before we went out, was another.

Thank God for Kris.

"I've seen leukemia patients that look better than that!"

Pete had been on a rampage all day. Simply put, he hates leaving Belgrade. ("When I'm in Belgrade," he said about a thousand times that last day, "I really feel like my real self, mate. I DON'T WANNA LEAVE!!!") His first solution was to simply try and drink his woes away.

But his woes only became more pronounced.

So he started to ask me, ask Vincent, ask Kris, Sladja, whoever, if we would "help" him change his flight. By help, he meant he wanted us to contact the airline and do it for him.

"You want to change your flight the day before?" Sladja asked.

"Yeah," he said. "In Britain, you only need three hours."

"Well, that's in a normal country," Sladja, amused, retorted. "This is Serbia."

This back-and-forth went on for about four hours. It was all he could talk about, all the time, his speech getting more slurred, his judgment less coherent.

It was at this point that he brought up getting a hair cut.

It all happened so fast, I didn't really register what had happened ... until I walked into the bathroom.

I'm a fire starter, twisted fire starter!

What you see above looks much better than the scene I first witnessed. Kris realized what a golden opportunity he had been presented with in Pete's moment of weakness, and he wanted to make sure that he capitalized on it. With one stroke of the clippers, without any plastic guard whatsoever, he blazed a trail from ear to ear, making it look like the Brit was wearing a flesh colored head band.

"Leave it like that! Leave it!" we were all yelling.

The damage had been done.

"You got Serrrrbed," I joked with him the next day, after he claims to have woken up, touched his bald pate, rubbed it up and down, and said to himself, "What have I done, mate?" Kris had been "Serbed" just a few days before, when Andrea's brother had given him a Euro-mullet, but this was totally different.

At least Kris' hair was fashionable -- Zoka said she thought he "wore it well." Pete's was just trash, and he knew it.

"I didn't get Serbed, mate," he said, taking it in stride, as he does everything bad that happens to him, like, say, losing his camera, or being the poor victim of a "Morning Slap." "I got screwed."

It goes without saying that Pete canceled his hair cut appointment in York, which was scheduled for three days later.
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Pete left that afternoon.

"The team's falling apart, man," Vincent said. I couldn't have said it any better. It was time to go.

He and I left the next day, following Mladen to the southeastern town of Vranje, where we were guests at his family's Slava celebration (think Serbian Orthodox Thanksgiving). Kris, the kid brother, was the only one left. For the second time in six weeks, a family of mine had been broken up.

Was I sad? Jashte, brate. But a week later, I read something that lifted my spirits a bit.

I was having a coffee -- one that was not free, like it is at the Three Black Catz -- at the bus station in Niš. I was leaving for Sofia in 15 minutes. When I got on that bus, my three-week jaunt back into the Balkans would come to a close. I had only managed to free myself from Belgrade's grips for seven of those days, and had never even made it out of Serbia. It was 4:45, and the sun had almost set.

That's when I got a message on my phone.

I flipped it open. It was from Mladen.

Kris just wake up. Hello from us.

I smiled.

Kris was still there, running on three weeks. That was longer than I had ever stayed. The kid brother, the rookie, had been sucked into the Black Hole, too. Just like his brothers.

Birds of a feather.

Jashte, brate.

Since I returned to Serbia -- two weeks at the Black Hole in Belgrade, followed by a whirlwind tour of "Old Serbia" (a.k.a. the south) -- my life has been a whirlwind. But if you went by my blog, that would be the last thing you'd think.

It's not because I'm lacking in stories. I'm not. At all.

It's because of how crazy this country is, and how much I love it.

Warts and all.

Belgrade -- enough said. Then to Mladen's family Slava (think Serbian Orthodox Thanksgiving) in Vranje -- hilarious story from that one. Catching a ride with Mladen's relative to his home in the Serbian sector of Kosovo -- think car problems, hidden cameras and all around sketchiness. On to Sjenica, the "Serbian Siberia" -- did you know there are Muslims in Serbia? And now, Nova Varos, where my stomach has been on the verge of exploding for three days, thanks to Zivko's mother.

The problem with travel blogs is that when you've got the time and the energy to write, you don't have the stories to entertain. And when you've got the stories, the last thing you've got is the time -- nevermind the energy.

I promise, once this dies down, all will be recorded in full.

But don't hold your breath.

Merry Christmas.

Trg Republike.


"Meet me at the horse." That's the standard line when you meet people in this city.


Seeing as I'm a Parsley -- a family in which the "P" stands for "perpetually late" -- that's a very good thing.


"The horse" is about a 90 second from my Balkan home sweet home, the Three Black Catz.


When speaking Borat with my brothers, I believe this situation would warrant a "very nice, how much?" -- most likely from Vincent, who loves that line above all other Borat lines.


There's nothing like the pearly white smile of a war criminal running for office in Serbia to brighten my day.

You got Serrrrrrrrrbed!

When I'm old and gray, and thinking back on my time as a spry youth, galavanting around Belgrade, I will always remember one Three Black Catz neighbor above the rest: Andrea.

A lot of that has to do with the scene I witnessed Friday night, when my brothers and I visited him at work -- a club called Sargon, which was nearly empty at the time. We knew we would be greeted with a hailstorm of "Sexy times!" And we weren't disappointed. We hoped for some free drinks. Again, we were not disappointed. But we didn't expect Andrea, the club's manager, to take his shirt off, run around dancing on top of tables and bars, ignite hair spray blow torches and break perfectly good glasses for no good reason. That, that was just an unexpected treat. Sexy time!

But the main reason I will never forget Andrea isn't because of his Borat impersonations and obsession with his own muscles. I will always remember Andrea because of his hair.


It is a work of art.

With the braids in back, he has taken the Euro mullet to a whole new level. And though it's not very visible in the picture above, Andrea also rocks the Michael Irvin lines-in-the-side look.

And then there is Kris, 18 and on gap year from Down Under, the kid brother of the group.


This is Kris as he appeared when I first met him.

This is how Kris decided he wanted to look after a week of chilling with Andrea.



Si, claro, Kris said. And off he went to Andrea's brother's salon, where he paid less than half price to be remade in Andrea's image.

And just like that, Kris had been initiated into the world of Euroness.


When I walked in the room that night, my mouth dropped. Then I started to spasm in laughter , as I fell backwards into the door.

"I got Serbed," Kris said in his Aussie accent.

Indeed he did. Indeed he did.

"My name a Borat. I like you. I like sex."
-the opening lines to, "Borat," the funniest movie of the year.


During my first tour of Belgrade -- before I had fully realized what a black hole the Three Black Catz really is -- Dragana took a group from the hostel to see the new movie "Borat." I started to laugh before the opening credits began to roll, and didn't stop laughing until long after we had left the theater.

Then, there was Carmel.

"I didn't think it was funny at all," she said from her seat in front of the broken mirror. "I just don't find humor in other people's misfortunes."

"Really?" I wasn't sure I understood what she meant. Doesn't ... like ... Borat?? Impossible. "That's strange, because I think other people's misfortunes are incredibly funny."

They are. Anyone who denies it is in denial. Carmel, for example.

Judging by the tone of her voice, though, I could see it was stupid to try and convince her.

"I guess we just have different sense of humor," I said, extending the olive branch.

She refused it.

"It's not that they're different," my Kiwi surrogate sister said. "I just think that my sense of humor is higher than yours."

Anyone who knows me knows how I took that comment.

Carmel later retracted her statement -- not because she ever really grasped Borat's genius, but more due to my pit bull-like ability to not let things drop. I continued to make Borat references at every possible moment, and Carmel continued to not find them funny.

If only she had been here with me this time.
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I have now had two surrogate families in my two stays at the Three Black Catz, a place that has sucked me into its black hole both times. The families have been similar, but there is one glaring difference:

In this group, no one has a higher sense of humor than me. That's because Borat is a god.
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This is an inside joke that cannot be explained in words. If you haven't seen the movie, or Da Ali G Show, just stop reading. You won't get it.

But if you understand the brilliance of what Borat represents, I have only one thing to say.

Niiiiiiiiiiiice.

All four of us -- Kris, Vincent, Peter and I -- speak English. But we also speak Borat. Fluently.

When good things happen, it is a "great success." When a hot girl is spotted, it is "very nice, how much?" Any pause in any conversation is broken with, "in my country there is problem..." "My brother Bilo" is the imaginary fifth brother to our family. You'd think that all four of us were widowers, since we always lament that "my wife, she dead." I say lament; I should say "celebrate," since that statement is always followed by "high five!"

And of course, there's the bread and butter: "Sexy time!"
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------
I never thought I'd actually be able to use any of the lines in a conversation with someone who didn't understand. Then we met this Belgrade homeless guy.


He spoke some English, but not much. That didn't stop him from trying to talk to Vincent and I, as we walked with him in the cold to buy a 2 liter bottle of pivo.

"My wife," he said, flanked on both sides by two new friends. "My wife ... my wife...." He was struggling to continue the sentence, so I helped him find the words.

"Your wife is dead??"

"Yes!" he said, pretending that's what he was trying to say, though it was obvious he didn't get it. "My wife is dead."

Vincent took my alley-oop lob and slammed it home.

"High five!"

I don't think I can describe to you how funny it was to see this homeless man enthusiastically dishing out a pair of high fives. Incredible.
----------------------------------------------------------------------------
Then there is Andrea, one of the Serbian neighbors who chills at the Three Black Catz full time.

Andrea, too, loves Borat. It goes without saying that he has had a great time in our company the past ten days or so.

"Sexy time, sexy time," he says out the blue -- all the time -- in his Serbian accent. "I am from Kazakhstan! I like sex!"

Andrea's English isn't as good as Mladen's or Dragana's, but it doesn't matter. He can communicate with us in another language.


The language of Borat.

"Sexy time!"

Which brings us to the following MySpace photo of another neighbor that spends time at the Three Black Catz. I felt the need to make it the desktop background on the hostel's communal PC.


"Sexy time!"

And when I come home to find Kris in a private moment? I don't say "Sorry, excuse me."


I communicate in Borat. "Sexy time!"

All I want for Christmas is that the Orthodox world celebrate it on the same day as us!


January 7? Really? This is definitely messing with my holiday spirit.

I guess I made my own bed. Already in love with Istanbul before I had laid eyes on her, I just assumed it would draw me in like a magnet, and I planned accordingly. Thanksgiving, Elizabeth. Just after Christmas, the rest of the family. That would give me a minimum of six weeks in Turkey, either to find work in Istanbul or travel around the rest of Anatolia.

I made those plans months ago. Never in a million years would I have guessed that I'd be sitting here, in the capital of Serbia, in the middle of December.

Hell, I was supposed to be in Syria by the end of September.


All the matters now is this: What am I supposed to do when my Christmas comes around? I have to be back in Istanbul two days after, and I'm not trying to be in a Muslim country on December 25. So what are my options?

Croatia is way too far. Serbia is out. The eastern part of Bosnia is called Republika Srpska - that's out. Macedonia - no. Montenegro - no. Bulgaria - no. Romania - no. Greece - no.

Ba humbug.


Clearly, no one took my travel plans into consideration when they were fixing their calendars last millenium.


It's nice that there are lights up and all. 'Tis still the season, and without them, I'm not sure I'd find much to be cheerful about when the Spanish Armada of kitchen knives known as Serbian December air is ripping through my clothes. But it's not the same.


I guess I'll just have to find a new date for Christmas, as a compromise between Western and Eastern Christianity.

December 27 it is.

Belgrade Basketball.

From helping lead the Cinderella of college basketball in my lifetime -- George Mason -- into the Final Four last April, to playing at Belgrade's Red Star arena while suited up for Split (Croatia) in December. And he gets benched midway through the third quarter, because his Croatian team is getting run, and it's point guard is not not helping much.

We call that a fall from grace back in the land where basketball was invented.

Congratulations, Tony Skinn. And God speed on your journey through life in basketball after your One Shining Moment last spring.


Did anyone else see highlights of the mayhem that broke out the last time Red Star's basketball club played, just a few days before the Split game? Six fans were reportedly injured in a riot between fans of KK Crvena Zvezda (Red Star), and the supporters of Crvena Zvezda's biggest Belgrade rival, Partizan. This went on in the stands, with riot police helpless to stop the fighting for several minutes.

The only thing that didn't add up was that Red Star wasn't actually playing Partizan. They were playing a Greek team, PAOK Thessaolonik. The Partizan fans -- who hate Red Star, though both names are loaded with connotations of a Communist past -- have an "alliance" with PAOK's fans, just as Red Star supporters maintain one with PAOK's hated enemy: ... damn I should have written the name of that team down. Let's just go with Olympiakos*, since it's the one that is resonating the most clearly.

Olympiakos* plays Partizan in Belgrade? Red Star fans come to start a brawl. Red Star plays PAOK in Greece? Olympiakos* fans go to start a brawl. Partizan heads down there to play Olympiakos*? PAOK fans are the proxy warriors. And PAOK plays Red Star in Belgrade? Just click on the link above, and you'll see what happens.


As intense as derbies are, the four of us -- Kris, Vincent, Pete and I -- all knew that the potential for something even crazier to go down this time around was definitely there: For whatever reason -- like, say, a war in the last decade or something -- people from Split and people from Belgrade don't really see eye to eye on a lot of things.

When we arrived a little late for the official 16:30 tip-off, we all worried that we might be missing all the action. That is, of course, until we walked into a near-empty house.

"Is this even Red Star?" one of my new Three Black Catz friends asked out loud. There didn't appear to be any red in our midst.

"It might explain why our tickets are blue and say 'OKK' on them."

"Yeah, but look, they also have the years 2002-2003 printed on them."

"And the Internet said, 16:30, Split-Red Star."

"Yeah, and like six people have told us that this is Red Star's arena."

Everything was just a big heap of confusion. It was classic Balkans.

"I love this place," I said. Just classic.

It was only after a few minutes -- and after a glance at the scoreboard -- that we registered what we were actually watching: A game between Belgrade's OKK and a club from northern Serbia's Vojvodina region, Novi Sad.

It was worse than JV. I've seen more exciting scrimmages at Strake freshmen B team practice.

But wait.

"Red Star starts at 8:30," a security guard interested in why there were four foreigners at a Belgrade basketball game told us. "There are two games. After this one, everyone must leave, and buy a new ticket if they want to get back in." That was no problem, seeing as we had paid about $2 to enter the first one.

I looked around the circle.

"You guys trying to do a double header?"

"I don't know, the German girl is waiting for us back at the hostel, she may be mad." (Vincent still calls Alida "the German girl," since he somehow never picked up on her name, despite going out with her all night after getting back from the double header, and then laying on top of her in bed and tickling her for about an hour once we got back from going out).

"Yeah, but I definitely want to see a game between Split and Red Star," someone else said. "You know it would be crazy."

A dramatic pause.

"Let's go get some beer."

-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

A blood feud between rabid Croatian nationalists and equally-rabid Greater Serbians was what I had envisioned going down when I first found out what game was scheduled for last Saturday. And I'm not gonna lie -- I was kind of excited for the cultural experience.

"Oh, you like that? That kind of stuff gets you off?" Dragana had mocked.

"Yes, Dragana. It does."

My response, of course, was conditional upon not having to be included in the blood feud.

I'm not a fighting man, after all. And being raised Catholic, but going to a game in an Orthodox country, the prospect of having to pick sides in a riot between Splitchani (Rome) and Belgraders (Byzantium) was not appealing.

Well, you will never guess what happened.


Absolutely nothing.

Even the Serbians who love their country so much that they feel compelled to bring a Serbian flag to a pro basketball game couldn't get amped for a showdown with a team from Croatia.

In fact, is that man sleeping?


"oooooOOOOOOhhhh!! .... ooooOOOohh!.......... ooOOh .... ... .. oOh, man what happened to all the people?"


The answer is that Red Star-Split fizzled, to say the least.

"If the Croatian fans come," the security guard had warned before we dipped out for those beers, "then there will be big trouble.

"But if they don't..." He shrugged his shoulders. "If they don't come, then it will be only Red Star fans, and there will be no trouble."

The Croatians did not come. During that second game -- unlike how it looked the first time -- only red was in our midst.

"What was all that talk of 'sold out,' then?" Kris asked, seeing that this game wasn't much livelier than the first. We had bargained our way down from 1,200 dinars for four seats to a whopping 1,000 for the lot -- or about four dollars a ticket -- from a scalper outside the door. No ticket windows had been open, after all, and everyone we asked had said the same thing about "billets": "Nema, nema!"

A ticket for a game in December 2006 having the numbers "2002-2003" printed on it; a menu that lists prices for pljeskavica -- essentially Serbian hamburgers -- in asCENDING-descending order (small, large, medium); a flier for a Liberal Party rally telling people to come on Monday, December 12, 2006 (a day that never existed):

These are all things I love about the Balkans.

And then, having to scalp tickets to a game that is not just not sold out, but is actually less than 40 percent filled to capacity.

Absolutely classic.

--------------------------------------------------------------------------

Split didn't just lose; Split got embarrassed. It was never even close. Skinn was the only highlight for me, and even he didn't really show me anything. It was just cool to be watching him play for a team so far removed from the glamour of last year's March Madness.

There was one thing, though, that came as a pleasant surprise:

Yet another Balkan moment.

"Oh my God," Vincent said. He fumbled to get his camera out of the case. "Have you seen which fingers the ref's hold up when someone shoots a three?"

I held up my pinkie, ring finger and middle one, and looked down at how ref's do it back home. "It's not like this?"

"No, dude. They hold up the freaking Serbian three-finger thing."

I wouldn't believe it.

"Are you sure? There's no way all of the referees do that; it's probably just the one guy."

But then I saw a Red Star guard jack a three, and up the nationalist gang signs went, from both ref's. If you have ever seen an Orthodox Christian cross himself, you may have noticed that he uses only three fingers -- the thumb, pointer and middle ones, touched together -- every time. It is the only explanation for the origin of this Greater Serbian hand symbol: The sort of gun-plus-the bird combination that is known by all in the Balkans as a sure sign that you are a Serbian nationalist.

And it wasn't just on that shot. From both ref's, they continued to be hoisted into the air, over and over and over again.

Vincent never got a clear photo. He still complains about it, four days later.

"Do you think that was intentional?" I asked one of my best Serbian friends, Zoka, when I saw her again for the first time since coming back. "Do you think those ref's did that just because they knew a team from Croatia was in town -- kind of some subtle signs to let 'em know they're not wanted?" Of course I didn't think this was true -- my questions were all tongue-in-cheek -- but I mean, what if??

Zoka -- who has taught me more about life in Serbia than anyone else, and who serves as my No. 1 sounding board for any questions or observations I have about this country -- just shook her head.

"This is Serbia," she said. "You never know."

We both started to crack up.

"Really," she said, "you never know."

Classic Balkans.

Hate Ya, (Navy) Blue

VINSANITY !

I don't know if I've read a better story about the decision not to draft Vince Young.

Three-hundred and four yards combined passing and throwing. A 39-yard touchdown run up the middle to win it in overtime. And our own fans cheering loudly.

At least Rice and UH are good at football.

Mr. McNair, it's like, what are you doing? As crazy as it was to comprehend that a team called the Texans would pass on a once-in-a-lifetime talent whose last name was Bush, it was even more impossible to grasp passing on another once-in-a-lifetimer ... who grew up wearing Oiler Blue for a high school a stone's throw from Reliant Stadium, and proceeded to lead a team called Texas to a national title four years later.

I was at the Rose Bowl last year. The Bob and I were sitting directly in line with -- albeit many rows up from -- the goal line that VY crossed over to win the game on 4th down. I celebrated that night not just for what had happened to my mother's alma mater (and my adopted alma mater, since UVa is so good at sports), but for what was to come in the future for the NFL's importance in Houston.

If not Bush, then Vince.

If not Vince, then Bush.

If neither, then Ralph Nader. Or worse: Mario Williams.

Hey, I'm not a football guy. I watch it; I love it; I don't know all there is to know about it.

But I do know this: I was the football reporter for the Cavalier Daily last season, Mario William's final year in the ACC. Virginia is also in the ACC -- and I barely remembered who the guy was when I first started to hear these jokes being made on the news about him. Like the one where it said Charlie Casserly had entered into serious negotiations with the former NC State defensive end, trying to hammer out a contract before formally announcing their pick.

Maybe just asking me what I thought about taking Williams would have told the geniuses running our team something about their decision-making skills.

Thank God we have David Carr.

The sky in Belgrade is at its most beautiful shade of blue just before the sun rises.


Which, of course, is the only reason for staying up so late.


That, and the fact that in a six-bed dorm room, if the rest of your roomates are staying up until 8, you don't have much of a choice in the matter.


"You know this is a parallel universe, right?"


"But I love it!" Pete says in response. "Serbia is a leash around my neck!"

And though its invisible, you can sure see what that noose does -- every single night almost -- to good ole Pete.


It sets him up perfectly for a starring role in Kris' famous exhibitions of "The Morning Slap." Pete is the perfect man for this slot, since he only wakes up for about a second after getting a good smack, mumbles something about his eyes stinging, and promptly falls back to sleep, ready for another take.

You should be able to find it on YouTube any day now.

Beograd.


It's fitting that I saw Tony Skinn play the day after seeing this painting, for his new team Split.


My home sweet home street.


One of the mythical three black cats.


The two best beers in Belgrade.

During the war, Serbia didn't suffer from mere inflation.

It suffered from hyperinflation.

I can't tell you how many stories I've heard about what it was like back then. Zivko and his friend once combined two paychecks from their parents ... and weren't able to buy a pack of cigarettes. Dragana's mother took a bus a couple of kilometers away with enough money in her pocket for the return fare. Or so she thought. One day later, the driver almost kicked her off when she tried to get home.


If you didn't spend your money the day you got it, it would be rendered worthless by the next. Notes began to have more zeroes running across them than an Astros box score -- on a day that Roger Clemens takes the mound. Sometimes stores had food; a lot of the times, they didn't. Deutsch marks began to be more valuable than gold. People who had hoarded stores of those before the Serbian economy went to hell were the lucky ones. They didn't have to go through the ordeal of changing their next-to-worthless dinars on the black market, from some shady Serbian dude working from a wooden table on the street.


Of course, it's funny now. Dinars aren't going to knock the British pound off its perch anytime soon, but you can put a note in your pocket, fall asleep, and still be able to buy milk and bread (and cigarettes) with it the next morning.


And the irony. Oh, sweet irony. Those next-to-worthless hyperinflation notes? Some stupid tourists pay upwards of 15 euros for them. Smarter ones pay four or five. And the brilliant ones?

They just ask Dragana to give them one.


"Five hundred BILLION dinars!"

I actually pocketed the 50 billion bill, not the 500. With Dragana telling me to just take whichever one I wanted, there was no way I was going to be "that guy" who takes the biggest piece of cake, or the nacho with all the jalapeños on it. Ten minutes after making my selection, I found myself in line at the supermarket down the street. I had forgotten all about what was in my pocket, mixed around among the real dinars, that you can actually use today.

When I pulled out the big boy -- which actually felt more like wax paper than money -- I briefly considered handing it to the cashier.

Then I started to crack up, and I scrapped the idea.

But man, would it have been funny.

Why are Cyrillic letters so cool?



And why are they selling bottles called "Alkohol" -- bottles that are 96% of what they're named after -- in the section alongside drinkable stuff? Vincent, Pete, Kris and I made a pit stop here between games in our Belgrade basketball double-header the other day, and spent about five minutes deliberating over whether this one was the winner. That was before we saw the number '96.'


"'Alkohol?' What does that mean, exactly? Do you think we can actually drink this?"

"I don't know, I'm sure we can. It's next to all the other stuff."

"Well it costs less than $3. I like it."

It was at this point that we decided to ask the cashier, using mime language, what he thought.

"Nema, nema," the old man said, shaking his head and his finger.

That was when we saw the number '96.'

We didn't buy it.


Soon to be Dr. Pigneri to you folks. But I will always call him pigqqhheeeeeeeaaaaaadddddddd!!



As if the different alphabets weren't confusing enough. Do we really have to have two different street signs for the same road?

Back to Belgrade, baby.
And back to the Three Black Catz, my (Balkan) home sweet home.


...It's plain to see that it's never gonna be the same... Those are some of the words to what was the song of my final semester at Virginia. The song in Chase's car, at least. Not too many people own the "Conscious Decisions II" CD besides me and my friends.

To and fro Little League practices and games in that white Explorer, the two of us probably listened to it over 8,000 times. Hunter heard it just as much on his iPod, where "Conscious Decisions II" was listed as "Conscious Dub." As for the rest of the guys, almost all of them were fluent in the lyrics by graduation, simply by being forced to listen to it over and over again, in the same way that many Guantánamo /gwɑnˈtɑnəˌmoʊ; Sp. gwɑnˈtɑnɑˌmɔ/ Pronunciation Key - Show Spelled PronunciationBay inmates are as familiar with Metallica's "Black Album" as they are with the suras of the Koran.

In those days, of course, I thought Sean Paul (who I usually hate, I swear) was speaking directly to me, and directly to us. He just wanted to make sure that we were conscious of the fact that the next few months in Charlottesville would be times that, once they had passed, could never be replicated. Hairs which stood at attention on the back of my neck each and every time I listened to the reminder showed that I had taken his words to heart.

Those hairs showed that I was conscious of a fact that was plain to see: That it was never gonna be the same.

Things never are really the same when you try to replicate them, are they?

That's what I was worried about in coming back to Belgrade. When I left this city, three weeks ago, I went out on top. Every night had been a good one; every encounter (except for the one with the fascist Serbian cops) a positive one. I had made truck loads of Serbian friends. I had my own little family at the hostel. Finally, I had a one-word answer for that oh-so-popular, yet oh-so-difficult question, "What's been your favorite place so far?" Thirty minutes after getting off the train in Sofia, after a night of traveling away from the White City, it was no coincidence that the reggae party flier I picked up off the sidewalk had only two words printed on the back: POSITIVE VIBRATIONS! Still daydreaming about what I had left behind, positive vibrations were the only things emanating from my corpus on that Bulgarian street.

Coming back, though, meant risking that the next time I go through Sofia en route to Istanbul (I have to meet The Bob, Mamalou and Garland there on Dec. 27), I would no longer harbor the same types of warm feelings towards Beograd. Just ask Macaulay Culkin about sequels and their ability to disappoint.

The first Wilderness Ventures trip I took -- backpacking, kayaking and canoing around Washington state in the summer of 1999 -- remains one of the greatest months of my entire life, over seven years later. My second WV trip -- a month of backpacking and rock climbing in Wyoming the next year -- remains one of the worst. That is because I was constantly comparing that trip to the first one, trying to reproduce an experience which could not be replicated. Beograd Part Deux: Would it be MJ with three rings, coming back to Chicago? Or MJ with six, switching jerseys and moving to D.C.?

Michael proved that if you squeeze something hard enough, you can bring it back to life, or you could crush it.

So far, with four nights under my belt, I have brought my memory of Belgrade back to life.


There are some old characters, but mostly new. Dragana -- the longest-serving employee at the Three Black Catz, and pictured above -- has been around, partying hard; but Mladen -- the owner -- has been in Budapest since the day after I arrived, "selling Serbian magazines to Serbian people." When I walked in the door Wednesday night, hoping to surprise someone that I knew from the hostel, Mladen was the first face I saw. And his reaction was just as I had hoped it would be.

The lights from the disco ball illuminating the dark room with a carousel of white spots, Mladen, drunk and holding a burning cigarette, almost started to laugh.

"Could it be?" the "Braveheart" extra asked, in mock disbelief. "Or have I had too much to drink?"

I smiled, as I stood in the doorway, both my bags still strapped to my body.

"Looks like it could be both, man."

A bear hug -- always a little difficult to pull off when I'm wearing backpacks on front and back -- ensued.

"Sooo, I'm taking it you've been here before?" one of the new characters asked.

"Good guess," I said to my new friend. Back at last, in my (Balkan) home sweet home.

The first guy I met was a Quebecker (I am sure you can't write it that way, but who's going to stop me? You and what editor?) named Vincent. Vincent is insane.

Just scroll up, and I am sure you will be able to tell which one he is.

The Quebecker and I have many things in common. One is that we have experience getting sucked into the One Black Hole that is the Three Black Catz. Another is a shared dream of opening a hostel of our own some day, whenever we go home and get semi-settled down.

Vincent plans to open up shop in Quebec City. Austin, Texas is calling my name. In two countries that don't have the same backpacking culture as Europe, demand would obviously be a problem. But if you ask Dragana, so would all the hard work that is entailed.


Right.

"I know it looks easy, but it really is a hard job," she claims from her prostrate position on the bench in the Three Black Catz's common room.

"Dragana." I look at Vincent, and then back at her. "You're getting paid as we speak."

"But it's not a lot of money." True. "And it's not as easy as you think." Also true.

It clearly isn't easiest job in the world. Working a 24-hour shift, not being able to sleep, having to deal with sketchy German dudes who show up at 5 a.m. and demand that you change a 50 euro note into dinars since he would have to take a cab to a hostel with rooms available, having to clean up vomit, having to talk to people who often times just aren't interesting or nice ... there are downsides to a permanent Three Black Catz existence.

But there are downsides to every job. That's the nature of the beast. But working here? It's like, you also get paid to just chill for a good portion of the day. Sign me up, baby.

(As I write this, Dragana is drinking beers with us -- something Mladen has turned into a nightly ritual).


I said last time that Belgrade is bad for my health.


I'm still singing that tune, and I'm sure that my new Catz who went out with me and Dragana would agree.

Bad for my health because 3 a.m. is as ridiculous a bed time as 8:30 was when I was in 3rd grade (8:30?? Really, Mom and Dad? No wonder I used to wake you up in bed every morning with cold feet and ask "What happened in the Astros game last night?"). In Belgrade, sleep is something that happens during the day. Breathing fresh air, that happens at night.

I learned that lesson, sometimes painfully, my first time around in Beograd. As for risking a disappointing sequel?

I don't think I have had as much fun as I had last night -- and this morning -- in recent memory.

"I can feel it, Pete," I said to a fellow Three Black Catz veteran tonight. I made a big suction noise with my mouth, as my arms pulled imaginary matter -- including light itself -- into an imaginary black hole. "I can feel myself getting sucked in again!"

Pete was sitting directly underneath the poster board I made with Carmel the last time: Welcome to the ONE BLACK HOLE HOSTEL, I had written, with my Kiwi sister drawing three black cats below the block letters, alongside a portrait of Gricko's face saying, "I be here 17 days!" and "Tomorrow! Sofia! Tomorrow! Yes, Sofia!"

Pete showed up my second or third night back -- details of what happens on what day are inevitably sucked into the hole, so I can't remember exactly. His return was also a surprise visit; but this time, it was Dragana who did a double take in the presence of a friendly face, not Mladen. Her reaction, which consisted of a wide-open mouth, bugged-out eyes, a scream, a rush for the door and an embrace of the new visitor, told me all I needed to know: Pete and I are birds of a feather.

Big surprise that we became fast friends.

"So how many times have you stayed here?" I asked tonight.

"This is my third," came the answer, in a quintessential Yorkshire accent.

"And how long did you plan on staying your first time?"

"I meant to be here for two days, but I stayed three, three and a half weeks." The pause that came after three, I expected to be followed with the word "day." "I just couldn't leave, you know?" Oh, did I. "I had been over all of Europe, and then I stopped traveling," he said with emphasis on the last two words. "I just stopped. I got to Belgrade, and I didn't want to leave. One day, I went to the cash machine, and I didn't have any money left. I was like 'F***! I've gotta go home now, I guess.' That's the only reason I left, mate. Otherwise, I don't know if I would have ever left."

Pete's second trip here also eclipsed the three-week point.

We talked about what it is that draws us to this place; neither of us could put a finger on it. I did meet one other traveler in Istanbul who had stayed here; he didn't get sucked into the Black Hole. Didn't even really get to know Mladen, nevermind Dragana. And I felt sorry for him.

"This place doesn't have anything special," Pete said in trying to find an answer to my question. Why? Why can't some people leave this place? "It's just the feel."

The scene going on around me right now may give a peek into the feel Pete and I both know and love so much. It is classic Three Black Catz. Disco ball spinning, music playing, beer being drunk, cards played, Bayless posting blog entries, Mladen milling about, with some sort of Boo Boo Drew type project involving electronic gadgets. English predominates; Serbian is interspersed here and there between employees and neighbors who are constantly stopping by. Pete is talking on Skype to his friend from America, who he met during his first stay at this place. They both came meaning to stay a few days; both stayed almost a month.

"I was just talking to my new friend from America," I overheard Pete say into the mike. "He totally understands. Meant to stay a few days, stayed here for God knows how long. It's just something about this place, right?" The nameless face was taking it all in, from some far off computer chair, and just smiling. Birds of a feather. He understood what Pete was talking about.

This place is special. I doubt it could be replicated, either by me or by Vincent, should we ever follow through on our talk of opening hostels of our own someday. But who knows? I doubted my memory of Belgrade could be replicated; so far, those doubts have yet to be confirmed.

"Where would you open up your own place again?" Vincent asked from his perch next to the broken mirror behind the common room's wooden table.

"Austin, Texas, baby!" I said in a Vince Young imitation.

"Are there travelers there?" he asked. I pondered my reply.

"If you build it, they will come," I said.

"That's the attitude I like to hear!"

"I'll name it 'Field of Dreams,'" I said on the spot. I smiled. What if? "And you? What would the name be?"

"The Four Black Catz," Vincent answered. "For sure."

What does Sean Paul know, anyway? Who says it's never gonna be the same?

Balkan Babylon.

Sinbad must not know anything about the former Yugoslavia.

I'm going back to Belgrade, after less than three weeks of being away -- and less than one week after saying that I wouldn't be back for a while, since it would be too easy to return to what I know so well, and like so much.

Call me a hypocrite. I won't try to defend myself.

It started November 28. I was having a Turkish tea, sitting in a nice, well-heated cafe in Istanbul. Not a care in the world. Checking my emails. Reading the headlines on espn.com. Chatting with my Catholic friends on gmail about the pope's visit. And then, I decided to skim the latest analyses posted online by my former employer.

It was then that I began to feel sick to my stomach.

Kosovo: The Next Yugoslav War, a headline read, halfway down the page. I read the story.
And the sick feeling turned into a ... feeling. A force that was propelling me, towards somewhere in the distance, back to a place which I knew so well, yet would never really know. A place from which I never wanted to leave in the first place, and where nothing is really as it seems.

You've got to go back to the Balkans, while you still have time, it told me. Back to the Balkan Babylon.

The Bob, my mom and Garland would be in Istanbul two days after Christmas. That would give me a few weeks to jaunt back to the former Yugoslavia for a quick trip, I calculated in my head.

And just like that, my mind was made up.

I actually didn't even include Belgrade in my initial plans. I didn't rule it out, but I didn't sketch it in with a Sharpie, either. There was so much more of Serbia that I had made such big plans months ago to see, and those plans had been derailed by The Black Hole that is that Three Black Catz. It was the Balkans in general that my internal compass was turning back towards.

Now was my chance to venture into the countryside, and see "Old Serbia," where the nation's true colors could be found. Perhaps I could see the interior of Montenegro as well, and get to know the world's newest nation in an environment that doesn't cater to beach-loving tourists. And of course, my beloved Bosnia -- I hadn't gone farther east than Sarajevo my first time, and there remained so many small towns and villages that had never really stopped calling my name.

But in the leadoff spot, I chose Nova Varoš, Serbian for "New York." Prague-Budapest-Belgrade-Sofia-Istanbul had been a continuous chain of concrete jungles, and my urban stress level was getting into the red. Zivko, my boy from the Three Black Catz, had always said I'd have a place to crash if I came to his nature reserve in the south of Serbia, and after almost two weeks in a city of 15 million busy Turks, that option was sounding mighty attractive to me. The lure of being able to breathe -- away from skyscrapers, car horns, jam-packed metro cars and kebap shops -- was why I decided to make a bee line for Nova Varoš.

But to get to Nova Varoš, "the real New York," I've got to go through Beograd.

My father spent time in Saigon during the eye of the storm, as a tourist on an East Asian tour in the summer of 1975. He always marvels at how crazy it was that he was there before it all went to hell. I myself wonder how I will look back on this trip to the Balkans. I say that I wonder; what I really mean is that I obsess over it. It has consumed my thoughts since I read that piece. Are we living in the eye of the storm right now? Or am I being alarmist?

I pray for the latter.

Let me explain why.

The 1995 Dayton Accords ended the war in Bosnia-Hercegovina, but never really answered the Bosnian Question. Guided by Richard Holbrooke, the leaders of the warring factions came to an agreement that put the country back together again ... but with Band Aids, not Super Glue.
A single government operates today out of Sarajevo. It has a parliament; it has a rotating, tripartite presidency with one representative from each ethnic block, Muslims (Bosniaks), Catholics (Croats) and Orthodox (Serbs); and it has little to no true authority. The country's real power lies in the two mini-state governments which exist within a "unified" Bosnia-Hercegovina. The Bosniaks and Croats live together, in the Muslim-Croat Federation, united merely to balance to power of the common enemy, the Bosnian Serbs. And that common enemy? They live in Republika Srpska (RS), which is technically part of Bosnia-Hercegovina, but feels far from it. One country, two entities, and three people taking turns at being president.

One, two, three is not always easy as A, B, C.

Ask someone on the streets of Trebinje, or Banja Luka, what their nationality is, and they won't get teary-eyed about it; they'll just tell you: "I am from Republika Srpska." Ask a Muslim in Sarajevo the nationality of those same people on the streets of Trebinje and Banja Luka, and they'll get annoyed: "They are Bosnian." A Croat in Mostar? Sure, they're "with" the Bosniaks, but let's just say a good Catholic in Bosnia won't be seen at the movies on Friday with anyone named Hasan.

The country is a mess waiting to happen.

And that is because of what is scheduled for 2007: The departure of UN oversight, the complete handover of power to Sarajevo, and the attempt to dissolve the two mini-state governments. The Serbs aren't trying to have that happen, and will be ready to do something about it.

Then there's the issue of Kosovar independence, something I know far less about, since I have not spent any time in the UN-administered "birthplace of the Serbian people," but a controversy that is making the prospect of violence appear much more immediate. I do know this much: 1) The international community is not on the fence about whether or not Kosovo belongs to Serbia; it doesn't, in the world's eyes. 2) Kosovo's outright independence -- meaning its release from UN administration -- is not a question of "if," but "when."

And the "when" was why my stomach was telling me to go back to the Balkans while I still have time.

The day before I arrived in Belgrade, a new Serbian constitution was passed to replace the old one, which had been rendered invalid just last May, with the secession of Montenegro from the nation. The constitution vote was seen simply as a referendum on a simple question: Is Kosovo part of Serbia, or isn't it? By a slim majority, the answer was yes, it is. Toothless, but ominous.

Ominous because of what happens on January 21.

That is the date scheduled for the next national elections in Serbia. Once again, it is not an "if" question. It is "by how much" that keeps my mind racing.

By how much will the Serbian Radical Party -- a group even Milosevic considered to be too extreme -- win next month? An outright majority, by a friend's calculations, would mean an 80% chance of war in Bosnia, either due to "Serbian cockiness," or Bosnian Serb attempts to leave the currently "unified" nation as a reaction to the Kosovo issue. The UN has already agreed to push back granting independence to the ethnic Albanians living there until after the Jan. 21 elections -- a futile attempt to avoid fueling nationalist fervor in the Serbian electorate -- but a sleight of hand isn't enough to conceal a white elephant of this size. Its trunk, its ivory tusks, and the rest of the thing will be clearly visible, covered by a baby blue UN flag.

The only hope, at this point, is that the Radicals don't win by enough to form the majority. War would likely be averted if that happens. Let's start crossing our fingers.

When I am sitting around with Zivko in Nova Varoš, I will be soaking up every word. I will be trying to get a gauge on his emotions, on his thoughts and feelings. I don't know if I will be able to see him for a long time after I return to Istanbul. But if so, I just hope that's because of my own travel plans, and not because of a bunch of Radicals intent on turning their country -- and the entire region -- into a Balkan Babylon.

Turkish Graffiti.

Smell no evil.

Somewhere out there, Sra. Seré will smile at this.

A million liras (wait, that means less than $1) says this dude on the right has never heard of the dude on the left.

Maybe the overall champion of any graffiti I've seen so far.

In the Crescent and Star we trust.

Flag-wavers? We are flag-wavers?

Come to Turkey before you make that statement.


Mustafa Kemal Ataturk died in 1936 -- 70 years ago. But walk around this town for ten minutes; I guarantee you see at least 70 pictures and statues of "Father Turk."


It's unlike anything we have in America. This cult of personality (it is illegal to criticize Ataturk, even illegal to "insult Turkishness," to this day) truly blows me away. Even open-minded Turks are hesitant to say anything negative about the man who first made his name in leading Turkish forces to victory over the Allies in 1915 at Gallipoli.

There was one comment, though....

"They say 'Father of the Turks' like he f***ed my mother or something," a friend who will remain nameless said, before cracking up. (I don't want to get anyone in trouble..)



Every Turkish male is bound by the dreaded, compulsory military service. Depending on whether or not you are a college graduate, it's possible you may have to serve 15 months.

Sounds like fun, guys.

But because of Ataturk's legacy, the military is seen as a bulwark of revolutionary fervor -- a guardian of the national ideal of secularism, which the military defends at all costs against encroaching Islamic fundamentalist tendencies, wherever they may sprout up.


It doesn't make this doll any less creepy. GI Joe's are one thing -- but Cabbage Patch Privates? A little disturbing.

Supersize what is about to come out of me.

"He has become Turkish, and you have become American," Yetken (pictured right) said to his roomate Serdar yesterday, when he came in the room and found us watching the Vikings-Bears game -- which ran long on Fox Sports and was the reason I missed almost the entire first half of the Virginia game. I, after all, had watched two Galatasaray games that day (both basketball and soccer), and Serdar was to watch two American sporting events to even the score (or at least allow me to watch, while he surfed the Net).

But honestly, the two of them, plus their third, female roomate Nihan, already seemed pretty Americanized to me -- we ate McDonald's, Burger King and Little Caesar's for our first three meals.


Nothing to mix the old and new like a power shortage forcing us to resort to candlelight .. for a romantic fast food dinner.


But my diet in Istanbul may be the answer to a question I have not been able to resolve: Why have I not been able to go No. 2 for over four days now???????


And is this bad???????


I blame fish sandwiches, kebaps, fast food and NO fiber whatsoever.

And I am a little worried -- please, Allah, do not take your vengeance out on me once I hop onto the night train to return to the Balkans.

Thankyou, Rupert Murdoch!

This was me when I found out that I was going to be able to watch my first college sporting event of the year: Virginia-NC State (actually, this was me taking a picture of the Balkan Beard, Vol. 2 to send to a friend. I should probably just call it the Byzantium Beard, seeing as, like Istanbul itself, my facial hair is composed of two incontiguous plots of land: The Lebron James neck beard representing the European side; Dirty Sanchez representing Anatolia).


The place I'm staying in Istanbul came stocked with a roomate, Serdar, who has a sick cable package, including Fox Sports World. And with Traveler's Luck, the ACC Sunday Night Hoops game just happened to be coming to me live from Charlottesville.


It was a Sunday smörgåsbord of sports. Not one, but two derbies -- first basketball, then soccer -- between Istanbul's biggest clubs: Galatasaray (the one I was forced to support, lest I risk death by impaling, at the hands of Serdar and Yetken) and Fenerbaçe. Mixed into that was a little three-on-three pickup game at the local playground, which my team lost ... badly. But at least I ingratiated myself with the local Turks by absentmindedly hocking a huge loogie on the court -- a BIG no-no in this country.

"Sorry for spitting," I said meekly when we left.

"I hope so," the leader of the pack replied in Turkish.


But when Yetken and I got home from the bar, where we paid 15 lira to get in, only to watch Galatasaray lose, 2-1, my spirits went through the roof. ACC Sunday Night Hoops was showing the Virginia game, just like I had hoped for all day.


I love this man.


And I love Serdar for being the Turkish Boo Boo Drew, and hooking it up with the technology.

Big win in our first ACC game of the year. Could this be TOURNAMENT TIME? Let's just hope.