Introducing, for the next two months, Élise Bedtime Stories.

"Oh wait," Élise said when she realized what my trip ending really meant. "When you go home, does that mean you're not going to write in your blog anymore??"

Normally, that wouldn't be a big deal. But Élise, my insomniac friend from a Quebec hippie island, couldn't bear the thought.


She is the only person I know who has read every single page of this thing.

"What am I going to do on those nights when I can't sleep for hours? Your blog is like reading bedtime stories."

I have spent three nights at her place in Ljubljana, and on two of those nights, she didn't fall asleep until at least 5 in the morning. All she had to keep her company and talk to her was her imaginary boyfriend, Ché.


So from now until July 1, when I leave the country again -- this time, to work in Tanzania for a year (many more details on that later, I promise) -- I will keep writing. Old stories that I never got down, new stories that pop up along the way, anything.

It's the least I could do to try and help Élise sleep at night.

(By the way, should I take it as a compliment that someone "needs" my blog to sleep?)

Welcome to America! The Land of the Free stuff we can steal from you in baggage claim!

Nearly 11 months on the road, in places that would make most West U soccer moms gasp to hear about, and I don't get robbed a single time. Less than one hour back on U.S. soil, though, in a place that is protected by Homeland Security, and my pack gets completely unzipped before it comes down the baggage claim shaft.

"Hope they got something good," I muttered to the concerned women standing behind me. She had that look on her face that people get when they are thinking, "Thank God it wasn't me."

"What'd they take?" She looked pained.

I knew the answer immediately.

Of all the amazing birthday gifts I received last February at my "Dick in a Box" party at the Three Black Catz -- the homemade rakia, the Bob Marley bio, the Serbian music, the Belgrade t-shirts, the coffee mug -- the hands-down winner for best gift was a butterfly knife from Stewy and Aly.

"You need a knife, dude," Stewy said. "You can't travel like this without one." So they took care of the problem, and they even paid extra to have engraved on it, "3BC Crew."

And once I'm done traveling, it gets jacked. Really a good mood-setter for my first day back.

But at least the Rockets played well last night!

Life in the Land of Honey and Blood.

My plan when I left the States was clear: I was going to the Middle East.

Middle East or bust. I had spent years fixated on the politics, the history, the problems, and this was my chance. I got a visa for Syria; I got a lecture from a family friend on why not to trust Arabs; I received a look of admiration from a former Spanish teacher when I told her I wanted to spend time in the Holy Land; I got a "You're wasting your life" from a family member for saying I wanted to spend three months on a kibbutz in Israel; I got an open invitation to spend "months" at a long lost uncle's apartment in Cairo.

And then, I read Balkan Ghosts. Never could I have predicted how much that book was to change my life.

"Bayless, what is all this talk about a plan?" my cousin Trey asked me at Christmas during my last year of school. Trey was an inspiration for me, and I took his words to heart. Weeks after graduating from Texas in the mid-90's, he caught a ride to the Texas-Mexico border with a few hundred bucks in his pocket, walked across, and didn't come back for much longer than I have been gone. He is the one that has balls; not me. "You can't shackle yourself like that. Tell your dad a plan, but just break it. Trust me, man, you don't wanna be stuck in a situation that you'll regret. Let your trip take you where it takes you. It's the only way to go, trust me."

How wise his words seem to me now. I had talked such a big game about visiting the Arab world, but I never walked the walk. Look at me now -- I'm coming home in three days, having spent over half of my 10 and a half months in the former Yugoslavia, a place I knew absolutely nothing about when my plane touched down in London last June, yet know more about now than any region I studied about in college.

I never did use that pretty visa to Syria. Do I regret it?

Never. I have a pretty one-track mind once I grab a hold of something; it's like a pit bull that hates to fight, but hates even more to lose a fight. Kath summed it up the other day when she made fun of a possible reading list I would distribute if asked for suggestions: "What, The Life of Bob Marley and Why the Balkans Rule?"

(As a matter of fact, I did become obsessed with a book during my NOLS trip called Catch a Fire: The Life of Bob Marley. The same book was re-gifted to me on my birthday by my friend Marija last February in Belgrade. Shut up, Kathleen.)

There's nothing holding me back from visiting the Middle East some other time. I let my trip take me where it took me, and I learned more about myself, the world, and the state of human beings than I ever learned in school.

The best things in life are the ones that you never saw coming, but that you grabbed a hold of when they were right in front of your face -- capturing the power of a moment.

That is what I did during my time in the Balkans, the land of honey and blood.


"So......out........of.........shape." It was only a three hour hike -- it could have easily been done in two -- but I was dying after the first incline.

"I know man. The Black Catz. It's killing me, too." After spending six weeks alongside me in the Black Hole Hostel in Belgrade, where oxygen is the poison that enters your lungs second hand, Stewy was dragging ass as well.

Our destination was getting bigger and bigger with every switchback. When we first spotted it, high up in the mountains in the middle of the Macedonian nowhere, it was just a tiny speck of orange. Now there was some white in the mix. But a speck of color wasn't making us any less tired.


I had been to a couple of Orthodox monasteries before -- two in Kosovo, one in Prijepolje -- but I had never been to one that was as secluded as Treskavec. The town of Prilep was nearby, "nearby" being a relative term. We had reached the point of no return once we passed a shepherd taking his cows to graze in the pasture underlying the peak of the mountain. Even with my decent knowledge of beginner's Serbian (which is a cousin of Macedonian), the man's dialect sounded as foreign as Chinese -- I knew that Stewy and I were smack dab in the heart of Kusek, Macedonia.

"I wonder what a monastery like this is gonna have inside of it?"

"A pool, maybe some ping pong tables, I'm sure."

"Watch them have Internet!"

"Hahahahahahaah, yeah right."

"What was it that Donnie said about this place?"

"He said that even though it somehow found its way into Lonely Planet, it hasn't been ruined. That most of the people who see that also see the words 'three hour hike,' and get scared off from trying."

"Nice."

"Yeah, totally."

"And Donnie also said we didn't have to bring food, you're sure?"

"That's what he said man. Apparently there's this one old monk up there who cooks for everybody."

"WORD," I said, struggling even to get that word out.

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


I'll write it in Cyrillic first: KAЛИCT. Sounds like "Cal-ist." So we'll just go with that spelling, and add an extra 'l.'

Callist is not a monk just yet. Seven years ago, living in the capital city as a "Skopjener," trained as an economist, he realized that for what he was searching for, there was only one answer. That answer involved growing a really badass beard. Now, Callist is a monk-in-training, an M.I.T. But even though he's not all the way there yet, he holds down the fort at Treskavec, and he holds it down hard.


"We have had many visitors from California," Callist told us the morning after we arrived. "But Texas? I do believe you are the first Texan I've met in my three years at the monastery. I do love you American backpackers."

Then his cell phone rang. It was the second time in a row I had had a conversation with an Orthodox monk interrupted by the ring of a cell phone. You can try to pretend that some things -- like ancient monasteries, for example -- are 21st century proof, but the sad fact is, they're not. The monastery that didn't even have hot water naturally had WiFi ... and a gmail account, too.

Like all of the other people I've met who have truly and utterly devoted their lives to their manifestation of God (except for Father Toye and Father Orlando, from my days at Strake), Callist's aura exuded this sense of absolute contentment and peace, like the bundles of wool blankets that keep visitors to Treskavec warm during the cold mountain nights. He spoke English almost without flaw when he told me I was boldly going where no Texan had gone before. So I was making history, it turns out.

Very fitting in a place where you could taste history in the air.

"Byzantine emperors, Serbian emperors, they all came to visit Treskavec." Stewart and I were sitting on the porch overlooking a nearly 1,000-year old church, learning about a past richer than anything we could ever digest with our American stomachs. "They came all the way from Constantinople in the days when Constantinople was the center of the Orthodox world. All the way to this tiny little place, in the middle of nowhere," Callist said, waving his arm across the vast stretch of alpine air.

He shrugged and crinkled his face, which was covered by that mask of a beard.

"It must be something special." The master of the obvious.

The Lion of Judah which stood guard in the background of the complex was only a silhouette at that moment, and the cold winds were starting to pick up, as the sun went to bed behind the mountains. I wondered if the monks who built Treskavec in the 12th century had ever sat around a table and watched the same scene, making small talk and admiring the beauty of their surroundings before, like the sun had just done, calling it a night. This place was something special then, and it was something special now.

The 12th century. Even in a place like the Balkans, which "produces more history than the people can consume," as Bobi said my first day, that is some old stuff. Older than the Legend of Kosovo. That battle took place in 1389, just over a decade before the dawn of the 15th century. Not even Stephen Dušan, the great Serbian king who used the sword to bring all of Macedonia into his empire in the first half of the 13th century, predated this place. Even the Doosh himself had once made the trek up the very same mountain to come pay homage at Treskavec. The only Nemanjić king not to be canonized an Orthodox saint (he was pretty brutal, even for medieval standards), Dušan at least gave piety a shot. He may have donated some nearby real estate to the 300 or so monks living there, as well as some cash for renovations, but he did not build this place.

In the Balkans, though, there are very few "facts." Opinions are all that exist.

"They say that the winners write the history books, yes?" Callist asked rhetorically. But what happens when pretty much everyone in one region has won and lost more times than you can count?

"Once there was a group of Serbs who came to the monastery." Whenever you hear someone from the former Yugosvia say the word "Serbs" in a tone like that, the words are always accompanied by a certain level of antipathy. "They tried to tell me that this was a Serbian monastery." Uh oh... "This church was built over a hundred years before Czar Dušan came to Macedonia. And even then, he didn't build churches for Serbia. Those monasteries in Kosovo -- Serbs say that they make Kosovo a part of Serbia. They don't. He didn't donate money for restorations in the name of Serbia. He did it in the name of the Mother of Christ. He did it for God."

To this day, 40 years after the Macedonian Orthodox Church declared its independence from Peć, the Serbian patriarchate has not recognized the legitimacy of its southern neighbor (although, to be fair, nor have any of the other Orthodox churches in the world). Opinions prevail over facts in the Balkans, yes. But here is one fact that everyone can agree on in this part of the world: God has always played the largest of roles in its politics.


"Yes, I am religious," Bobi said. "I come to the monastery not only because it is beautiful, but for religion as well."

"I was just wondering." It seemed like Bobi was pretty intense. "Just didn't know why different people make the hike all the way up here."

"I see." The close-cropped 27-year-old Macedonian looked me up and down, feeling me out with his eyes, almost. "Why did you come here?"

"I don't know, just like to see the old monasteries in the Balkans. I went to a couple in Kosovo -- Gračanica, Dečani."

"Ah, in Kosovo?" It was obvious I was interested in his religion -- even Bobi conceded that "all Orthodox are the same religion," that it was "only politics that separate us." My interest, though, was like dropping crumbs on the floor when the family dog is within sniffing distance. Bobi was on the scent. "And what did you study?"

"History."

"History!" His eyes widening, he looked over at his girlfriend to see if she had heard the big news. Bobi did all the talking in this relationship; Elena just smiled and nodded like a woman who stands by her man. "We are the same, then," he said, turning his attention back to me. "Come, I will show you around the monastery and tell you a little bit about this place."

"Have you seen the film 'Borat?'"

Now it was my eyes that were wide. "Ten times."

Bobi laughed as he turned his head to see if I was joking. I wasn't.

"Seriously dude. Ten times. I freaking LOVE that movie."

"Did you know that he stole the opening song from a Macedonian gypsy singer?"

Even with "Borat," Balkan peoples are always staking a claim in the history books -- in Serbia, I heard about a thousand times that the majority of the soundtrack had come from Bosnian-turned-ultra Serb movie director Goran Bregović's movies.

"The first song? The one from the village scene?"

"Yeah! Her name is Esma Redžepova. She is suing Ali G."

"Who isn't?"

"He is getting sued by everybody."

"Do you like that movie, though?"

"For sure. For sure," Bobi said. I was beginning to like this kid. "I think it is so great, because it is not making fun of Kazakhstan. It is making fun of how stupid you Americans are." An insult, but an insult that I whole-heartedly agree with.

"Dude I am so happy when I meet people who understand that! I had a Kiwi friend who was so above 'making fun of other people' tell me that her sense of humor was higher than mine because I thought it was so funny!"

"You know what? I am an English translator, and I got paid to make the Macedonian subtitles to 'Borat.'"

"WHAAAA?" I asked in Stewy's favorite Borat voice -- the one he used when the driving instructor told him it was against the law to drink while operating a vehicle in America. "YOU DID THE MACEDONIAN SUBTITLES TO 'BORAT'?!?!?!?!?"

I didn't even have to tell Bobi that the news was official: He was the man.


When he led me to the lookout point next to the monastery and below the peak, I saw just how old Treskavec really was. The graves which had been dug into the rock had probably been washed clean of any bodies centuries before Pocahontas met John Smith.

With Elena tagging along by his side, Bobi took me into the chapel; he took me up to the lion; he took me through a more recent cemetery; he took me to the former dining hall that was used by monks in a more simple time. All the while, Bobi spoke with the authority of a teacher over his pupil.

The I.M.R.O., Goce Delchev, the Balkan Wars, Greece, Bulgaria, Albania, Serbia, Kosovo, World War II -- I got the inside scoop on all those dudes, all those events, all those lies ... from Macedonian eyes. When truth is erased and rewritten that many times, it begins to be a little difficult to pick out the original drafts from the amended ones.

Macedonia is a country I should have spent more time in -- that is a regret I will admit. Its four neighbors all secretly believe -- and some not so secretly believe -- that it is an illegitimate state, just as much a farce as the majority of Arabs view Israel. Greece's northern province is called "Macedonia" -- that is where Alexander the Great's roots lie, mind you, and that is why the Greeks froth at the mouth at the mere mention of a country that dares to steal its heritage.

(This statue in Prilep of Alexander, which memorializes the great "Macedonian Empire" in its inscription, is something I can't wait to ask Dimitri from The White Spot about when I get back to Charlottesville).

Bulgarians say that the Macedonian language doesn't exist, that the people in that mountainous land are really speaking a version of Bulgarian. (My favorite Balkan lunatic rant was from my last night in Skopje, at the creatively named Hostel Hostel, when a friend of the owner told me that he would rather die than ever visit Bulgaria, and that he hated all Bulgarians. The owner, a Macedonian who just recently moved back from Sofia to open the first ever hostel in Skopje, just shook his head as the dude rambled on).

Albanians ramble on and on about "Greater Albania," all the while taking the "let's make a lot of kids" approach to create a looming demographic crisis in Macedonia, a la Kosovo.

And Serbia...

While Bobi was explaining to me why he loves George Bush so much -- because, stomping all over Greek semantic sensibilities, he recognized the name "Macedonia" without the "Former Yugoslav Republic Of" strings attached -- my Carhartt's caught his eye.

"Made ... in ... Serbia." The words sewn into my pants -- in Cyrillic, which is the only alphabet you're going to find used throughout Macedonia -- distracted him from his lesson plan. Those suspicious eyes, which had disappeared after I displayed a base level of knowledge about the Balkans, returned. "You like Serbia?"


The question I'm always afraid to answer in that part of the world.

"Yeah man, I love it," I said with confidence -- Slavs, like dogs and bees, can smell fear. "I spent two and a half months just in Belgrade, and three months there overall. My pants got ripped in Novi Sad, so my friend Dragana sewed them up for me, and decided to kinda, ya know" -- I mimicked a stitching motion on my thigh -- "leave her trademark." I wanted to clear myself of any culpability.

The teacher in him returned. "Serbia does not respect us -- they do not recognize our church, and Arkan once said that he could conquer Macedonia in one night. One night? Well then, why don't you do it? One night..."

The pupil cut him off before he could get going -- I had heard all this conjecture too many times to sit patiently through it once again.

"I mean, I don't buy into all this crap," --my fingers mockingly flashed the three-pronged Chetnik salute -- "just as I don't buy into any of the other nationalist stuff I encounter in the Balkans. It's all contrived. Slavs are all the same people. You came over from the Carpathians together!" I glanced at Elena for support. Even if she wanted to give it, she wasn't going to speak out against Bobi. "But I refuse to let what happened in Belgrade during the 90's color my perception of all Serbians. I love the normal people I met in that country. Some of my best friends in the world today are Serbs. But Arkan, Slobodan Milošević, all that business -- I'm not down with it, just like I'm not down with Tudjman, or the mujahideen, or anyone that can't see the simple fact that these divisions are man-made."

Slobodan is Bobi's actual name, but he introduces himself with its shortened version. That's not surprising. Would a 27-year-old named "Dolf" would have wanted to be known as "Adolf" in 1957 Europe?

"I do not have a problem with Serbs either," Bobi countered, not wanting to give off the wrong impression. "But if Serbia says we do not exist, fine. Then I say Serbia does not exist."

That "if you push me, I'll push you back harder" mentality is king in the Balkans.

"What do you think about Kosovo, then?" I asked. Bobi had problems with Albanians, and he had problems with Serbs. Kosovo was an interesting case study in conflicting problems.

"I think that Kosovo will be independent, just as I think Serbia will lose Vojvodina, as well."

Vojvodina is the northern province of Serbia, where its second-biggest city, Novi Sad, lies. With a large ethnic Hungarian population -- it was historically an Austro-Hungarian territory, rather than being subjugated to Turkish occupation -- there were stirs of an independence movement when Yugoslavia began to break apart, but they lost steam when Serbs from Bosnia and Kosovo began to resettle there as refugees.

"You think Vojvodina, too?"

"Just watch," he said. "Maybe not soon, but it will happen."

Thinking like a student of Balkan history, that Bobi.

I had no rebuttal. Trying to absorb everything Bobi was telling me, I began to stare out over the mountain range, as Elena had been doing throughout the course of our conversation.

"Did you know that it is illegal for gypsies to play the accordion in Serbia now?" Bobi said in a serious tone, breaking the silence after a few moments.

"What? No it's not, these three gypsy kids used to always play music on the Knez Mihailova in Belgrade."

He maintained the serious look, and explained why. "No, it's true. Because if you open your arms that wide, you enter into Romania, and you need a visa."

I almost choked, I began to laugh so hard. Even Elena, quiet Elena, was getting animated at that one.

"Have you heard the one abo..."

Bobi knew what was coming. "About Nokia?"

"You know the Nokia joke!!"

"Yeah, 'What does Serbia have in common with Nokia? Every year they both come out with newer and smaller models'? Everyone in the Balkans knows that joke," he said, a calm smile showing that it was so funny, we didn't even need to laugh.

"I LOVE that joke! Hahahahaha." I gave him a huge high five. Bobi was my man, still.

"Where did you hear it?"

"Sarajevo -- from a Bosnian Muslim."

"Figures," he said. Figures.

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

"Is it true that the word 'Balkan' comes from the Turkish words 'honey' and 'blood?'"

Deniz stirred her coffee -- a Cafe Americano, not a Turkish coffee -- as she thought about it. Sitting across from me in an Istanbul cafe last March, she began muttering to herself in her native tongue. "Bal, kan." Still stirring. "Honey, blood..." And Eureka. "Yes!" she said. "'Bal' is 'honey,' 'kan' is 'blood.' Balkan. I never thought of it like that."

I smiled that smile that only someone who has tasted life on that peninsula would do in that situation. Sometimes, things are just too obvious.


"It's crazy, huh?"

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

There have been several moments on my journey through the Balkans when I could taste the honey, and many when I could see the blood, too.

Back in February, when Stewy and I had darted down to Žabljak, Montenegro for the weekend, we saw the honey in a shaban cafe that was blaring the music neither of us will ever miss, Serbian turbo folk (a.k.a. Turkish music, but don't tell anybody I said that). We were tucked into a corner, nursing our beers, talking and observing. I had the scope on a group of five locals who were dancing with arms draped around one another's shoulders, singing along to the sad lyrics in that endearing-yet-violent Slavic tongue which I will miss (unlike the Turki.... err, Serbian pop music). One by one, they each brazenly threw a porcelain plate or mug against the wall, shattering them to pieces.

When I went up to the bar to pay, I made eye contact with one of the guys -- he immediately began screaming at me in unintelligible Serbian, motioning for me to join in. Desperately wanting to smash everything they handed me, but also desperately not wanting to break some sort of taboo against foreigners thinking they were loke dogs, I threw a saucer, but just soft enough to not do any damage. They all cheered, even though I probably looked pathetic, throwing the plate like a little girl. Stewy sat in the corner and laughed -- he knew how much I loved Balkan bullshit like this, but he also knew I was really scared of crossing the line in a place like that. After they all slapped my back -- slaps that ranged from hard to extremely hard -- the dancing continued.

When the bartender came back into the room, I saw that the only reason he had left in the first place was so that he could go into the back room to get more plates ... which he began handing out to his boys to be smashed. The bartender was leading the charge, it turned out. There was no way he would have cared about me joining in. But I had missed my chance. They weren't about to waste another throw on a pantywaist like me. Looking back on it, I should have gone to town on that porcelain.

That was Bal.

The night Ana took me to meet her friends from Boleč, a village on the outskirts of Belgrade, was kan. I took a seat next to a skinny, drunk little punk who could only repeat the following slurred words of welcome, over and over and over again: "F**k America! F**k Bill Clinton! -- (drink) -- You know, we HATE you in Serbia! -- (drink) -- Jebo te, pička ti mater... -- (drink, rolls up his sleeves) -- Vidi!" Down his scrawny forearm was a tattoo, gangland style, that he wanted to show me. Printed from the elbow to the wrist was a word that said it all for him: "SRBIJA." On his shoulder, he had paid for a double-headed eagle and the four Cyrillic C's, symbols of the country that used to be a Balkan empire. Ana's friend, though, had had the tattoo artist add a special touch to that ancient symbol of the Serbian nation: a skull and crossbones. Radicals claim the four C's stand for "Samo Sloga Srbina Spasava" (Only Unity can Save the Serbs), but from my vantage point, those bones proved what that sign really represents -- the death of a dream.

When this proud anti-American Serb held up his cell phone for me, staring back was the glare of Tony Montana.


To hell with America, but please, give us Hollywood.

Those living in the shadows of Balkan ghosts carry a staggering amount of tradition on their backs. MTV may flood the airwaves, 50 Cent may be de rigeur for taggers, but things don't change much from generation to generation in the land where East meets West:

• The countless old men who drink rakia at all hours of the day
  
• The well-dressed girls who clearly spend every last dinar on the latest fashions from Milan
  
• The overtly religious character of each and every country
• The love
  
• The hatred
  
• The over-eating
  
• The smoking
  
• The what's-mine-is-really-yours-until-you-piss-me-off mentality
• The Serbian coffee
  
• The Croatian coffee
  
• The Bosnian coffee
  
• The Macedonian coffee
  
• The, wait a minute, aren't all those actually the same thing as Turkish coffee?
• The angry employees who sit at the information desk yet refuse to dish out any information.

It's why I love the Balkans. But it's why I hate it, too.

It's honey, but it's blood.

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

Mirza knows that smile I talked about earlier all too well -- the one of understanding how the peninsula got its name.

"Yes, this is true, this honey and blood. I have never heard this before, but it is true." He was busy cleaning glasses behind the bar, and his Bosniak grin was ear-to-ear. "Balkans is a wonderful place, but it is true -- if you push me, I will push you back! We have mountains, beautiful nature, beautiful girls, but we have war, we have killing..."

Mirza's attention was cut by a friend stopping by the cafe to say hello. As they talked in Bosnian (this was before I had really learned much, so I was in the dark), I began to daydream.

I had met Mirza my first time in Sarajevo, back in October. He and Skila took me under their wing immediately; they were the ones who let me sit with them in the real section at that Sarajevo-Željo soccer game, where the play on the field was secondary to the cheering, the song-singing, the joint being passed around among their friends in the stands, and the passion.

When the only goal was scored, late in the game, Skila and Mirza lost it.


It was all honey after that win. Had FK Sarajevo lost, it may have been blood. I found out during my second time back to Sarajevo that the four of us -- Skila, Mirza, my Aussie dread head friend Roscoe and myself -- had been in the paper the next day, but no one had thought to keep a clipping, so I never saw. Just as no one in Bosnia-Hercegovina cares when a celebrity like Bono passes them on the street, neither do they care about their 15 minutes of fame. After the war they experienced from 1992-95, and the four-year siege of their city that no one tried to stop, 15 minutes of life is seen as a blessing.

"Who was that?" I asked as soon as the visitor left.

"That's just a friend," Mirza said. "His uncle is Haris Silajdžić, actually."

Haris Silajdžić, as in, the Muslim representative of the tripartite Bosnian presidency. And he was just stopping by to see if Mirza could hold on to his handgun for him.

"Do you want to see it?"

"Sure." I had never seen a handgun outside of a range before.

He went back to the cupboard behind the counter and pulled it out -- cold, hard, steel. This was the kan on display.

"He just got out of jail a few weeks ago," he said, ever so chipper.

"For what?"

"Oh, he killed somebody."

"He what??"

"But it was okay" -- Mirza smiles more than a five-year-old kid -- "he was only 17 when he did it, so he couldn't be put in prison for more than a year."

"Oh."

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

When Stewy and I left Treskavec, it was not because we wanted to leave -- it was because we had no time to stay. He was heading home just a few days later; I had little more than a week left.

Donnie's tips about not bringing food had been rendered outdated; Lonely Planet did in fact ruin the mystique of the monastery. Rather than the ten foreign visitors per year that showed up prior to its publication in that infernal book, Callist said they had been averaging 40 foreigner per week (and yet, no Texans. Score!), so the free soup kitchen had been cut off. But he made an exception for us, and fed us when we had nothing but the crumbs of the monastery dog to snack on. And seeing Stewy's face when he heard Callist exclaim his surprise that the soup was actually fish soup was priceless -- NorCal avo surfer boy is a strict vegetarian.

But well-intentioned mistake put aside, Callist had been more than a gracious host. He had given us a free place to sleep, filled our bellies, told us stories, and even given me a tour of the frescoes inside the church. That, and he gave me a liter of homemade monastery rakia in a used Pepsi bottle -- I've been calling it "Macedonian Pepsi" and "Macedonian holy water" on rotation.

But still, Callist felt as if he had not done enough.

"I'm so sorry you must walk down," he said, as we prepared to hike back to Prilep. "I wish there was an extra seat in the car, because I'm taking my mother back to the train station today." She had been visiting for the week.

"Callist man, it's cool. You've done more than enough."

"Well, please come back again when you are in this part of the world. You are always welcome. I'm sorry I was such a lousy host."

That, my friends, was the bal.


And as I turned down that trail, I saw big, dark storm clouds looming overhead.

I am back at Chez Knapp in Switzerland. The journey has come full circle in a sense, or at least to about 359 degrees -- the real closure will come in a few days, when I'm back at Jamison's house in London, where it all began last June. After that, I am back to the USA.

"Do you write in your blog every day?" is what Elise's roomate Honorine asked me the other night in Ljubljana. She asked it in disbelief.

"No, but I wish I had been."

I really wish I had been, because there are so many stories and so many things that have already slipped out of my mind, that are pretty much gone forever.

Roger Goodell would probably blame my memory loss on me having "character issues."

I already felt impelled to question why Calvin Johnson, Amobi Okoye and Gaines Adams were in the headlines this week for activities not related to football. And I'm glad Bomani Jones is backing me up.

"It should scare [teams], especially when you see how laid back [Adams] is in his play," one team official told PFW in regard to Adams' admission.

Huh? Is he worried that Adams' pregame ritual is listening to a Peter Tosh record and lighting a spliff as he runs down the tunnel? If Adams' motor doesn't stay on all the time, that's a problem. Is reefer to blame? Check the film of Warren Sapp, then answer that one.

Ladies and gentleman, the No Fun League.

My thinking is that if our last two presidents are known to have smoked a little herb at some point in their lives, it is okay for Calvin Johnson.

WHY IS THIS NEWSWORTHY?

I would be more surprised if it said "NFL Draft prospects admit to having never gotten high." You gotta love the media.

“This brutal attack was not caused by nor should it lead to restrictions on the Second Amendment, which guarantees an individual right to keep and bear arms.” - John McCain.

"Five weeks ago, a Virginia Tech student walked into a nondescript gun store next to a pawn shop in Roanoke, Va., and paid $571 for a Glock 9-millimeter handgun and a box of ammunition." - "Shooting Rekindles Issues of Gun Rights and Restrictions," The New York Times, 4.18.07

I was probably the last person on earth to hear. The Internet was down in Skopje, but my cell phone was on as I made my way by bus to Ljubljana last night. On hour 4 of the 15-hour trek, I got a text message from O.G. Zoka. "... p.s. did you hear about big s**t in virginia. terrible. zoka."

I figured a tornado, maybe a few deaths.

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

I don't even have any words that will mean anything real. It just seems so obvious to me. Which is more outdated, the electoral college system meant to protect the rights of small states, or the right to bear arms to protect us from red coats? It's one thing to have some deer rifles or some 12 gauges; it's another to be able to buy a freaking glock in Roanoke without a problem.

Just two days earlier, Stewart and I had been sitting next to a 12th century monastery on top of a mountain in Macedonia, answering questions about how dangerous of a place America can be. Naturally, the issue of gun control came up. The issue of school shootings came up, too.

If only we could be having that conversation right now.

"But a geeky Korean student from Centreville could have gotten a gun anywhere if he really wanted," you'll tell me. Uhhhh, if that helps you sleep better tonight, then just go on telling yourself that. Geeky Korean students from Centreville aren't hanging with people that can get them guns -- this one wasn't hanging with anyone, if I'm not mistaken. "Guns don't kill people; people kill people," you'll tell me. Maybe a knife-wielding fanatic can off one or two, but a kid with two firearms is what kills 33, smart guy. "It's our Constitutional right," you'll continue. If you're so in love with the Constitution, then why don't you just marry it? We're allowed to give other "Constitutional rights" away in the name of security, remember? Why don't we get W to come up with a bill making it A HUNDRED TIMES MORE DIFFICULT to buy a glock at a southern Virginia gun store and call it the "Patriot Act Part Deux?"

If the bleeding hearts had to accept a rights-stripping bill in the name of security after 9/11, then the cauterized hearts can accept a rights-stripping bill in the name of security after Virginia Tech. I don't see the difference.

But as much as I couldn't get my mind off of this line of thought last night on the bus, there was something even heavier weighing on me.

This kind of thing happens every single day in Baghdad. And it's not just 33 people whose lives are lost -- it's the families and friends of 33 people whose lives are shattered. Every, single, day. Some days I agree with Bob Marley, that "every man thinks that his burden is the heaviest, and I still think that who feels it, knows it, Lord." Not today, I don't. My burden is a humongous backpack and having to walk for an hour from this cafe in Ljubljana to my friend's house in a few minutes.

But that ain't the heaviest by a mile.

Bottom left corner.

Uh oh.....

Busted.

Not that it matters in Tirana.

"There are only two public toilets in the whole city!" Ilir explained when I showed him my photos of a young Gypsy boy taking a dump at a bus stop, with people all around, on the cement, in the middle of the afternoon (waaaaaay too graphic to post on my blog, since my mom got mad about my Peengapore story...). "Two! How crazy is that? So where are people supposed to go? You have to pay a euro, or buy a coffee if you want to use the toilets in a cafe."

Well... this spot under the bridge seemed pretty popular.

During the course of his session, not one, but two other guys came up, went No. 1 alongside their boy, didn't bat an eye, probably even said, "What up, Suad," and went back up the hill.

And to prove my point that "Borat" actually took its inspiration more from Balkan life than Kazakh culture (for example, the village scenes were filmed in Romania), the man was prescient enough to carry a plastic shopping bag with him.

Very nice!

I felt like I was a part of history in the making. The first ever Tirana Backpacker's Hostel day hike, and I was on it. Our first break came in a shady grove that was full of daisies.

"In Albania," Ilir, the hostel owner said, "we call these shit flowers."

Everyone not from Albania instinctively shot a furtive glance at one another. What??

Then I looked down, and realized why.

"Well I guess it makes sense," I said to Ilir, and motioned to my left.

He didn't understand. "Why?"

"I don't know...." Wasn't it obvious? "Just look at it."

"Ohh, no, I said sheep flower. Not shit." Everyone busted out laughing -- they were thinking the same thing I had been thinking. "SHEEP flower. Sorry, my English."

After the shit flowers, we kept hiking, and took another break at a castle atop one of the mountains.

No seats for us, just the rocks. The waiter basically had to do some low grade rock climbing to bring us our drinks. Coolest cafe ever.

"I'm gonna call the vegetarian police, man!"

Stewy was deeply offended at the revelation made by his only vegetarian compadre at our fourth and final stop, a restaurant just 15 minutes away from Bajram's Pool Hall.

"You're a vegetarian that eats Big Macs?!"

This guy was a weird Swiss dude. He just maintained his "I definitely have dead bodies buried in my back yard" twisted smile, and served up his defense: "Some say that McDonald's burgers have no meat."

And for the rest of the meal, the Jeffrey Dahmer smile continued.

There are moments when I just lie back, close my eyes, take a deep breath, and say to myself, "Man I am glad I saved enough money in college to be on a random hillside in Albania on a Sunday afternoon in April."

Those are the moments no one can ever take away from me.

I've got a lot of hats. But I have nothing that compares to the solar-powered fan hat.

Unfortunately, my head is large and in charge. Even if I didn't have a lion's mane, this thing wasn't coming close to fitting me. But Stewart, on the other hand .... Avo!

"It actually feels kinda nice!" Not just a gimmick. Very practical.

Too bad Albanians jsut don't seem to grasp the concept of bargaining. It just confounds them.

"Pesë euro," the little kid said, holding his hand out.

"FIVE EUROS! For that?!" Stewy wasn't having it. He reached into his pocket. "One euro." He held up a shiny coin, expecting the kid to jump at it.

But the kid wouldn't budge. At all.

He held up his hand -- all five fingers showed.

"One."

Five fingers.

"One."

Still five.

"One!"

"Jo, jo." The word "no" in Albanian is "yo" -- how cool is that? "Pesë!"

"Yo kid, you don't understand how to bargain." Nor did he understand what that sentence meant. Just kept holding up his fingers. So Stewy never got the hat, and the kid never got the euro. And everybody lost.

Little punk.

I hope that solar panel breaks on his face.

TIRANA.

This was when we needed Gricko, the Japanese human pet who was even better than Tricky at attracting girls in public places. I tried his patented move: The goofy smile/excited wave combination, but it just doesn't work if you're white in a land full of white people. You look more like Borat's retard brother Bilo than a funny little Japanese man who means no harm. Instead of laughing and waving back -- as every single Serbian and Turkish girl did when I saw Gricko pull the Gricko move -- these two Albanian chicks said something not very nice and instructed me with their hands that whatever it was that I was aiming for was not in the cards.

The Albanian version of taking Fido for a walk through the park in Tirana.

Look closely.

Bet you didn't think you were staring at the entrance to the finest pool hall in all of Tirana.

When laziness shuts a door, it opens a window ... sometimes. Our second day in Tirana was one of those sometime's. Armed with a map of Tirana and a pen marking of a mysterious "path" leading to the river, Stewy and I set out with a mission to go to the mountains on the eastern outskirts of the city. (I'll tell you right now, we never made it to the mountains).

Having walked for at least 20 minutes away from town, it was becoming pretty obvious that we had missed the path. The beaten path, that is. Or, shall I say, the Lonely Planet path.

Our way was much better.

"Are those pool tables?"

We couldn't tell if the place was someone's house or a billiards hall. Two old women with their daughters were sitting on plastic chairs in the driveway, but underneath a concrete lean-to were two nice -- but worn -- Italian pool tables.

"Uhh.... birra?" It's always fun in a new country when you know zero of the language. "Do you have birra?"

The answer was "no," so the old man that had come outside to greet us sent his seven-year-old granddaughter to run down to the corner store and grab two cans. And he racked it up for Stewy and me.

I've now met two Albanian old men. The first was our pool hall patron, Bajram. The second was a Kosovar named Ramadan. That'd be like a foreigner traveling to America and only meeting two old men named Christmas and Easter.

Bajram was the man. He wasn't too used to two white Americans coming to his place -- I'm taking a gander and saying it was the first time ever -- but he was definitely excited about the prospect of our business. Four games and two beers = $5. I love the Balkans.

But it got me thinking. We all know how much Lonely Planet sucks. We all know that people who treat it like the Bible need to get a beating. How funny would it be to sabotage next year's edition by getting a job as the Balkan Planet writer and putting things like "Bajram's Pool Hall, Tirana, x and x address, the hottest place in town"? You know a troupe of "Where are you from? Why are you traveling? Oh really? Cool!" girls with North Face fleeces would swarm Bajram's place, only to find out that it's not the hottest place in town! Bhahahahahaha.

Especially when they saw the scenery that comes as part of a package deal when you make the walk there.

Stewy's decision to wear sandals was not a good one. If he had read my version of Lonely Planet, though, maybe he would have known about that in advance.

Tirana.
The best kept secret in the Balkans.

The night my little sister turned 16, back in October, I was laying on a bed bug-infested mattress in Montenegro, plotting my next move. I had made my way down the southern Dalmatian coast into Kotor, and after three weeks in the Balkans, it was decision time.

Albania or Bosnia-Hercegovina?

I knew zero about the former country; I knew a tad about the latter. Albania would mean heading south and beaches; Bosnia would mean inland and mountains. I like beaches, and I like mountains. So it was pretty much a coin toss -- heads or tales, I could have cared less.


This was back in the days of "Yeah, I'm planning on hitting up every country in the Balkans before I head to the Middle East," so it wasn't like picking one over the other held anything but chronological significance in the course of my journey. I don't even remember what it was that kept me inside the former Yugoslavia, but anyone who has been reading my blog knows what happened next: I never was good at leaving YU.

I went to BiH, which led me into Serbia, which led to the end of my pan-Balkan aspirations. The Belgrade time warp sucked me in, and it was all over. I quit moving; I became a real Serbian man; and I quickly forgot all about Albania.

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

"Me and Aly are planning on heading down to Albania. You coming with us?" Stewy asked during my seventh -- and final -- stop in Beograd.

"Nah man, I don't have much time left in my trip. I may go see Macedonia, but that's it for the Balkans. I need to start heading back so I can stop and see some of my friends on the way home during my rock star farewell tour." I was dead set; nothing was swaying me.

Stewy just laughed. "That's it for the Balkans." Right. "Dude, for the amount of manipulation you've placed on us to stay in Belgrade all this time, I don't think you really have a choice," he said. "You're coming to Albania."

You can't bullshit a bullshitter; but you can manipulate a manipulator. After three days back in Kosovo with Stewy, Aly and the new kid, Matt, I was shaken from a deep slumber. Rubbing the sleep out of my eyes, I squinted out the window of the bus. It was five in the morning, dark and cold. Welcome to Tirana.

(Little did I realize that there were mountains here, too).


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

"You mean all white with pink eyes?"


Homer Simpson's conception of an Albanian was about all I had to go on until I went to Prishtina for the first time last March. Never mind that these people are actually dark folks -- Homer thought they were all albinos. You can't blame him for being so ignorant. During the Cold War, this country was even more isolated from the world than the Soviet Union. Enver Hoxha (hoe-jah), who was more Stalinist than Stalin, kept the place on lock down from his rise to power after World War II until his death in 1985, so an exchange student living in Springfield couldn't have expected for Homer to know much (which was perfect for little Adil Hoxha, code name "Sparrow.")

To be honest, I still don't know much about this country. Kosovars are Albanian, sure ... but at the same time, they're not. Are Bosnian Serbs the same as Serbians? Depends on who you ask. Same goes with Kosovars and Albanians. (Disclaimer: You can't really make a judgment on something so broad when your sample size is restricted to young, cool people in both Serbia and Albania). Sadly, I really do not have time to venture beyond the small circle of Albanians I've met at the one and only hostel in Tirana. But after four nights here, I know one thing: T is for "The reason I'm glad I didn't come home straight from Asia like my dad wanted."

The Tirana Backapacker Hostel is no Three Black Catz. Nothing is like that place; nothing will ever be like that place. But aesthetically, it is hands down the coolest hostel I've ever seen. The Black Catz is a litter box (albeit a litter box with soul). This place is a villa -- in the middle of the city. No joke. Stewart calls it "The Real World: Tirana." And he's right on the money. Across the street is the Italian embassy; a stone's throw away is the Swiss and American. Two floors, a garden in the front and the back, a balcony porch, a real kitchen, showers with water pressure ... it's no Three Black Catz, but it's still cool as hell.

But at least Ilir's place -- unlike Osama bin Mladen's place in Belgrade -- actually has a cat. And this cat is like a dog, man.


I love cats that think they're dogs.

But even more than that, I love puppies that think they're dogs.


Meet Tricky, the best alarm clock I ever had.

To describe him, I'll just copy the lyrics to the song Stewy wrote about the hostel mascot:

"My name's Tricky, I like to pee on things. My name's Tricky, I like to poop on things. My name's Tricky, I like to throw up on things. My name's Tricky, I like to bite on things."

(All the while, Stewy is shaking him around on his lap like a tumble dryer, which may explain why he threw up on Matt's bedspread our third night here).


Cool hostel, beach, mountains ... let's get to the best part about Tirana. The paint jobs.

All former Communist countries take note: PASTELS MAKE IT SEEM LIKE EVERYONE IS HAPPY, EVEN IF IT IS A VENEER. The gray, concrete blocks that make Belgrade what it is are not gray in this city. In Tirana, they're psychedelic. If you're ever trying to get serious visuals, just pop some caps in this town. About six years ago, Tirana's mayor -- an artist -- decided that his town needed a boost. Something to cheer the place up. So he went on a rampage of color, and has turned Tirana into an assembly line of places that look like this.


I'm leaving today for Macedonia. But I've always wanted to go to that country. Never did I really have a desire to see this place. Which makes it the hidden gem of the Balkans.

I love Serbia, I do. But I don't love this Serbia.

After the verdict, she said, she met with a leading member of the Serbian team. “He was very pleased,” she said, “but I confronted him. I said, ‘You did not tell the truth.’ ” The man, a scholar she said she could not name, replied: “It’s normal, every country will do everything possible to protect the state. Bosnia wanted a lot of money for damages.”

Ms. Kandic added: “I said that one day the truth will come out. And my friend said: ‘But that’s the future. Now it’s important to protect the state.’ ”

International law is a joke. A well-intentioned joke. Even when it tries to do good, it falls victim to the Babylon system.

Today is a monumental day for one reason: I am finally leaving Belgrade behind.

I have lost track at this point of how long it's been, when it's all added up. At least 70 nights. Not quite 80. The exact number is unimportant.

I don't know when I'll be back. I don't know when I will next see all of the Serbian friends I have made, who are unfortunately not blessed with the same magical blue passport that someone lucky enough to have been born in the United States receives, and so most likely won't be traveling to the States anytime soon. Dragana is leaving the Three Black Catz to start up a place of her own, and Mladen will power on in the face of rising competition for hostel-goers in the heart of the former Yugoslavia.

Even if I happen to blow back through here on my way from Macedonia up through Europe and back home, it will only be for a night at the most -- I intend on getting back to Texas by the end of the month. There is so much that I have never written about on this trip -- the rest of what happened to me and Uncle Dan in Asia, for example -- that I intend to try and get down before it slips from memory. But a million of those moments have happened in this city, with these people, who have really formed the substance of what slowly became my undeniable Balkan Home Sweet Home.

All I can hope for is that when I say "Vidimo se" to the last person, it will really be the truth.

Dovidjena.

Amazing update to April Fool's joke: It was ten times better than I could have imagined.

From Lizzie: "that is soooooooo cruel! she ran ALL THE WAY TO THE VIRGINIAN!!"

From Kirby herself: "... by the time that I got down to the
Virginian I actually had an entourage. As I was literally running down to
the Virginian I was calling out, "Bayless is in town". Everyone that knew
you was jumping on my train. By the time that I got there I had like 5
people with me who were all chanting your name. So, I hope that you are
satisfied. I can just see you now, sitting back in your little Belgrade bar
getting a good laugh at my expense. Ha! You are a weiner cake."

Editor's Note: Stewart would complain that this is yet another episode of my blog where I cast myself into the role of "Belgrade Hero." He is tired of being type-casted as a California surfer who is a danger to car headlights after drinking Serbian rakia. He plans to create his own blog, which he will call www.f***youbayless.blogspot.com. Do not pay any attention to this propaganda if he actually follows through on a plan.

After being gone for nearly 10 months, friends from back home are starting to forget about the kind of person that I am. Which is a good thing. When people start to let their guard down, it makes April Fool's Day -- my favorite day -- like taking candy from a baby.

Kirby was the obvious target this year. She's one of my best friends from UVa, but I can't even count how long it's been since I last saw her. She left to study abroad in Florence my last semester of college; I left for Germany before she came home. We don't really keep in contact that often, and she doesn't read my blog. All of these factors added up to a definitive conclusion: Kirby would take the bait ... hard.

Though Skype would be useless for this prank, since an incoming call from the Internet shows up on a person's cell phone as some crazy number like 000000000000, the flattening world did aid and abet my tomfoolery. That's because of my trusty U.S. cell phone, which -- gasp -- works like clockwork from halfway across the globe, and shows up as a normal, ho hum call from your buddy Billy. I never make calls from it, because it costs an arm and a leg per minute. But cracking myself up is worth its weight in gold, and I've never been one to let financial constraints hamper me from messing with someone.

"Hi, this is Kirby..."

Damnit Kirby! Can't you see that I'm trying to trick you into thinking that I'm back in C-ville? Answer your phone!

That happened the first two times I tried calling. I got all the people sitting around the table at the Three Black Catz to provide background chatter and everything, since I was "calling from a booth at The Virginian," but she wasn't pulling through on her end of the deal. She wasn't picking up. It was 10 o'clock, the clock was ticking, and I began to rationalize in my head that even if it passed the threshold into April 2 in Belgrade, it would still be April 1 in the region where I was playing the joke, so it wouldn't be dirty pool if I didn't hear back within the next two hours.

The third time was a charm.

"Hello?"

"Kirby!" I haven't changed my number in years, so I figured that I wouldn't need to say anything but that for her to start freaking out.

"Who is this?"

"Bayless."

"Who?"

"Bayless."

"Lewis?"

"No, Kirby, it's BAYLESS."

For someone who was "best friends" with this girl, as I had been telling everyone involved in the background noise help, she sure was having a hard time registering who it was. Eyebrows were raising all around me, I could just feel it.

"Buh -- BAYLESS! Hey! What are you doing??"

Enthusiasm. Perfect. The guard was down.

"Kirby, come to The Virginian!"

"NO WAY! OH MY GOD! I'm in the library -- I'LL BE THERE IN TWO MINUTES!"

I hung up, and starting spasming in laughter from my seat on a bench in Belgrade, which is way more than two minutes from Kirby's seat in Alderman.

"She bought it! Hahahahahaha."

"You're terrible!" Helena, a Brit from Leeds said. "You're taking the piss out of this poor girl."

I honestly started to feel bad about it about three seconds later. Girls are a little more emotional about these types of things than guys, and immediately the thought of her crying upon hearing this was all a huge, cruel joke popped into my head. The girl was leaving the library, running for all I knew, to a bar on The Corner where her long lost friend was going to be waiting for her in a booth. And that friend was actually sitting in the heart of Serbia, laughing it up.

I started to call her back, and even hit the send button, before Helena cut it off: "You've done it now, so you might as well hang up." I slammed the phone shut.

Lo and behold, it took her just a little over two minutes to call back.

"You're a s*** head."

"April Fool's!!"

"You're a s*** head."

"I'm sorry!" I said, barely able to squeeze in the words between huge bellows of laughter.

"I came all the way here, and it was only right as I reached the door that I remembered it was April 1st. You're a s*** head."

Luckily, Kirby is a really cool girl and took it in stride. She wasn't mad; she actually laughed. And she made me promise to buy her a ton of flowers if I really do come through Charlottesville on my way home. After such a cruel joke, it's the least I could do. I'm sorry, Kirby. And thankyou, too.