I met four Balkan guys last night at a coffee shop called Agora. We sat and talked for about an hour, before the waitress kicked us out -- there is still a midnight curfew in Houston, to prevent looters from running amok in the continued wake of the hurricane. All of them are best friends, and all are from the former Yugoslavia, though from all sorts of creeds and nationalities.

A Bosnian Serb.

A Croatian Serb.

A Bosnian Muslim.

A Croatian Croat.

And this guy.

It made me miss the Balkans more than you can believe. For just a moment, the passion, the intensity, the dark humor, the cigarettes, and talk of history, of beautiful women, of rakija, it was back. If I could have hopped on a flight for Belgrade right then, at 12:15 in the morning, I would have.

I felt alive as I stepped off that patio last night, headed for my mom's car, which I am driving these days, seeing as I do not have one. I felt a buzz in my bones. Like I had dropped a few pounds, and was almost gliding on the pavement. Alive. I smiled as I glided, wishing I could call O.G. Zoka. That energy I only get when I travel, it came to me last night in a small dose, just to remind me what it feels like. There is nothing quite like spitting out some sentences in a language you can't quite remember, just to prove your street cred for a group of people shocked to hear that an American has not only visited their home towns, but visited all of their home towns, and stayed for six months in their home country.

This is why I am glad I've done what I've done over the past two years now, while I'm still young, as opposed to working the next 40 years of my life so I can save enough money to be able to do it then, when I'll already be far removed from the last time I could get it up on my own accord. I've still got the rest of my life to live, with many lives' worth of memories to live with, and those memories come in handy when you see someone wearing a jersey for the soccer team from a quaint little town in Bosnia known as Mostar.

The best part was that I finally had someone to tell about the messages I'd seen written on the paper towel dispenser in the Agora men's room.

Volim te.

"I love you" in "Serbian/Croatian/Bosnian," as I referred to their language last night after first having sat down, since I didn't want to offend anyone.

And right below:

OБИЧAM TE.

They had laughed when I said "Volim te," was written in the bathroom, which guaranteed they'd crack up when they heard what else. "And next to it is 'Običam te!'" I yelled as I walked out, my parting words.

While I can't just call O.G. up out of the blue -- it's expensive to phone Belgrade from my cell phone -- my best friend from my time in YU is always ready for a text message. She'd answered my question about what that last phrase meant the time I'd gone to Agora a few days earlier: "'običam te' in serbian doesn't mean anything only could be used as a sleng fraze...like a 'you're my bitch, i'll bitch you up' .. something like that..."

The word "Balkan" is a collection of two Turkish words: bal, which means honey, and kan, blood. I've always been fascinated by this etymological pun. But nothing exemplifies the contrast better than that paper towel dispenser at Agora: "I love you" together with "I'll bitch you up."

Honey and blood. Take me home, country road, to a place, I belong.