I have 7.5 liters of sljivovica in my bag.
Now that is a souve-freaking-nir

I intentionally left room in my huge pack when I came to Belgrade because I knew I'd want to bring souvenirs home. My bag was light when I left Houston. It is very, very heavy now.

"How much rakija you want?" Mladen asked tonight as I was getting all my stuff ready to go.

"Fill up one of these bottles," I said, pointing to a plastic bottle of water sitting on the table in the common room.

"That's it?" He sounded rather disappointed in me, like a dad from Alabama finding out his only son was gay. "This is just two liter."

"How much do you have?" I asked. I'd thought my request was too much, not too little.

"Ten liter."

"Okay then, I'll take more."

He picked up a different plastic bottle. "This one is 1.5 liter."

My bag is now holding 7.5 liters of this shit.

Rakija is not stuff you can mess around with, either. It's serious stuff. You don't take shots of it. You sip it. And then you sip some water. Even tough, crazy Serbs like Mladen follow this rule.

Osama bin Mladen

Let me repeat this: I have 7.5 liters of homemade Serbian rakija in my bag that I am checking from Belgrade.

"You gonna be on CNN," Mladen just told me when I marveled at how much freaking rakija that is.

This stuff is no joke. I had nose hair until three days ago, when I made the mistake of sniffing my shot glass of it before I took a sip. And I'm taking home the good stuff: sljivovica, known in English as plum brandy. There was a Czech guy here at the Black Catz the other night who thought he was tough. While we were sipping our glasses, he was shooting his, despite my warnings. His friend, though, listened to our warnings.

Guess which one is which, 30 minutes later.

Goodbye, Belgrade.

"You want coffee?"

"Yeah. I do." Mladen can just read my mind sometimes. We'd started with a beer, then had a rakija. It's only natural that we move to turska kafa, since I have no plans on going to bed tonight, as my flight leaves Belgrade at 6:45 in the morning. And besides, it's symbolism. Pivo, rakija, kafa, i necu spavati.

Beer, rakija, coffee, and I'm not gonna sleep. Pretty much sums up my Balkan existence.

"Okay," Mladen said. Mladen, the owner of the Three Black Catz, is one of those people who understands. He just gets it. The night sky above us had that hue that lets you know you've passed its darkest hour. But it's still night. "You make coffee, and I'll go get cigarettes." I smoke cigarettes when I'm in the Balkans, because it's just what you do. When in Belgrade, do as the Serbians do.

If my mom wasn't recovering from surgery, I would just tear up my e-ticket and stay for an extra month, which could easily turn into two, three, four, indefinite.

I hate leaving Belgrade for good. It's only the second time I've ever done it. But it's never something I want to do.

These two weeks were ... exactly what I wanted. They were exactly what I wanted.

"When I come back." That's what I say in sentences. Not "if," but when.

I've got unfinished business in this country. Too many friends. And a special reason to come back.

And so I will. That's all I know. I will.

Like two peas in a pod.
Exit Festival, 2009.

It was dark, and I was drunk, thanks to Indira and her excellent choice in domaca rakija. That, and I just wasn't expecting it.

Guy in a giant pizza costume, getting down in Novi Sad, Serbia. Exit 2009.

"What are you," I asked, "like Pizza Man or something?"

I guess I'm just used to people dressing up as different junk foods amidst large crowds of strangers.

"Pizza?!" he yelled back, as if I'd just uttered something blasphemous in 1492 Spain. His words were just loud enough to be heard over the speakers pumping out beats at one of the large stages at Exit. "Hell no, mate! I'm a big pussy!"

Very nice!

And what do ya know?

I just happened to have been wearing my big cock shirt.

Welcome to Belgrade.
A city where this girl is about a 6.5

Dada is the nickname of the newest employee at the Three Black Catz. She is extremely aware of the fact that she has a perfect body, as any mirror with eyes could tell you, and exhibited by the fact that when she saw the photos I took tonight, she said to herself -- amidst a Japanese-like flurry of flirtatious giggles -- "I am so beautiful."




Dada is also a really nice and sweet girl.

Did I mention she has a perfect body, though?

Dada happens to mean "sister" in Swahili.

Did I mention she wears a bikini around the hostel at three in the morning?

"Dada," I finally said, after hours of battling the pair of magnets pulling my eyeballs downwards about 45 degrees every time she bounded by me, "it is very distracting when you walk around the hostel like this."

She didn't know what the word "distracted" meant, I could tell.

"Do you know the world 'distracted'?"

"No."

"I don't know where to put my eyes when you walk by me like this, Dada," and I succumbed to the magnets, like a drunk kid who's been fighting his pass out moment for three hours, just so I could teach her what the word "distracted" means in ingleski.

I was thinking that Mladen, the 3BC owner, should pimp Dada out as the cover girl for his page on hostelworld.com.




Or, we could just go with this.




There we go. Much more symbolic.

Nazis, NATO, Jews and knowing your audience.

"So are you having a good day at work so far? You seem really upbeat."

Simone, my new South African friend I met at Exit -- and hopefully a friend I can stay with in Cape Town when the World Cup is held in her home country next summer -- wasn't winning any blue ribbons for that observation. She was sitting at the main table in the common room of the Three Black Catz, her back up against the Beograd map on the wall, as I came huffing and puffing into the hostel. The elevator in this old, gray, socialist block apartment has been broken for weeks, and the four flights of stairs are a nice little way to sweat out the vices of this city.

"Yes, I am stoked," I said exictedly, "because I convinced the people at work to publish something about the World Cup." We don't normally deal with sports-related issues at my job, since it's not a sports-related company, but this item had to do with a labor strike, so it was a little more relevant to what we do. But I love sports, more than I love labor issues, and so I was excited. "I'm still at work, though. I just had to leave that coffee shop because they were being complete Nazis about the Internet time."

The new guest sitting across the table from me, who I had not met yet, let out a laugh. The girl with him, who I'd just introduced myself to, was named Eva. They were a couple. He pointed to his t-shirt. It had the letters 'DE' emblazoned upon it.

Eva is a German name. 'DE' stands for Deutschland. Deutschland is German for Germany.

"Sorry dude..." I said, as if the dot-dot-dot's and averted eye contact would make it okay.

This is not the first time something like this has happened to me, by the way.

Luckily, these people were better sports about it.

"It's okay," he said, in a precise, clear German accent. "We make such jokes as well."

And so do Serbs (though they can, as the Nazis weren't very nice to them during WWII)

"Did you see the no Nazi sign at Exit?" he asked.

I told him that I had.

And when he left, I apologized again.

"Sorry about that Nazi comment," I said.

"It's okay. Just don't make any jokes about the Jews."

I would never do such a thing, seeing as I look like one.

But the Serbs (who also weren't treated very well by NATO during the Bombing Spring of 1999), they sure would.

(TEPOPY is Cyrillic for Terrorism, by way.)

To ti ne treba!

I don't speak very good Serbian. Znam samo malo, ali ucim jezik. But I have picked up a lot since I arrived two weeks ago, and so anytime I can pick up on passing conversations, it is really fun.

One thing I do understand, though, are the huge letters H-I-V spelled out in condoms.

They were passing these out for free at Exit, which gives you an idea into what was on people's minds at the festival. As I walked by it on Day 2, I saw an overweight Serbian dude bending down to grab one out of the box.

"To ti ne treba!" his friend mocked. You don't need that!

The nearly 20 seconds of uncontrollable laughter this sparked inside me -- back breaking, lose-your-breath laughter -- is why I always try and learn the language.

Don't gain the world and lose your soul.
Exit Festival. 2009.

The sun rises over the masses at the Petrovaradin on the fourth and final day of Exit.

My cup is far beyond overflowing as I sit in this coffee shop, back in Belgrade. It was overflowing before I even got on the bus to Novi Sad last Friday. After four-plus days up in northern Serbia, the ground around my cup is as damp as a Vietnamese rice paddy. It should be illegal for one person to have this much fun. And it should be a crime against humanity for tens of thousands to all have this much fun together.

Serbia is a small, landlocked country that is far away from America, and even farther from the American consciousness. Those who have even heard of this place probably know only bad things: Milosevic, Kosovo, NATO bombs, Bosnian Serbs, genocide, The Hague, communism, fascism, death, intrigue, and of course, cigarettes. And it really is a pity, because if they'd only come visit for themselves, they would see that this, this is the place to be.

Especially for four days every July, when all the good that is in the worlds of those who love music, dancing and revelry all converge upon an old Austro-Hungarian military fortress on the Danube River known as the Petrovaradin.

The Petrovaradin is Novi Sad, as the London Bridge is London, the Great Wall is Beijing, or the Coca Cola Clock Tower is Arusha, Tanzania. Technically, it's not in Novi Sad, but in a separate municipality creatively named Petrovaradin as well. It's only once you cross the Danube that you arrive in Novi Sad proper, a beatiful city that stands as a beacon of culture for all of Vojvodina, a semi-autonmous Serbian region that has almost as many Hungarians as it does Serbs. The Exit Festival, which is a massive party that replaces the memories of encamped armies with the vibrations of music and thousands upon thousands of dancing feet, takes place inside of the Petrovaradin fortress, and it just celebrated its tenth anniversary this past week (or, if you asked the lovely Petrovaradin native who works for Exit, Indira, its 11th, but that is another debate over when, technically, the wonder that is Exit really first began).

My biggest fear about returning to Serbia after more than two years away from my favorite country in the world was that, quite simply, it would suck. Trying to recreate a magical time in your life is an endeavor wrought with risk. No matter what you tell yourself, it's not place that touches the heart, but the people in that place. And people have a funny way of changing over time. These changes can lead to disappointment when you find that what your memory tries to keep alive actually perished long ago. I learned this when I went back to UVa for a weekend a year after I graduated, and found that it was not the same place that had existed in my head during a year of traveling the world. And so the fear that Serbia, Round II, would be just like that Foxfield weekend in Charlottesville loomed large in my mind as my plane touched down on the tarmac in Belgrade this past July 4.

And then Exit happened. And it was better than anything I ever imagined.

I won't try to get into the details too much at the moment, because I don't have time to write War & Peace. Unfortunately there is a little thing called "work" that is calling my name. And after reveling in the pure bliss that is ignorance of what was happening on the work front for five full days, I've got a shit ton of emails I've got to read before I log on from Belgrade to do my job. But there will be stories, and they will be plentiful.

This, though, is the main message: it's not the place, it's the people; and there is a certain wisdom you accrue from reminders of this message. The relationships that you can form when you're traveling are so special. It's not that I don't love America, or that I don't want to be in America, as some of my friends from back in the day have at times alleged. It's that being on the road in another part of the world brings out something in people that is hard to find when you're lost amidst the routine, and the mundane of everyday existence. It brings out the best in people; it opens up their hearts, and their minds; it brings them together, in a way that lasts forever.

It refreshes my soul. It makes me remember why it is that I work. I work to make money so that I can travel and meet more people, form more relationships, learn more about the world and the moment and the collective human experience. It's not about silver and gold alone, but about the entire package. If you can use money to gain wisdom -- and love and laughter -- you have, as the old knight in the third "Indiana Jones" movie says, "chosen ... wisely."

For me, Exit was an affirmation. I have chosen ... wisely. Four days of all night parties, three hours a day of sleep, and a series of moments that I knew, as they were happening, wouldn't last forever, except for in my mind, in my heart, and most importantly, in my soul.

The best things in life are those that words cannot possibly describe. It's a warmness in your bones, in your spirit, that makes you take deep breaths and close your eyes and just ... feel. The moment. The moments. And you can't put a price tag on stuff like that.

(Well, you can, but I'd really rather not think about it. A flight to Serbia ain't cheap. But it is certainly worth it in the end.)

It's like Bob Marley said, "Don't gain the world and lose your soul. Wisdom is better than silver and gold."

Why people from Belgrade would probably really relate to bats

"Did you sleep a lot when you first got to Belgrade?"

My best friend from Serbia, O.G. Zoka, asked me that tonight, the first time we'd seen each other since April 2007, after I told her how long it had taken for me to make it here, from Texas to Serbia.

"Well, yeah," I said, "but it's fine. I was super jet lagged --" I paused, remembering that people who speak English as a second language don't necessarily know what terms like "jet lagged" mean. "Do you know what jet lagged means?"

"Da, da," she said.

"Okay, cool. So I was super jet lagged, and I went to bed at like 5:30 the first morning, and around 4:00 last night," I said. "But since I'm still on U.S. time, it's no problem, because I can go to bed at five, but since I work from 2:00-10:00, I can get up at like noon, have kafa, chill, and I have plenty of time to get ready for work."

As I've told dozens of people so far, with a job this flexible, in a town this night-oriented, I could get used to this schedule.

The Three Black Catz Hostel is a place where time ... slows down. That's what the new Aussie guest Lucas said tonight after he arrived, scratched his balls, and realized four hours had gone by in the mean time. It's a black hole. The One Black Hole Hostel. Anyone who is good at drinking and telling stories is unable to leave. It's the greatest place ever. It's my Balkan home sweet home. And for the next two weeks, I'm home.

Peter, a.k.a. Pete, one of my Black Catz brate's from my second stint at the Black Catz in December 2006, is here too. We're both here for Exit: my first time, his many'eth. Pete understands the beauty of the Black Catz, and of Belgrade.

"I got really, really nocturnal last year," Pete said. "Like ridiculously so. I'd get back from clubs, then I'd start drinking rakija," -- that's the ultimate Serbian spirit -- "and I'd start going to sleep at two, three..."

Wait for it.

"... in the afternoon."

There ya go.

That is the schedule at the Three Black Catz. It's an exercise in human nocturnal...ness. And it's beautiful.

The smell of Serbia.

The first thing that hits you when you walk from the plane into the terminal at Belgrade's international airport is the smell of stale cigarettes. Like what your grandmother's shag carpeting used to smell like when you were a kid. You're pretty sure she had stopped smoking by then, but the smell was still there, and it's the same with the airport in Belgrade. Everywhere you turn, No Smoking stickers, peppered with air bubbles that show the haste with which they were applied, warn you that Serbia is trying to modernize. Modern societies don't have people smoking in their international airports anymore, after all.

But it still smells like cigarette smoke. You can make a push towards European integration, but you can never take the street out of the dog. Old habits die hard in the Balkans.

By the time I'm making these observations, I've already made two new friends.

It was the final leg of my Houston-London-Munich-Belgrade airplaneathon, and finally I had a window seat. Only, it's occupied. By a Serbian woman. Who is sitting next to her large Serbian husband.

Being an exceptionally nice guy to strangers, I let her keep the seat and settle down into the aisle. I probably shouldn't fall asleep again anyway, I tell myself. That's already happened twice so far, and at this rate, I'll be going to bed after the sun rises in Belgrade (not that there's anything wrong with that).

The man in the middle is also sitting in a third of my aisle seat. He doesn't seem to see anything wrong with this arrangement. I do, and I briefly consider tapping him on the shoulder to ask for some freaking space. But then I remember two things:

1) I'm officially in the Balkans, even though we're sitting on a tarmac in Germany, so I shouldn't expect a European decorum.

2) I used to live in Africa, where public transportation makes a sardines can look more spacious than the hotel from "The Shining." I need to quit being such a kuma.

So I restrain myself, and embrace the intimacy of his jelly rolls. Still, though, my initial impression of the two Serbs is a negative one: crude, rude, unaware.

Within half an hour, we're talking about how they're going to give me a ride to my hostel from the airport, and my impression of Dragana and Nebojsa is an entirely different one: charming, full of life, and so courteous it makes my teeth hurt.

This is the beauty of the Balkans.

Our friendship begins when I pull out my Teach Yourself Serbian book and ask a question about grammar. Serbian is hard as shit, and is not a language many foreigners take the time to learn. If you know even a tiny bit, you will earn mad street cred. Even if it's samo malo, just a little, which is all I can speak. Show the people here that you care even a little about them, and they will do anything for you.

Including giving you a ride from the airport to the town center in their friend's car.

Like I said, my Serbian consists of samo malo, only a little. I don't understand shit. But I can hear when English phrases pop up in the middle of conversations in pretty much any language.

For example:

"Serbian Serbian Serbian give a leeft Serbian Serbian," Dragana said to Nebojsa (two uber Serbian names, by the way).

"Serbian Serbian," he muttered back. To a Balkan new kid, it would have sounded like Dragana was trying to convince Nebojsa, and that Nebojsa was shooting her down, since the way people speak here makes them sound rather disagreeable. It's the opposite of Africa, where a simple greeting will cause the African to break out into an uncontrollable fit of laughter, as if every Joe Blow on the street is a regular Jerry Seinfeld. But you can't let the appearance of things trick you into thinking that's the way it is. The Balkans are all about appearances, layers, and then the actual reality, buried deep below.

Far from shooting her down, Nebojsa was fully endorsing Dragana's plan to give me a leeft.

"It is small car," she told me, "so we will see. But this is why I ask you how much luggage you have."

I had known that's why she'd asked, but I acted pleasantly surprised nonetheless when I heard Dragana say "give a leeft" in the midst of her Serbian conversation with Nebojsa, who was still sitting in a third of my seat. The truth is, I knew from the moment his eyes had lit up at my question about the proper context for using Ja sam versus jesam that they were going to offer me a ride.

The first thing Dragana did when we stepped outside from baggage claim was light up a cigarette.

And they weren't lying; it was a small car. But all cars are small cars in Serbia. My favorite kind, a remnant from the socialist Yugoslav period, is called a peglica (peg-leet-sah), or "little iron" in English.

The driver either didn't speak English or was too shy to speak English. But she was beautiful, which is a synonym for "she's from Serbia and is under 30." Serbian girls are the most beautiful in the world, but years of cigarette smoke, trials and tribulations make the Serbian M.I.L.F. as rare as the Northern Hairy-nosed Wombat.

The road from the airport to New Belgrade was pitch black. The beautiful girl driving the car was listening to Serbian turbo folk, the equivalent of a Texan listening to David Allen Coe, except instead of being all right music, it's the worst music ever. At least the volume was turned down low. Most of the homes that we drove past had no lights on. I thought about asking why that was the case, then I decided against it. The last conversation I wanted to start was the "Did you know how much we suffer as Serbs?" conversation. I'm going to be here for two weeks, and there will be plenty of time for such talk.

Balkan homecoming.

"Yo, man, how much are you excited?! For Balkan again... Be prepared."

That's the text I got from O.G. Zoka last week. In just a couple of hours, I'll be on a plane, bound for Belgrade, Serbia, back to my Balkan Home Sweet Home.

It's been over two years, but ja sam spreman.

My stay in Belgrade will be interrupted by a nice little trip up to northern Serbia, in the historically distinct Vojvodina region, to my second favorite Serbian city, Novi Sad. Exit Festival, from July 9-12, is going to be the shit.

It helps that I have the coolest job ever, with employers as flexible as Mary Lou Retton. All I need to punch in is an Internet connection, whether that's in the office in Austin, in the rainforest of Brazil, or the smoke-filled den of the Black Catz. That's why I can go to Serbia for two weeks and only take three vacation days. If I'd really known just how flexibile they were when I bought my ticket, I may have just gone for a month.

I know I haven't been writing much lately. Crystal, I apologize. I will be picking my game up for the next two weeks, for sure.

Zato idem u Beograduuuuuuu.