Whoever said that I've been wasting my $100-plus thousand dollar UVa education by shuttling around the former Yugoslavia in an aimless, existentialist haze for the majority of the past five months was way off. The Three Black Catz may be responsible for millions of brain cells lost forever, but a little R&R is essential in the Balkans if you want to maintain sanity. Besides, productivity is not as tangible as it may appear to those with "real" degrees and respectable jobs.

You can't put a price tag on the kind of knowledge I have been accumulating since I landed in Split, Croatia last September.

A history major in college, yet until this summer, this was one in major need of enlightenment regarding the Balkans. I knew nothing, to put it simply, about a part of the world that was responsible for lighting the fuse of the Great War, and where wounds from the Second World War have still not fully healed. Until I read Balkan Ghosts last July (an experience that I can honestly say changed my life, since it sparked inside of me a burning desire to travel to this crazy place), I knew nothing at all about the former Communist country of Yugoslavia, except for the following:

• A guy named Tito broke with the Soviet Union in 1948, and,
• There was a messed up war here in the 90's.

Oh, and I knew that Vlade Divac, Pedja Stojakovic, Toni Kukoc, Darko Milicic, Drajan Petrovic, and every other NBA player with a last named ending in "itch" hailed from somewhere nearby.

My days of Slavic ignorance seem like a distant dream at this point.

The irony is that Balkan Ghosts focused mainly on Romania, Macedonia and Greece -- three places I still haven't seen. Robert Kaplan, the author, threw in some tidbits from a Why Croatia and Serbia Have Beef 101 course, and discussed "Old Serbia" and the Legend of Kosovo pretty extensively -- but he completely skipped over Bosnia, which has more than enough books devoted to it alone. None of that matters now, though. That book was just a nudge; I took the plunge, and I have done my best to soak up as much of my surroundings on the ensuing free fall -- that means not only trying to learn the history, but also the customs, culture, cuisine and language.

After spending most of my trip hopping between the South Slav (Jugo Slav) countries of Serbia, Bosnia-Hercegovina, Croatia, Slovenia and Montenegro -- reading, talking, absorbing and learning stories about life from the horses' mouths -- I am a regular wannabe Balkanologist.

I know more about these people's own history than most of these very people. The most common question I hear -- other than, "Why are you here?" and "Are you in the CIA?" -- is "Why do you ask so many questions?" I feel almost as comfortable in a run-down Serbian cafana as I did in a booth at The Virginian until last May. And that's not even having truly scratched the surface on trying to understand a place where, as I once read, "nothing, nothing, is as it seems."

But if only my parents could have seen me two days ago in Zabljak, Montenegro, after Stewart and I got stood up by our Crna Gora Grandmother's grandson, Velimir, on a date to go skiing on the mountain nearby.

There was nothing to do, as Zabljak is pretty much like "Kusek," Montenegro, so we just bought the cheapest bottle of domestic rakia available. A fine domestic product called Lozova Rakia, with a slogan that read, "Eau de Vie de Montenegro," French for, "Water of Life of Montenegro." We took our water of life, found a picnic table in someone's front yard, and sat down to enjoy the fine afternoon.

Step 1...

Step 2...

Step 3...

And Step 4 to becoming a real Balkan man.

All the while, with a huge, gaping hole in my Carhartt's, just so the wet snow and cold wind could also be invited to the party in my only pair of pants.

"It's 3:00 on a Thursday afternoon," Stewart said from the other side of the bench. "Your parents would be so proud."

Maybe so. At this rate, maybe I really am


But at least I'm not working behind a cubicle!

BOO YAH!