It wasn't the most rested night of my life, but it sure beat sitting up in a bus. I was also insanely pleased that a) I was able to sleep on the bottom bunk and b) we had the whole compartment to ourselves. It would have probably been even more unbearable than a bus if we had crammed 6 people in there. As it was, Dan and I could spread out, change our clothes, all in privacy.
The night passed relatively slowly, but eventually Dan's alarm went off and it was time to repack what we had unpacked, and try to make ourselves human. At one point, I went to the toilet and came back to find Dan with his head out the window, taking pictures. I had apparently arrived so softly that I had startled Dan, resulting in him colliding his head into the top bunk and leaving a mark. This is actually the third head wound of the trip that Dan has sustained - the first, when a zip came flying off the backpack when trying to be zipped up (and he donked himself, full force, in the nose), the second, he collected a key to the forehead on a cupboard.
I ended up snoozing for a little bit once all packed and ready, until the conductor came past and it was almost time to get off. We shouldered our bags, climbed off the train and stood blinking on the platform. There had been a handful of other people in the sleeper compartment of the train, but not many.
Our accommodation was supposed to be really close and it actually was just across the road from the station. Getting there was a bit complicated, as we had to wait for about 6 lots of traffic lights, but we got there eventually, went up 1 flight of stairs (after we couldn't get the lift to work) and checked in. It was too early to take our room (about 9.30am at this point), but we were able to leave our stuff and come back for it later.
The lady behind the counter at Hostel Play tried to explain where we could get a map from, which didn't help at all, and so we went back to the station thinking there might be a tourist office there. This was clever thinking, we got a map, and then decided to figure out something for breakfast. It seemed that most things were in the same direction, and soon we came across a place with some gentle electro thumping, some outdoor couches on astroturf and a few people sitting. A quick look at the prices - stupidly cheap - and so we settled for here. In hindsight, it may have been a bit more expensive than normal, but it was cheap for us and it turned out to be awesome!
The only thing not so good about the restaurant was its name/theme. Mr. President, with a back of the head view of Donald Trump. I feel that they change their signage each time a new president is sworn in... We sat down and had a look at the menu. A lovely girl came to serve us, and she seemed a little enamoured that we were from Australia and New Zealand, and that we had come from very far away. We ordered a Serbian coffee (you know this is very strong? she asked - to which we replied that we hope it is, we need it!), a juice each (as I was still struggling with this potential chest infection, and eggs benedict with salmon.
After she returned with our coffee, I noticed something on the menu called "Plazma shake", and asked what it was. Her face lit up, and she said "This is a Serbian speciality! It's sweet, I don't know how to describe it." She looked so excited that we had asked, that we ordered one to share to try it. It was going to be our breakfast dessert.
Our eggs benedict returned and they were seriously delicious. Instead of holondaise sauce, it turned out to be some kind of truffle sauce and with our coffee and juice we were sated. Then came the Plazma shake. Out came a large cocktail glass filled with looked to be the colour of coffee with milk, with two straws and a spoon, topped with cream and cookie crumbles.
How to describe it...What I thought was cream on the top was probably egg white, and the coffee coloured part I think was crushed cookie - it was so think we basically gave ourselves an aneurysm trying to drink it with the straw - the spoon was much better! It was actually delicious, and a perfect way to end out enormous breakfast (just what we needed after the big night and what would be a big day!) and we were thankful we didn't get one each.
Our plan for now was to go to the Tesla Museum, one of the main attractions (for us) in Belgrade. I had read that you had to book ahead of time for a tour, but could find no where to do it (without ringing up). Dan had asked the lady in our hostel if this was something we needed to do, but she seemed confused, and said we can just go straight there. So go straight there we did. By now, the day had heated up considerably. And there was little shade. We reached the Tesla Museum to see a reasonable crowd outside milling about.
Once inside, I asked for two tickets. The lady behind the counter said the price for the tour. I then asked if we needed to do the tour, to which she replied that we would have to if we wanted to play with the exhibits. Ok, tour it is! By now, it was just after 11am, and a tour went every hour. As there was a large crowd, we said we would wait for the 12pm tour. This gave us time to look around the (albeit very small) open section of the museum which housed a collection of Tesla's clothing and a few other little artifacts. Including Tesla himself - his ashes in a spherical urn.
One of the museum staff encouraged us to join the 11am tour which had clearly gotten underway. I made my way there - saw that I would never see anything, and decided that we would wait for the next one. I think she was trying to shove as many people through as possible! Because we were around for the entirety of the previous tour, we knew what to expect. So when it came our turn to take a seat, we chose seats that were close to the back so we could jump up and be near the next lot of action, but close enough to the front to be able to see and hear what would happen at the front. Being 5" tall I always have to think of these things! (Otherwise I get really grumpy).
We were supposed to take a seat 20 minutes before hand but we were early. Thankfully so - the room started to fill up quickly and a lot of people had to stand. Our presenter started off by showing us a video about Tesla's life - thankfully (I believe) skipping over the whole Tesla-Edison controversy and choosing to focus on his achievements instead.
He pointed out Tesla's first alternating motor - sitting right next to Dan and I. This was quite exciting, and I learnt so much about how Tesla has brought the light to our world.
Next up, the Tesla coil, of course! I raced myself to the front, pushing past children, til I was on the front line. There was a reasonable size coil, and the presenter explained how it worked, and started handing out fluorescent bulbs. As I had seen this from the adjacent room, I quite desperately wanted to be holding one of these, so I held my hand out and was handed one. The rules: don't go beyond the line, and hold it with two hands like a light saber! A little boy in the front row kept going too close to the line and kept holding it with one hand, and I was sure he was going to be electrocuted.
Three
Two
One
BBBBBBBBBBBBBBBBZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZ
The lightbulb in my hands glowed bright blue, as the Tesla coil arced above us.
I swear I must have had a bit of metal on my forehead (or maybe there's a chip in there?) because my forehead became a bit buzzy each time the toil was turned on. I'm not a scientist so I won't go into the details of how it worked, but essentially the coil is supposed to be like a wireless electricity source - if you're reasonably close to it, items will conduct electricity. Hence the bulbs lighting up. In real life, this wouldn't work so wonderfully, but Tesla was on to something trying to bring electricity to the masses!
From here we also learned about how Tesla essentially invented wifi and wireless transmission (eg, remote control) as well as a few other experiments. In all, the museum is really small and I was sad that Dan didn't get to participate in any of the experiments - there were literally too many people. It's overrun. I don't know what time of day is best for you to go, I thought midday might be slow as people would be eating lunch but it was still very overcrowded. Hopefully one day they extend it a little more?
After the museum, we went back to the hostel to check in. On the way, we passed some bombed, ruined buildings - turns out these were some of the buildings that NATO had bombed in 1999. I have since learnt a lot more about all of this, and while I always believe you should never fight violence with violence - from my perspective, what the Serbian people were doing was atrocious (what I know of it), and it seemed that these bombings brought a halt to it.
By now our room was ready, and it seemed that the place was overflowing with young university students making a racket. I was stuffed, so we had a bit of a break in our room. I had researched a couple of free walking tours and found one that started at 3.30 and one that started at 4. As we were so stuffed, we couldn't pull ourselves together quick enough for the 3.30 tour. On the way, we found a shop which sold the new Fanta we had seen advertised: turns out it is mango flavour.
This was our first walk into the main city area of Belgrade. I didn't realise it was going to be so uphill! The walking tour started "by the horse" in the main square.
I didn't take notes for this walking tour as my phone battery was being temperamental, so I don't really remember everything we learnt. Our guide spoke so quickly as well, and she rolled all her words together so I had a bit of a hard time following.
I do remember, though, stopping in the Skardalia area, the bohemian area of Belgrade, where she whipped out a plastic bottle of home made rakija for us all to try. It was actually delicious - far nicer than any we had tried already! It was honey flavoured and easy to sip. We were sitting next to a fountain and she encouraged us to drink from it - I love the fresh water in these Balkan countries!
We mostly did the tour as we wanted to get our bearings in Belgrade. The tour wasn't spectacular, there was a lot about the Ottoman Empire (I'm getting ottoman fatigue) but we ended up at the Belgrade Fort in Kalemegdan Park. Here we had quite a lovely view over where the two rivers meet.
After the tour it was time for dinner - as our breakfast had been so big we didn't end up having any lunch. I had wanted to eat in the bohemian area and had a place on my food list that I thought was in there but it turned out to be a bit further along.
At the time, the food was tasty. In hindsight, we've had much better since! However the service and the starters we had were delicious. For starters we had Balkan dolmades, and for the mains cevapi (for the first time!) and some other tasty sausages. We topped it off with local beer. After the fact, I can say we have definitely had better cevapi since!
After dinner we went to Skardalia for a drink and to people watch. Turns out most of the places there require you to eat as well, but one of the waitresses pointed out an establishment that was just for drinking. Phew! It was getting a little windy now but we still sat on the deck where we could watch the street.
We ordered a local beer each and also a rakija each, one quince and one apple/cinnamon. As we drank our beers, we watched as a group of musicians would stand by a table and start to play music to the patrons. They would only leave when you paid them money to go away. We were thankful we were up off the street level and couldn't be bothered by these musicians! It was funny watching the people being bothered as they tried to ignore them, eventually crumbling and getting out their wallets.
At this point we called it a night. It had been a really long night and day and we were more than ready to crash. Our accommodation is as again over run with what sounded like children (the uni students) so ear plugs in and off to sleep.
Til next time,
xx
The night passed relatively slowly, but eventually Dan's alarm went off and it was time to repack what we had unpacked, and try to make ourselves human. At one point, I went to the toilet and came back to find Dan with his head out the window, taking pictures. I had apparently arrived so softly that I had startled Dan, resulting in him colliding his head into the top bunk and leaving a mark. This is actually the third head wound of the trip that Dan has sustained - the first, when a zip came flying off the backpack when trying to be zipped up (and he donked himself, full force, in the nose), the second, he collected a key to the forehead on a cupboard.
I ended up snoozing for a little bit once all packed and ready, until the conductor came past and it was almost time to get off. We shouldered our bags, climbed off the train and stood blinking on the platform. There had been a handful of other people in the sleeper compartment of the train, but not many.
Our accommodation was supposed to be really close and it actually was just across the road from the station. Getting there was a bit complicated, as we had to wait for about 6 lots of traffic lights, but we got there eventually, went up 1 flight of stairs (after we couldn't get the lift to work) and checked in. It was too early to take our room (about 9.30am at this point), but we were able to leave our stuff and come back for it later.
The lady behind the counter at Hostel Play tried to explain where we could get a map from, which didn't help at all, and so we went back to the station thinking there might be a tourist office there. This was clever thinking, we got a map, and then decided to figure out something for breakfast. It seemed that most things were in the same direction, and soon we came across a place with some gentle electro thumping, some outdoor couches on astroturf and a few people sitting. A quick look at the prices - stupidly cheap - and so we settled for here. In hindsight, it may have been a bit more expensive than normal, but it was cheap for us and it turned out to be awesome!
The only thing not so good about the restaurant was its name/theme. Mr. President, with a back of the head view of Donald Trump. I feel that they change their signage each time a new president is sworn in... We sat down and had a look at the menu. A lovely girl came to serve us, and she seemed a little enamoured that we were from Australia and New Zealand, and that we had come from very far away. We ordered a Serbian coffee (you know this is very strong? she asked - to which we replied that we hope it is, we need it!), a juice each (as I was still struggling with this potential chest infection, and eggs benedict with salmon.
After she returned with our coffee, I noticed something on the menu called "Plazma shake", and asked what it was. Her face lit up, and she said "This is a Serbian speciality! It's sweet, I don't know how to describe it." She looked so excited that we had asked, that we ordered one to share to try it. It was going to be our breakfast dessert.
Our eggs benedict returned and they were seriously delicious. Instead of holondaise sauce, it turned out to be some kind of truffle sauce and with our coffee and juice we were sated. Then came the Plazma shake. Out came a large cocktail glass filled with looked to be the colour of coffee with milk, with two straws and a spoon, topped with cream and cookie crumbles.
How to describe it...What I thought was cream on the top was probably egg white, and the coffee coloured part I think was crushed cookie - it was so think we basically gave ourselves an aneurysm trying to drink it with the straw - the spoon was much better! It was actually delicious, and a perfect way to end out enormous breakfast (just what we needed after the big night and what would be a big day!) and we were thankful we didn't get one each.
Our plan for now was to go to the Tesla Museum, one of the main attractions (for us) in Belgrade. I had read that you had to book ahead of time for a tour, but could find no where to do it (without ringing up). Dan had asked the lady in our hostel if this was something we needed to do, but she seemed confused, and said we can just go straight there. So go straight there we did. By now, the day had heated up considerably. And there was little shade. We reached the Tesla Museum to see a reasonable crowd outside milling about.
Once inside, I asked for two tickets. The lady behind the counter said the price for the tour. I then asked if we needed to do the tour, to which she replied that we would have to if we wanted to play with the exhibits. Ok, tour it is! By now, it was just after 11am, and a tour went every hour. As there was a large crowd, we said we would wait for the 12pm tour. This gave us time to look around the (albeit very small) open section of the museum which housed a collection of Tesla's clothing and a few other little artifacts. Including Tesla himself - his ashes in a spherical urn.
One of the museum staff encouraged us to join the 11am tour which had clearly gotten underway. I made my way there - saw that I would never see anything, and decided that we would wait for the next one. I think she was trying to shove as many people through as possible! Because we were around for the entirety of the previous tour, we knew what to expect. So when it came our turn to take a seat, we chose seats that were close to the back so we could jump up and be near the next lot of action, but close enough to the front to be able to see and hear what would happen at the front. Being 5" tall I always have to think of these things! (Otherwise I get really grumpy).
We were supposed to take a seat 20 minutes before hand but we were early. Thankfully so - the room started to fill up quickly and a lot of people had to stand. Our presenter started off by showing us a video about Tesla's life - thankfully (I believe) skipping over the whole Tesla-Edison controversy and choosing to focus on his achievements instead.
He pointed out Tesla's first alternating motor - sitting right next to Dan and I. This was quite exciting, and I learnt so much about how Tesla has brought the light to our world.
Next up, the Tesla coil, of course! I raced myself to the front, pushing past children, til I was on the front line. There was a reasonable size coil, and the presenter explained how it worked, and started handing out fluorescent bulbs. As I had seen this from the adjacent room, I quite desperately wanted to be holding one of these, so I held my hand out and was handed one. The rules: don't go beyond the line, and hold it with two hands like a light saber! A little boy in the front row kept going too close to the line and kept holding it with one hand, and I was sure he was going to be electrocuted.
Three
Two
One
BBBBBBBBBBBBBBBBZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZ
The lightbulb in my hands glowed bright blue, as the Tesla coil arced above us.
I swear I must have had a bit of metal on my forehead (or maybe there's a chip in there?) because my forehead became a bit buzzy each time the toil was turned on. I'm not a scientist so I won't go into the details of how it worked, but essentially the coil is supposed to be like a wireless electricity source - if you're reasonably close to it, items will conduct electricity. Hence the bulbs lighting up. In real life, this wouldn't work so wonderfully, but Tesla was on to something trying to bring electricity to the masses!
From here we also learned about how Tesla essentially invented wifi and wireless transmission (eg, remote control) as well as a few other experiments. In all, the museum is really small and I was sad that Dan didn't get to participate in any of the experiments - there were literally too many people. It's overrun. I don't know what time of day is best for you to go, I thought midday might be slow as people would be eating lunch but it was still very overcrowded. Hopefully one day they extend it a little more?
 |
| L: Mr Tesla. R: Dan with the coil |
After the museum, we went back to the hostel to check in. On the way, we passed some bombed, ruined buildings - turns out these were some of the buildings that NATO had bombed in 1999. I have since learnt a lot more about all of this, and while I always believe you should never fight violence with violence - from my perspective, what the Serbian people were doing was atrocious (what I know of it), and it seemed that these bombings brought a halt to it.
By now our room was ready, and it seemed that the place was overflowing with young university students making a racket. I was stuffed, so we had a bit of a break in our room. I had researched a couple of free walking tours and found one that started at 3.30 and one that started at 4. As we were so stuffed, we couldn't pull ourselves together quick enough for the 3.30 tour. On the way, we found a shop which sold the new Fanta we had seen advertised: turns out it is mango flavour.
This was our first walk into the main city area of Belgrade. I didn't realise it was going to be so uphill! The walking tour started "by the horse" in the main square.
I didn't take notes for this walking tour as my phone battery was being temperamental, so I don't really remember everything we learnt. Our guide spoke so quickly as well, and she rolled all her words together so I had a bit of a hard time following.
I do remember, though, stopping in the Skardalia area, the bohemian area of Belgrade, where she whipped out a plastic bottle of home made rakija for us all to try. It was actually delicious - far nicer than any we had tried already! It was honey flavoured and easy to sip. We were sitting next to a fountain and she encouraged us to drink from it - I love the fresh water in these Balkan countries!
We mostly did the tour as we wanted to get our bearings in Belgrade. The tour wasn't spectacular, there was a lot about the Ottoman Empire (I'm getting ottoman fatigue) but we ended up at the Belgrade Fort in Kalemegdan Park. Here we had quite a lovely view over where the two rivers meet.
After the tour it was time for dinner - as our breakfast had been so big we didn't end up having any lunch. I had wanted to eat in the bohemian area and had a place on my food list that I thought was in there but it turned out to be a bit further along.
At the time, the food was tasty. In hindsight, we've had much better since! However the service and the starters we had were delicious. For starters we had Balkan dolmades, and for the mains cevapi (for the first time!) and some other tasty sausages. We topped it off with local beer. After the fact, I can say we have definitely had better cevapi since!
After dinner we went to Skardalia for a drink and to people watch. Turns out most of the places there require you to eat as well, but one of the waitresses pointed out an establishment that was just for drinking. Phew! It was getting a little windy now but we still sat on the deck where we could watch the street.
We ordered a local beer each and also a rakija each, one quince and one apple/cinnamon. As we drank our beers, we watched as a group of musicians would stand by a table and start to play music to the patrons. They would only leave when you paid them money to go away. We were thankful we were up off the street level and couldn't be bothered by these musicians! It was funny watching the people being bothered as they tried to ignore them, eventually crumbling and getting out their wallets.
At this point we called it a night. It had been a really long night and day and we were more than ready to crash. Our accommodation is as again over run with what sounded like children (the uni students) so ear plugs in and off to sleep.
Til next time,
xx
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