Victor Yugo (5/1/2007)

Belgrade II is the first my sequel travelogue, one which comes a mere three months after the original. In a quarter year, not much has changed politically. The Serbs still demand dominion over Kosovo, can't form a coalition government, and the local USAID mission sits on its tenders. And as we just learned from ex-AID marshall Tobias, "sitting on tenders" has a different meaning in the Reagan Building than out here...

Belgrade is a completely different town from the one I left in February. It kafkanly metamorphosized from drab, dreary hole to lively and pecking. Summer Belgrade and winter Belgrade are Hyde and Jekyll. Green leaves cover up the gray buildings. People hoof the streets constantly -- the cafes are packed from lunch until midnight, when the bar and nightclub scene grabs the spotlight until dawn, and the cycle begins anew. (I guess when your unemployment rate is 30%, you need something to do, right?)

So with that in mind, a few observations from Belgrade II.

- Serbs, and by that I mean Serbian women, exist to be gawked at. I don't mean this chauvanistically -- the cafe culture, the bars, the restaurants feed into it: women here want to be ogled. Not that they don't have reason to -- I mentioned last time that Belgrade was where God perfected genetics -- but in the summer, they swarm, they flock, they sit at streetside cafes drinking Turkish coffe and make themselves outdoor museum pieces. Serbian guys, meanwhile, dig every bit of this -- there is now a movement in Parliament to change the national anthem to "Don't you wish your girlfriend was hot like me?"

- Fine, I made that one up.

- A detriment to the cafe culture is that, when you sit streetside, the inevitable gypsy kid or mother/baby tandem will come up and beg from you. On my first evening here, I was sitting with my facilitator, when one sauntered up. While she shooed him away, the cafe owner dejectedly said, "Can't hit them, thanks to those human rights laws." Hmm...

- So today I walk outside my hotel, fresh off finishing my trip notes, and the first person I see is a man - probably 55, but looking 70 after years of communism and war - and what is he wearing? A Georgetown Hoyas sweatshirt! Had I known a lick of Serbian, I'd have asked him where he got it. Not to be outdone, I was walking down by the river a couple hours later, and who flies by me on a 16-inch BMX bike (which in and of itself is funny enough), but a teenager wearing a knockoff GU basketball jersey. Perhaps Sead Dizdarevic is a true ambassador of the game ... or maybe Serbs and John Thompson exhibit similar racial tolerance.

- Zing!

- Speaking of jerseys, I was strolling down Silicon Valley street the other night, which is the hub of Belgrade cafe life and the epicenter of trophy girlfrienddom, the avenue where the glitterati and illiterati come to glow. And who is walking in front of me, but a gent (arm candy in tow) wearing a Tino Martinez Yankees jersey. While I could make some crack about '90s empires crumbling in tandem, the penchant of Serbs to glorify the past at the expense of the present, or any other cheap (6.5 games out) comment, I'm better than that. But even so, you'd expect they'd be more into Tito Francona.

- There is this new advertising campaign here for Guarana, an energy drink that comes in a sleek black can. The slogans? "Black is Sexy," "Black is Sophisticated," etc. On the advertisements? White people.

- Oh, and on the ad note, I actually ran across a poster for Vichy shower products. ("Collaborates with your pores!")

- Strangely enough, I have now spent more time in Serbia than in any other foreign country, save Germany, Russia, and New Zealand. For someone who had never visited the Balkans before last October -- and Serbia before January -- that's interesting.

Most of my travelogues allude to other places, trying to connect obscure destinations with better known ones: Christchurch is England, Dubrovnik lacks Vienna's history, Montreal est Vieux Paris. I was trying to think of how to compare Belgrade to others when it smacked me -- Belgrade is Belgrade, dammit, and it makes (and needs) no apologies that it's not anyone else. It's not sleek or glitzy, but who cares? It's young, it's hip, it's rough around the edges. The gypsies will beg, the Serbs will talk your ear off about their glorious past (Kosovo Polje, 1389!), and you will wonder why they still haven't torn down those buildings we obliterated eight years ago...

But that, dear friend, is just the charm of Belgrade being Belgrade.