Signing off in Sarajevo

We've travelled the Balkans for over two weeks and while I knew it's history, nothing has made me really take notice of it's ugly history until we entered Bosnia. I overheard a local woman recently muse "its funny, we fought so hard for so many years to all be separate, and in a few years we'll all be joined together as EU members. What was the point of all that bloodshed?". She's got a point.

Took an amazing city walking tour this morning that went into graphic details about what Bosnia was like under Tito as president of communist Yugoslavia to the chaos of the Serbian attacks from Milosevic and where they are now. Bosnia has 40% unemployment with no immediate signs of improvement. It is the only country in the world with 3 simultaneous presidents who all have equal power and veto rights. The three presidents represent the bosniaks (Muslim), croats (Catholic) and serbs (orthodox). Elections are this year and there are 192 different political parties. Imagine what their ballot card looks like. As the tour guide said, "welcome to the craziest developed country on Earth". Indeed.

Lots of rain on our final day, so in-between rain storms we sought out a few local breweries. Found a great tiny microbrew that had a dozen different taps and even had sours. They were kind enough to let us enter the back room to see their equipment. I was shocked they were doing everything with small kettles. They really were 'micro'.

And that's pretty much how we wrapped up our balkan adventure. Grabbed a late night meal at our favorite restaurant Barhana on the way home and then off to bed for a very early morning coming up. -SPEn savoir plus