Ciao, ciao Sarajevo

We are packing our bags and eating all the cevapi and paprika sir (it's young cheese stuffed into light yellow peppers) we can find. Our time in Sarajevo is coming to an end as we leave for 5 days in Austria on Tuesday, then home. As always, it's bittersweet to leave a place we have lived for over 3 months.

We joke that there is a rut in the sidewalk between our flat and the Ferhadija, the main pedestrian walkway that feeds into the Old Town, and where we have walked pretty much every day.

Three friends along the Ferhadija; they kept stopping to make a really good point in the conversation, before continuing their walk.

 That's the heart of Sarajevo - the place for the best people-watching: young women in short skirts and high, high heels, old men solving the problems of the world, babushka-clad country women selling woolen socks, tourists from everywhere contributing to the Tower of Babel effect. And coffee, coffee, coffee. I wanted to count the coffee places on the Ferhedija but it's impossible. They are tucked into every teensy space, as well as sprawling along the street.

I have, however, been saving a few quotes and sayings that perhaps reflect on our life here. Here they are:

• "We will improvise." (Said by Fikret after hikers ask how the heck we will cross the torrent of water rushing down the hillside - and many other times! This is now a standard saying in our house - "How will we ever fit everything in these suitcases?" "We will improvise!")

We ran into a concert in the Old Town one day ...

• "It's always something: cold weather, hot weather, war, after the war." (Said by a goldsmith on a hot, hot day in the Old Town when everyone was complaining and dripping. Uh, yes. Always something ...)

• "I'm glad you don't know. I hope you will never know." (A very nice man in an  Ottoman house that is now a tourist attraction mainly spared during the war. We were talking about the chaos of the city and incredible damage done, and I asked him how the bombs could reach so far from the surrounding hills.)

• "I call this the 'i' tunnel." (The country here is Bosnia & Herzegovina; the word for "and" is "i" and it is mainly abbreviated as BiH. There is a long tunnel connecting the Bosnian north and the Herzegovina south. A Fikret-ism.) 

•   "[Someone] is a waste of human flesh." Hmm, some people working with us can guess whose statement this is. And another, "Montenegro is organized crime masquerading as a country."

• A sign on a building we pass every day (translated): "Association for birds, pigeons and aquarium fish." ("Just shows," says translator Magdalena, "There is something for everyone.") Bill passed this one day when pigeons were carefully being transported into cages - probably to be freed somewhere appropriate. People are very nice to the pigeons.

And in a dress shop, one woman playing the piano and another on the violin.

• "War tourism." Hmm, can't remember where this came from, but it is prevalent. And true: yesterday we visited the tunnel dug to get people and goods out of the city under siege. And there are tons of bullets made into toys, etc. Some people hate that Sarajevo is known more for the war than its true nature - a cultural center where you can find an impromptu concert anytime. We have been to 6 concerts at the National Theater - many absolutely amazing. And many, many that we stumble across. There is always something going on.

• Another Fikret-ism: "We always come back with the same number of hikers we started with - sometimes we have to pick up a few villagers, but always the same number."

• "We never ate arugula before the war, it was a weed. But then we discovered we could eat it." A young woman in conversation about one of our favorite greens and how surprised we were to find it here.

• "Here come the dobar dans." This was our saying for ourselves. We were so bad at speaking the language that pretty much all we could say with confidence was "Dobar dan," meaning good day. It's the usual greeting. But I kept thinking that when the market vendors, or anyone else, saw us coming they'd say, "Here come the dobar dans!"  (We can also say a few other things, including "ciao," goodbye here.)

A young artist adding to the neighborhood decor ... no one seems to mind the graffiti, and it is pretty amazing.

 
The roses as big as dinner plates, the bridges stair-stepping along the river, the Palma with its espresso sa slagom (cream that is seconds away from butter), the cafes filled with smokers, the frizerski salons, the graffiti - and, yes, the stories of the war from those who remember it like yesterday ... we will miss it.

So we leave, as the linden trees along the river are in bloom, their sweet scent forever the smell of Sarajevo for us.

Roses in June - they seem to get no care, but bloom like crazy.