Lessons I'll probably never learn

1. Never trim your bangs when you are hungover, crabby, sad, or nearsighted.
2. Food is not a panacea.
3. There are ignorant, mean, petty, inconsiderate, small-minded and otherwise disagreeable people everywhere in the world, even when it seems like they're all converging wherever you happen to be.
   
4. Control is overrated.
5. Planning to do something tomorrow is often equivalent to not doing it at all.

I've been sick and crabby almost all week, and actually got sent home from school on Thursday. Friday I decided enough was enough and stayed in bed all day (drastic times call for drastic measures), which you'd think would have allowed me to finish the rest of my Bosnia posts. But there's something really uninspiring about phlegm....
So today, finally, here's some more. Not everything, and I've realized I'm probably not going to finish parts III and IV because Blogger is being moody about which pictures it uploads, so I put some more up on Flickr. Meanwhile, the breathlessly awaited

Bosnia, Part II

I'm still not feeling up to a cohesive, linear account of the Balkans, but no one complained about the last post, so I'm hoping that any of you who need a more exact chronological post are ok piecing one together your own. That said, sorry it took me so long!This is Sarajevo's central market, which is about the size of St. Paul's farmer's market. Although only food is sold in the official market area, pairs of round old ladies stake out stretches of sidewalk all around it to sell strings of dried flower buds, knitted socks and mittens, undershirts, and all kinds of other things. Sladja tells me that the first shots of the war were fired here.

Copper is a big industry in Bosnia. This is a coppersmith's alley in the Baščaršija area, where tourists can buy kitschy copper ashtrays and Turkish coffee sets (and non-tourists can get other stuff, like candlesticks and coffee grinders). I was excited to discover that this is also where the workshops are; there are always a few coppersmith's working on something, so the street sounds like small hailstorm.

One of the coolest things about Sarajevo is the variety of architecture. Austro-Hungarian cathedrals next to Ottoman mosques with Roman graves (stachk, I think they're called) in the courtyards, all within rock-throwing distance of some classic Soviet-era Plattenbau office blocks.

Big chess game in the park.

This is the old city hall and National Library. It was torched during the war (lots of extremely old and valuable manuscripts were lost) and is still being renovated. The picture doesn't do it justice.

Sladja's parents wanted me to see what winter is supposed to be like there, so we drove up into the mountains, where they showed me the old Olympic hotels and new, optimistic (mostly empty) ski resort type places. Beautiful, but spooky.

This used to be a church, then it was the Arts Academy, and now it's an Apple Center.

I think this is the Latin bridge, but it could be the Roman one. Bosnians are really proud of their bridges, and some of them (maybe even this one) are quite a bit older than anything else I've ever walked on.