kafe from Bosnia

This afternoon I broke out the kafe set, and decided to take my first try at Bosnian kafe...

I called my friend Mark... and the process has begun... the first cup wasn't quite right, the second cup (which had set longer in the grounds) was better... I did discover the necessity of getting a little bit of grounds with the sip... ahhhhh... more posts I'm sure... click here to see the pix from the FEB07 trip.

Saturday Morning in Sarajevo

On the wall of a building on a side street near the river is this marker... it states


"FROM THIS PLACE ON 28 JUNE 1914 GAVRILO PRINCIP ASSASSINATED THE HEIR TO THE AUSTRO-HUNGARIAN THRONE FRANZ FERDINAND AND HIS WIFE SOFIA"


An interesting historical spot to say the least...


Below you will see that outside the mosque that dominates the main street in the old town there are people begging... older women, younger women with babies and children...















a bit later, we were wandering the market street when I noticed Laci in front of a mobile phone store... in this awesome stone building... I love the mixture of the old with the new...













In need of coffee, we went to a place that specialized in Turkish coffee... I, like Mark says over on his blog, have become a lover of this strong yet oddly smooth boiled coffee... now if one of my friends will tell me how to make it with my souviener coffee boiling set...

after coffee, we headed out to begin out trek back to Croatia... I spotted this scene of what is probably called New Sarajevo as we tried to find our way out of town...

Laci guided the Opel skilllfully through the streets and then we saw the sign showing the way to Tuzla and we KNEW we were on the right road... following the road signs... keeping an eye on the signposts is the way to keep on track... I think of Psalm 19... and I think of a great quote from C. S. Lewis... "Theology is like a map"

on to Bosnia

The following pics come from our road trip today to Sarajevo, Bosnia

I was the map reader...








...leaving early gets you a beautiful sunrise...
arriving in Sarajevo, we began to see the beggars that we saw so many of during these two days...

In the old town we arrive in time for the call to prayer...

we saw scores of men crowd in...

Tom's one day tour

On Wed., Becca and I did a special edition of Tom's one day tour... it wasn't hot so we were comforable and there were only two of us so we moved pretty fast... here are some pix from that afternoon...

This pic is one of my fav scenes... we got kinda lost walking down from Buda castle and wound up walking ACROSS the tunnel entrance...

in fact if you look above the great seal and see the railing, that's where we got stuck! my bad.

castle hill

so the girl in the downhill tram couldn't break a 10k note and we walked ziging and zagging down the hill from the palace, to the seal, across the tunnel entrance to the street... then across the bridge to St. Isvan's Basilica...

castle tunnel

so here is the tunnel that runs under the castle hill... it was a new experience for me to walk across the top of the tunnell where kids hang out...

from the top we took pix of the chain bridge... the great seal is just left as we view it here... from this spot we walked across the Chain Bridge to St. Isvan's

from the top of the tunnel

...so, from the center of the top of the tunnel, looking through the barbed wire - which kids had proped up to climb through - you look right through the chain bridge...

St. Isvan's

St. Istvan's hand

This is the case that hold's St. Istvan's hand... you pay 100 Forints to turn on the light to see his hand...
















St. Istvan died 1000 years ago... this relic is interesting, but He who is worthy of worship has both hands, feet, and every other part of His body intact after His resurrection: Jesus...

a contrast at Parlament

Below you will see the flag of the 1956 uprising... the Soviet Socialist symbol was cut out during the protests which turned violent and were crushed by Soviet tanks...




















This is the grand and beautiful Hungarian parlament building which saw battles in 1956 and in 2006 as a corrupt government was protested against, the protests continue...

























... thus a police presence and baracades...






















...there's something not quite right about all this...


I guess the uprising continues...

Chain Bridge and St. Matthias in background

Chain Bridge with Palace Behind

faces of friends and family

more Pest lights

Pest lights at night

Parlament

an important meeting

Mark held an important meeting to get directions...

early train

On the way to Bp from Sz early Monday morning

scenes from HU

Szeged Synagogue

Nyugati pu

it is from this station that we travel to Szeged