Serbian Football and Riot Police!!

Mar 29

Oh wow. The football game was so much fun. It was an amazing experience. About 10 of us ended up going. We all decided to meet the downtown boys at their dorm and head over to the stadium from there. The bus ride over to the boy’s dorm goes by the gypsy slums and bombed out buildings downtown that have not been rebuilt. Seeing this very different side of Belgrade made me realize that I am in fact in a very poor country that is recovering from a devastating war. It was definitely a reality check. People told us that we can just buy tickets at the door so that’s was the plan. We took a trolley from old town. Some Serbian guys on the bus asked us where we were from. When they finally understood that we were from “big Washington” they asked us where we were going. We told them we were going to see the game. One of the guys was so excited: “Oh I see, you are coming to the fight!!” As we approached the stadium things got a little more intimidating. There were riot police surrounding the area by about two blocks. They were in full riot gear. When we got off the bus we managed to lose half the group, but figured that they could figure it out. Out side of and surrounding the stadium there were mounted police, police with dogs, and of course many more riot police, which made me a little nervous to be honest. We were a little late, and just bought tickets from scalpers for face value which was a first. Levi, Matt and I stuck together. We ended up standing in the back during the whole game. It was still so much fun. Everyone yelled, and sang songs. The score was tied one to one, and I managed to film Serbia’s only goal on my camera! Super cool! We all met back up at the end and went home to sleep. Today we had class all day long. It was kind of painful, but I stuck it out by reminding myself that today was our Friday and we didn’t have class the next day. Our professors are quite susceptible to getting off track and going on a long tangent, which we have all lovingly named a “Whack Attack” (because the professors are Norman and Zurica Wacker). I am actually really excited for the literature class, but a little disappointed that we will only have it for an hour a week, once a week. When class was finally out, everyone hung out for a while and took naps. Then I went shopping downtown with two of the girls on the trip: Monika and Kelly. They are nice girls. There is apparently a thing at the student discotheque (club) on campus that everyone is planning on going to. I hope that it gives us a chance to talk to and meet some native Serbians our own age.

Ćao!

Alice