Belgrade Day 5

I am leaving Belgrade tomorrow and thank God. This is less a reflection of the city than of the people who are staying at the hostel with me. Belgrade has a fantastic, debaucherous nightlife, but it's hardly the only thing to do here, though you wouldn't know that from the habits of everyone staying at this hostel. People want to get destroyed every night. And that's fine, but I've began to get a little bored of that. I've tried to float the idea of finding some kind of unique Serbian restaurant, but nobody finds that idea interesting (there are traditional Belgrade bistros called kafanas with ale and crazy food and people playing the accordion). Disappointing.

I am deeply disillusioned with hosteling in general. I'm 26 years old; it's no longer fun to share bunks with drunken 18 year old English guys who want to get drunk and buy Serbian prostitutes.

I had to leave Belgrade yesterday or else my head was going to blow up. I took a day trip to Subotica, which used to be an important city in the Austro-Hungarian Empire but is now basically a sleepy border town on Serbia's border with Hungary. Northern Serbia has a significant Hungarian minority, and the bus went through a lot of Hungarian villages on the way to Subotica. There isn't a lot going on in Subotica, but it's very leafy and pleasant and drips with Austro-Hungarian ambiance and was basically a perfect change of pace for me.

So this is it for me in Belgrade. I come back here after Guca, but just for enough time to catch an overnight train in Thessaloniki. This city is pretty amazing but if you visit, make sure you come with a LOT of energy. This is a 24 hour city, and it's rather pointless to visit if you're not willing to adapt to those terms. Belgrade reminds me a lot of Bucharest: similar size, not always aesthetically pleasing (though there are some very, very nice parts of both cities), exuberant, hard-partying, full of really, really nice people.

And now, five days of trumpets.