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Franz Ferdinand and Sophia figures in the Sarajevo museum, depicting the moment they left City Hall on their way to be murdered a few minutes later.
Today began at 5:30 am: Masayo and I had to catch a train at 7:04 to Sarajevo, one of only two daily trains to the capital of Bosnia.
My BG at 5:30 was 180, and breakfast was the rest of the cinnamon cereal and some yogurt. The owner of the apartment came to pick us up at 6:30 and drove us to the station, a very nice bonus feature of staying at Little Rock Apartments.
#bgnow 180 in the morning in Mostar.
Masayo and plaster figures in Mostar train station
We bought the tickets at the window, in the still-dark morning. The train arrived mostly on time: our first Bosnian train, and first since northern Croatia, actually. It arrived on the same platform as shown in Michael Palin’s New Europe, incidentally.
Mostar train platform in the dark
The train was not very packed, and Masayo and I had a six-seat compartment all to ourselves the whole way. The train seemed a little old and dirty, but not too bad. And anyway, it quickly got light outside, and the whole trip to Sarajevo was full of amazing views. Snowy mountains, picturesque valleys, and dramatic blue rivers cutting through the hills.
Watching the scenery from Mostar to Sarajevo
Snowy mountains from the train window
Somehow, by 7:45 my BG was an equally mountainous 343! I have no idea why; if I ate too much cereal, I didn’t eat that much. I hate it when it doesn’t make sense. I took a Humalog shot without any food. The scenery took my mind off of BG though.
#bgnow 343 on the train to Sarajevo. That deserves a Terry Gilliam face.
Humalog shot for no food
We arrived in Sarajevo at 9:45, an especially early time for us to get to a new place. We took a tram into Old Town and got off at the Baščaršija area. After stumbling around some wrong roads for a few minutes, we found our way up a big snowy hill to the apartment we’d reserved, Guest House Kofrc. It was early and the lady wasn’t ready to let us in so we left our bags and walked back down to town to get some Bosnian coffee at a Turkish cafe called Osmanli Pide Döner.
On a tram in Sarajevo, ticket in mouth. The locals don’t seem so sure.
Cemetery near Old Town in Sarajevo on the hill up towards our apartment.
Bosnian coffee in Sarajevo
We checked in properly, and by noon my BG was 137. Much better than the 343 it had been. Then we headed out to see some of Sarajevo.
#bgnow 137 in the afternoon in Sarajevo
The first thing we saw was the street corner where Gavrilo Princip, a 20-year old Serbian nationalist, shot the heir to the Austro-Hungarian Empire as he rode with his wife Sophia in an open car. There is a plaque just outside of a museum about that period of Bosnian history.
The Latin Bridge in Sarajevo, with the very shallow Miljacka River flowing under it. World War I began a few feet to the right of it.
Soldiers on the Latin Bridge in Sarajevo. World War I began just past them, on the corner to the right across the street.
World War I began right here! This plaque apparently used to be worded differently, more in Gavrilo’s honor. When Yugoslavia broke up they toned it down to just the facts.
The whole day, I had various songs by Franz Ferdinand (the band) in my head, especially one of their early ones, “All For You, Sophia”, which is all about Gavrilo Princip particularly. It was impossible not to, loving the band’s music as much as I do.
Gavrilo Princip’s pistol, from the museum near the shooting place. The bullet itself is in a museum in the Czech Republic, at a chateau where Franz Ferdinand lived, and the car and bloodstained clothes are in a museum in Austria.
People entering a mosque in Sarajevo
Old men with giant chess pieces on a Sarajevo street
After seeing the museum (and taking the audio tour) we trudged through the snowy mush to visit some nice churches and mosques and other places, plus an eternal flame on another street corner. I checked my BG here, which was 97, as a guy warmed himself with the eternal flame behind me. It may be symbolic, but I guess it can be practical as well!
#bgnow 97 at the Sarajevo Eternal Flame monument. Perhaps I will be 97 eternally?
Sarajevo monument in Old Town
Give the people what they want.
We went back up the hill to the apartment to rest a while, and then went back to town for dinner. We found a small place that sold ćevapi; we were told in Mostar to try Sarajevo’s ćevapi specifically.
Standoff with Sarajevo cats. They don’t look any more impressed with me than I am with them.
Snowy Sarajevo cemetery at night
The restaurant was an unexpected surprise: it had two booths and one table only, and we got the table. The other guests and the owner, all older, were listening to a guy playing the accordion. He was just friends with them, as far as we could tell, but everyone was singing along to the traditional songs with feeling, sipping their bottles of beer.
Accordion player in Sarajevo restaurant. Not employed to be there for the diners; he was one of the diners. Very nice evening.
Humalog shot in Sarajevo restaurant. I hoped the accordion guy would be in this photo but my jacket blocked him. A chance wasted by my photographic haste.
We ordered our food (I got a Sarajevsko beer and a sausage/bread dish called sudžukice) and listened to the live performance. Occasionally the owner lady would come put another piece of firewood in a little stove in the corner. The light was dim, and the whole thing was extremely charming and unusual (for us). This is the kind of thing you could never get without traveling!
We stopped by a supermarket on the way back to get some carbonated water (as we always do), and I got a thick chocolate cake from a bakery, which I took insulin for when we got back to the room. Unfortunately it wasn’t enough: at 11 pm I was over the dreaded 300 mark: 319. SIGH. More Humalog and an early sleep followed.
#bgnow 319 after dinner, and a sarcastic kiss. The bread may have been a bit thicker than I thought, and the dessert certainly so. So, not too surprising and hence not too upsetting a blood sugar.
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