Road Trippin', part 1

This past weekend, Geoff borrowed a car (a HONDA no less...that's for my Dad) so that the Howards could get out of town for the first time since we arrived.  Our plan was to drive to Mostar on Sunday, but we were so excited to finally have a set of wheels to ourselves since we left the USA, that we decided to take a little drive Saturday evening.  (Geoff has taken two very short trips since we've been here, one to Mostar...thus our planned trip there, and the other to Banja Luka, which is in the Republic of Srpska.)  On his travels, Geoff got to learn a little bit about ways out of town, so on Saturday he treated Liam and me to a drive toward  Bjelašnica, the mountain that hosted the men's alpine skiing events in the 1984 Olympics.  The drive was lovely and mountainous, but it's also along a "fault line" of the war in the early nineties.  Thus, the drive was littered with these signs.  (No, dear family, I did not get out and take a picture.  I borrowed this from another blog, which I have now hot linked so I can't be accused of plagiarism.)  

It was unnerving, to think about mines being to our sides.  Bosnia, in teaming with the U.N. and NATO, has a great program to educate people about the mines as well as remove them, but still, it was my first encounter with them, and it made me sad.  The lives lost during that war haunt me in a way I don't know that I will ever be able to describe (but I will try later, when I am able to post about the war).


Once I was able to stop staring at the periodic mine signs, I was able to view the beautiful scenery.  The trip was spontaneous, so we didn't grab the camera, but trust me folks...if there were no mines, I would have jumped out to Maria Von Trapp in those mountains!  It was breathtaking!  Luckily for us, the trip was not so spontaneous that Liam was unable to grab a toy.  His toy of choice?  A large, washed out yogurt container that has a handle, in other words, a bucket.  After a good 40 minutes of driving, I heard a strange sound from the back.  Liam was gagging.  I scrambled to unbuckle, climb in the back, and grab said bucket.  I (kind of) made it in time to help Liam aim his carsickness into the bucket.  It came as a complete surprise.  Liam has never gotten sick on any car, airplane, or boat ride before.  I guess this particular curvy, mountain road in a bumpy old-school CRV was just too much for him.  I had to laugh at the situation (it was that or cry).  We were in a borrowed car, along a road with land mines to one side and a drop-off to the other, and our son was vomiting.  All I could do was assure Liam everything was okay and hold the puke bucket for him.  We eventually found a safe place to turn the car around and head back to town with our poor little man.


After we got home, gave Liam a bath, and put him to bed, we realized how fortunate we were that 1) we decided to take an impulsive drive and 2) that Liam wanted to bring a bucket.  If that hadn't happened, we would never have known he got car sick, and we wouldn't have been able to protect Geoff's buddy's car.  The Lord sure works in mysterious ways!  More on Mostar later!  Love to all!

Outside of house shots

I know many of you are curious about our house.  Here are a few outside shots to whet your appetites.

The front of the house

(Bottom floor is living room, top floor is our bedroom)

The front yard, taken from the front patio

Approaching the house from the driveway and garage

(The garage is built into/under our front yard.)

That's sweet Bella waiting at the gate.

 A cute little replica cottage--lots of cool Bosnian artifacts in there!

(More images of this tiny house later!)

There's Liam playing with the hose.

 The side yard and side patio, which is actually where our main entrance is.

There are apple trees to our left in this photo.

(Guest bedroom is on bottom floor to the right--COME VISIT!)

A few shots from this week

We had a pretty uneventful week this past week, which is nice.  Having no car and no cable means we make our own fun here quite a lot.  So here's some fun from this week.

Fun with chalk in the driveway

5 days' worth of cucumber growth...time to transplant already!

Cheese!

Curtains are very entertaining.

See?

More chalk fun (made for the grandfathers and great-grandfathers)

Climbing (yes, that is part of our house behind them)

Container garden

Our new house has fabulous outdoor space.  Two different patios with two separate yards, a doghouse for Bella, and a couple of fruit trees (apple and cherry).  Next year, I do plan to do a small veggie garden.  I thought about it for this year, but 1) I'd be starting very late--most locals with yard space already have sizable plants ready to go and 2) with no car, it would be hard to haul what I need back here anyway.  So, for this year, I will do what I've always done...container garden!  Geoff's boss, Chriss, was nice enough to drive me to the Bosnian version of Home Depot (Obi) and a nursery to get some pots, dirt, and plants.  While at Obi, I found some child sized garden tools and some seeds.  I thought I'd try some plants that could feasibly work in a container--lettuce, spinach, cucumber, to see if we could grow them and whether or not Liam being involved in the planting (and hopefully harvesting) helps broaden his taste for greens.

Geoff, Liam, and I had a ball transplanting our herbs and planting some seeds.  I'll let you know if we get any salad out of our efforts!

 Helping put dirt into the pots

 Directing Dada

 Watering the seeds...

 And the chives...

 And parsley and Liam!

 Splashy, splash!

 Sweet little boots

Sarajevo Zoo

Geoff, Liam, and I visited the "Pionirska Dolina" (Pioneer Village), otherwise known as the Sarajevo Zoo.  It is a lovely little park, and although there are not a ton of animals, there are plenty of things to entertain.  There are several lovely playgrounds, a carnival-type area with pay-for-play activities, and lots of room for a little boy to run!

 Llamas

 One cool goat

 A ride-on duck

 Trampoline!

 Jumping fun!

WHEEEEE!

 Train ride

Nice, tree-lined path

Peacock

 A cool bear sculpture

Monkeying around

The Call to Prayer (the Adhan)

Sarajevo has been called "the Jerusalem of Europe" due to its cultural diversity.  There are Islamic, Jewish, Catholic, and Orthodox Christian cultures throughout the city.  They have existed side by side MOSTLY without conflict for hundreds of years (more on the recent war later).  One of the things  about Sarajevo that I was really looking forward to was being able to hear the Islamic call to prayer.  5 times a day, mosques will broadcast a man singing the traditional call to prayer.  It is always in Arabic (much like Latin being sung in Catholic masses), and it is powerful.  The sunset call to prayer is especially ethereal.  (Yes, because of the time of day but also because that is when the GOOD guy is singing; the morning guy must be an intern or doing some sort of community service, for he is tone deaf).  It is spiritual, even though we are not Muslims.  Geoff and I find it comforting, and Liam is even drawn to its sound.  We stop what we are doing for that two minutes and just listen, reflect, center, and pray.   I hope that each of you gets to experience hearing the call to prayer at least once in your life.  It is truly an amazing experience.  Until you can hear the adhan live, here is the one we hear every evening.  The video is about 4 minutes long.  It starts out before our nearest mosque begins, but you can faintly hear other mosques doing theirs before ours starts up about 1 minute into the video.  Here is an English translation of what the adhan means:

God is great, God is great
I bear witness there is no deity but God
I bear witness there is no deity but God
I bear witness that Muhammad is the Messenger of God 
I bear witness that Muhammad is the Messenger of God 
Hurry to prayer
Hurry to prayer
Hurry to success
Hurry to success
God is great, God is great

There is no deity but God

A visit to "Stari Grad"

On Sunday, we headed down to Sari Grad ("old town" in Bosnian). This is truly an OLD town (see http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sarajevo#Ancient_times.) Sarajevo has been inhabited for thousands of years, but the "modern" city dates back to the Ottoman invasion. The historic founding date is said to be 1461. When the Ottomans set up shop, one of their first creations was a large outdoor public market, a version of which still exists today. It is called Baščaršija, and there are many sites to see there. We visited "Pigeon Square", had lunch at a cafe, and Liam even got a free wooden flute and his picture taken by a Japanese tourist!

(One of the oldest mosques in Sarajevo)

A view of the market center--Pigeon Square

Liam checking out the birds

Liam chasing the birds

Brave, crazy boys and more birds

  Liam is saying "CHEESE!"