Day 20 - Goodnight Sarajevo!

Tonight is our last night in Sarajevo. I had a lot of fun here, but I wish we had had more free time during the day. This morning, we went to a tunnel museum, which is in a house which turned into a tunnel in 1993 and then into a museum in the lat 90s. The tunnel goes under the Sarajevo airport, which was under UN control, but with Serbian forces on either side. It was the only way out of the city, but the UN had no authority and could not show favoritism, so any Bosniak going across the runway was shot. Ergo, a tunnel. It is 800 meters long, 1 meter wide, and 1.6 meters tall. It was used to bring food, water, electricity, and fuel into the city while it was under siege. Also, materials for producing cigarettes were brought in, turned into cigarettes in Sarajevo, then exported. They produced 100 million tons of cigarettes during the almost 4 year siege. Crazy, eh? But life goes on, even if you have to run zigzag down a street to get to school under sniper fire.

We then ate a quick lunch and went to the courts, where soldiers are tried for war crimes by the ICTY (international criminal tribunal of former Yugoslavia), which is the first war crimes tribunal since the Nuremberg trials after WWII. It will take about another 15 years to complete the trials. So far, about 800 people have been charged with this court. We were hosted by an American judge, Patricia Wehlan, who has been working in Bosnia with the UN.

After, free time! We ate in a fancy place, but a place where you must go down some obscure stairs and ring the buzzer to be let in. I was apprehensive at first, but it was delicious and relatively cheap! I had vegetable potage, or algae soup, chicken somethingorother which was like a chicken, rice and tomato casserole. Amazing! For dessert, I ordered the special pancake, which was a crepe with chocolate, walnuts and ice cream wrapped in the middle, and covered with some walnutty sauce and chocolate sauce. Amazing!

Anyway, then we did some shopping. LaVana bought a coat, shoes and a couple scarves. Meichen bought some scarves, and I bought a chessboard. I am such a nerd. Lol. It's a really nice, portable chessboard though. It is only 35 KM (Bosnian Marks) which is 17 Euros, so $25 or so. Marks to Euros is easy because its 2 to 1, but the US is .75 to 1 Mark, so it's a little hard to calculate in my head. We are only in Bosnia for another night, so I should spend my Marks before we get back to Croatia, where I should spend my Kuna before we get back to Slovenia, where I should spend my Euro before we get back to the US, where I should spend nothing! : )