First we had to find an ATM, which wouldn't have been difficult had we started looking on the "tourist street." We wound up there....after I asked for a "bankomat" five or six times. After grabbing some cash, we decided to go with a Lonely Planet recommendation (another thing I HATE doing) and went to ABC Pizza. I quickly scanned the menu and found a salad I could eat. It was topped with some "chicken chest" for protein. Mom ate a broccoli pizza and had a Becks! I was shocked that she wanted beer. I can't even remember the last time my mother drank beer.
She didn't finish her pizza, so we gave it to a begging woman on the street. The woman had a toddler with her and she immediately began to feed him. Then we stopped into a grocery store to stock up on some fruit and candy (life's necessities). We walked around by the old bridge, staging our own mini-photo shoot, before heading to bed. I had a great night's sleep, but Mom was woken up by birds chirping (at night) and dogs barking.
The next morning, she had a cold shower because she woke up last. We headed out and went to the Museum of Herzegovina Mostar, a small collection of folklore-like objects which showed us how people used to live in Herzegovina. The real reason for going to the museum was to see a video on the Mostar bridge. The original arched bridge was built between 1558 and 1566. During the summer, men used to jump off the bridge as part of a festival/celebration. The bridge was a symbol of the town, which is why Croat forces destroyed it during the 1993 siege on the town. (You can actually see the destruction in the video.) The town was able to rebuild the bridge and use it as a ploy to get tourists to visit. They even began staging the jumping contest again. The final part of the video showed the inauguration of the new bridge, a celebration which included fireworks. My mom and I were both interested by this: fireworks are a symbol of celebration and happiness, but, to us, fire is also a symbol of destruction and can be linked to the bombing that destroyed the bridge in the first place.
Nevertheless, the bridge has been rebuilt, the people of Mostar are proud of it and people from all over the world come to see it.
After our museum visit, we walked through a graveyard and checked out a mosque (from the outside). Most of the men buried there were in their 20s or 30s when they died. They were soldiers fighting on the Bosniak side (Bosnian Muslim) of the conflict. Souvenirs from the war were all over town: many buildings had pock marks where shells had exploded. We saw some "Sarajevo Flowers" - places in the sidewalk which look like a flower because a shell exploded (the flower's center) and the sidewalk has cracked around the area (forming the petals). Additionally, some buildings had signs, in Serbo-Croat and English, warning people not to enter because the building was still structurally unsafe.
Mostar is trying to rebuild, but the economy is not in great shape, so it's a slow process. They have succeeded with their bridge, which we visited again. Just before crossing, we stopped into a photography exhibit, a collection of photos from during the war. We ate lunch on the other side of the bridge. Mom had a "pizza sandwich" - a roll, eight inches in diameter, stuffed with fresh tomatoes and melted cheese. I had a salad of tomato, onion, hard-boiled egg, tuna and "trees" (which would up to be Balkan white cheese - a salty cheese, which I love).
After lunch, we had to cross the bridge again. As we approached it, we could see a "crowd" growing. A guy was getting ready to jump! He climbed over the guardrail, peeled off his shirt and plunged into the Neretva River, 65 feet below. Clearly, he had experience jumping, but it was still exciting for us to be able to see him do it. We wandered through the old Turkish-style market area and went to a house set up to represent the way of life during the Ottoman period.
We were only able to visit a few rooms, but the house was really nice. It was right on the river and one of the rooms had a series of low windows overlooking the water below. We met a Spanish couple inside; they were shocked that I spoke Spanish and happily accepted my offer to take their picture. After leaving the house (and putting our shoes back on - we had to remove them), we found a turtle living in the courtyard. My mom had noticed some lettuce on the ground, but we wouldn't figure out why it was there. I practically bumped into the turtle as I was making my way around the fountain to take a picture of the house.
After walking around Mostar a bit more, we headed to Nina's where her dad drove us to the bus station. We caught a bus to Sarajevo. The bus ride there was uneventful, we stopped so the bus driver could buy some fish from a stand along a river. When we arrived in Sarajevo, we bought tickets to Belgrade. Then we took a taxi to a hotel with an Aussie named Paula. She had been on our bus and recommended the place to us.
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