The Bosnian Pyramid

On our way to dropping the Americans off at the airport, we stopped in Visoko,a city about a half hour's drive from Sarajevo. IF you where unaware, a Pyramid has reportedly been discovered in Visoko, on one of the many mountains in the area. When we got off the bus, everyone was looking around wondering where it was. It certainly doesn't look like much of a pyramid up close, but we were about to get closer.

We hiked up the steep streets for about 10 minutes till the pavement stopped, then started climbing up the mountain. The stairs up the mountain are simply cut out from the hill. they were pretty big steps, and some of the older people in our group thought that it could have been more accessible.

Here we see a lot of rocks. In fact, the whole thing seemed to be layers of layers of broken up Concrete. Yellow concrete yes, but the engineer in our group had some theories involving concrete. I'm not sure what I think about the whole thing


One of the workers there explained some of the work they were doing with the pyramid. They aren't allowed to excavate the whole thing, because there's a historic city at the top of the mountian. He was explaining why this pyramid didn't look like the ones in Egypt and what they are doing to find out what the nature of it is. Obviously pyramids differ across the world according to building materials. This pyramid was likely made out of clay and rock. I didn't catch all of what he was saying, but it seemed reasonable.

All the yellow tape made it look pretty scientific, so I was impressed. I don't really know if it's an actual pyramid. My guess is that the builders built upon the mountian, with layers of whatever building material they used. We might never know, but what's known for certain, is that the lead excavator is a crazy guy, and this pyramid will never get academic acceptance as long as he is in charge.

I saw some more excavating on TV last night, they must have been working on a different side of the mountain, because the stuff on TV didn't look lame like the stuff we saw. The crazy guy was standing in a square hole they carved out. It seems that the pyramid is made of many layers going fairly far down. The stuff on TV looked fairly impressive, I guess it wasn't open to the public yet. 

Week-End Update

I know, I know, I'm a day late with this update. I must admit that I've been quite lazy this week. I had meant to write all about our trip to see the waterfall, which took place last Sunday, but I simply never got around to it.

Yesterday Mediha, who works here at the centar, found out that she had a lot of Viruses, Trojans and Spybots on her computer, so I spent the day wrestling control away from the bad stuff. I think I'm winning the battle. It took about an hour or so to run the anti-virus software (avast, sigh). I had to install FireFox and Spybot in safe mode, it seems her computer was living in the middle ages without them. Let that be a lesson to all of you! I'm also going to install ad-aware and Super Anti-Spyware (if it can download faster than .3 KB/s). Zone Alert Firewall is also doing it's job, so overall, this thing should be a fortress when I'm done.

Other than that, we're almost done here. We've got just over a week left, we leave on Aug 7. After that I travel with Allen, check the bottom of this page for more details.

The Americans are leaving on Sunday. I'm sad to see them go, as for the most part they are really good people. They're friendly as anything, and they really enjoy coming here. They drink, smoke and swear a bit too much for my liking, but that's not really a factor. They live a busy lifestyle though, going out almost every night and plenty of travel.
We're going to see them off at the airport tomorrow, after seeing the Pyramid in Visoko and travelling around Sarajevo. The weather looks clear, so maybe I'll have some good pictures on Monday.

It seems that my computer at home has stopped working. While this fills me with unmeasurable sadness, I have begun planning a new computer, which has filled me with unmeasurable excitement.
The best case scenario is that I have an awesome computer up to current standards and I can fix my current computer and give it to my brother.
The worst case scenario is that I some how catch fire.
The Likely scenario is that I'll fix my current computer, not have the money for the new one, my brother will get some eMachine from bestbuy and that computer (and possibly my brother) will catch on fire. That situation would fill me with a manageable amount of sadness. At least I'll have a computer though.

There have been complications with my camp visit, so if anyone feels like driving up to muskoka one day, go ahead and send me a email. I actually think things will work out well, so I'm not too worried.

Thanks everyone for the comments, I love reading them.

The Bus Ride that Wouldn't End

On a bright Saturday morning at 4:40, I woke up to have a shower, get something to eat and head out on a bus to the Croatian Coast. The trip was organized by the Americans, so we had a decent bus and a bus driver who didn't think he was in Night Rider.

I think that Bus manufacturers somehow think midgets are more prevalent than they really are. I don't know how I would be an abnormal height, at just over six feet. Nevertheless, the head rest was digging into my shoulders and my knees were being bruised by the seat in front of me. The worst part of the trip was at the boarder. Lindsey had forgotten her passport at home, so they made her get out and she couldn't come with us. Mustafa, one of the guys connected to the centar was kind enough to accompany her home. We were all pretty sad about it.


Nevertheless, we finally got to Split. This is part of Diocletian's old palace. Diocletian being a former ruler of the Roman Empire, so this palace is old, about 1700 years old. At one point, in the 600s, the people of split hid from invasion inside the palace and converted it into a city. It was a really cool place. Diocletian's mausoleum was converted into a Cathedral which was even more breathtaking. No pictures were allowed, so you'll have to see it for yourself. My Croatian isn't that good, but from what I could gather, they had a copy of the Gospels from the year 600. This sounds incredulous to me, but the text was close to the Greek Euangeleon (Gospel)


This here is a picture of the riviera and one of the harbours. It was quite nice, we had lunch in one of those restaurants. The front of the palace faced this harbour, it must have been nice. The deep sea dock for the flotilla of cruse ships is behind where this picture was taken.


This is the coastline of the town Bashka Voda, which was about 2 hours south of Split. It was a decent place to swim around, rocky though. I really miss Ontario's sandy beaches and freshwater, much less painful. This is basically what Tuchipi (the beach we went to a couple weeks ago) looked like, mountain and everything.


This is the bridge at Mostar, in southern Bosnia - Herzegovina. It was destroyed during the war, but has since been rebuilt. It's quite steep and slippery, but worth the trip. The whole of old town is actually very uncomfortable to walk around, with stone walkways and such. It's really nice though, and it's a happening place at night.


After seeing Mostar, we got back on the bus and headed home. It was a long trip, we got home around 1:30 and we were all exhausted. I'm glad I went, but I was even more glad to get to sleep that night. 

Week End Update

It's been quite the week, with the Americans getting here. Today is the celebration marking the 10th anniversary of the Centar. Talking with some of the Americans who have been coming here for a while, both the Centar and the town have improved greatly.

The Americans are a fun bunch, they've been coming here for a while, and they are well liked in the community. There was a crowd waiting for their bus to arrive. Many of them have this slight southern accents, which I'm trying to copy. They're tremendously nice, and many of them like talking hockey with me. I mean, they're from Raleigh, so they should know that hockey exists, but it's still nice.

We're headed to the Coast tomorrow, and maybe the mountains the day after that, so Monday will be a day of sleep. I should have lots of pictures to put up, so make sure to check back Monday. There haven't been a lot of comments, but I get by through checking some online forums and sending people emails. A lot of people have been asking when I get home. All you need to do is check the calender at the bottom of the page, and click the right arrow in the top left corner to see august.

I can hear a microphone coming from outside, so I had better get moving

Start of the Week

So we start this week, the first without classes, by relaxing. We had a run through of our drama and dance presentations for the Centar's party at the end of the week, and we played some songs. Beyond that, there's not much going on.

Two Americans, Jim and Sam, got here yesterday. They left the US months ago to travel to Tibet, China, Moscow, Norway and Split. It's quite a trip. They seem like really great guys, they just graduated from University.

The rest of the Americans are coming this evening . We're generally looking forward to their arrival. Some of the girls are making a "Dobro dosli, EH" (Welcome, EH) Sign. I think it's pretty clever.

As I've recently learned, BiH has 36 soldiers in Iraq. You might be surprised to learn that I'm in favour of this, I'll tell you why when I get home. 

Week End Wrap Up

There's not much to say today, because not much happened this week

Srebrenica: The 11th anniversary of the massacre was this week, on the 11th. It was a big event on the news, and in Sarajevo I'm sure. The memorial is quite nice, a low wall filled with names I was amazed when I saw the amount of names on the wall. Over 8 000 people died in the genocide, the remembrance ceremony was appropriately well done and broadcast. The part I watched was broadcast in English, for the international community I presume. Though I didn't give it a thorough look, this blog was a great resource, if only for the pictures.

Bridge Jumping: Well I already covered this.

Tucipi: Update! I sort of have a tan!

Mountain Climbing: Not this weekend it turns out, maybe next weekend. It seems the Americans always go climbing, we might go with them.

Americans: Two volunteers are coming tomorrow, the rest of the gaggle is coming on Monday. We're anticipating their arrival, more people to speak English to and with people who have similar cultures. As far as I know, the volunteers are Methodists from N. Carolina. I'm excited for their arrival. I think many Canadians are bred to dislike Americans, but I don't know how I can live in a community like mine and not like a different nationality 'just because'. If Canadians can't get along with Americans, how can we expect Croats to get along with Bosnians here? A precedent is an important thing.

No more teachers no more books...:Classes ended yesterday. Did we turn all these little kids into English speakers? No. But I think they had fun coming here, I often had fun teaching them and so did the girls. The Americans have a program lined up for the next few weeks, so we're going to help out with that and hope things go smoothly.

That's about all. The girls and I are going to watch Batman Begins today, I've heard it's good.
It's a nice day here, I think I might go and enjoy it.

Bridge Jumping

A couple local groups coordinated to host a Bridge jumping event yesterday. The Vrbas river travels through town. It's really fast, but shallow and wide (the part through the town at least). To make a suitable place to dive, a bunch of people had to go in the water and build a massive dam of rocks. This took a couple of days, when we saw it the other day, it did not look safe enough to dive into. When we showed up yesterday, the river was packed with people. Easily over a thousand people where there, I was amazed.

Check out this picture, This is a lot of people for a town that isn't that big in the first place. The only time I saw more people here was when the graduating students had to parade down the street, everyone was out for that. A couple months ago, there was also some type of pilgrimage to a cemetery. I don't know what was going on there, thousands of people were just walking down the street. The point of me saying this is that big gatherings don't happen all that often, and this was a rare event.


The competition was about diving, and the winner got a 100 KM prize. Needless to say, this guy was pulling out all the stops. I didn't get a good look at the water until after the event, but I was still uncertain about how deep it was. Also a bunch of people kept prodding me to join the competition. I pointed out to them that they were likewise not wearing a bathing suit. I also didn't want to spend the rest of my summer on a spinal board.



Some guys, like Rock Star here in the orange trunks were really giving it. This is a city without a swimming pool or anywhere to practice diving, so I commend these guys for making it out of the water alive, and making decent dives. For most activities in life, courage is transpose able with talent.

This is a game of spot the Canadians, and amature photo editor. I can't really imagine this kind of event in Cambridge drawing this many people, and Cambridge is 50x larger (which of course, might be the problem).

In other news, we might be going mountain climbing this weekend. It's a journey of at least two days, which means we have to sleep in some mountain cabin. It should be an adventure, I've never climbed a mountain before, so I don't know what to expect. 

Tucepi (tu-che-pi)

On Sunday we went to Tucepi, which is a lovely city stretched along the Croatian coast. We had to wake up at 4:00 am to catch the 5:00 am bus. I set my alarm wrong, but luckily Muharum woke up around then and woke me up as well. The bus ride was long and warm. One girl joked with everyone the whole way there, it was quite annoying. Amanda and I had to sit alone at the back of the bus where she threatened to throw up due to the less than ideal road conditions. I must say that I've hardly seen as beautiful a site as some of the highlands we saw, just as a Fog had settled over them and the sun was almost ready to come above the horizon. Rolling grassy heath went on for kilometres and faded in to mountains. I wanted so desperately to stop the bus and take a million photos, but it was not to be.

The coast was all stony, but it went on forever, with shops all along the boardwalk. The water was great, and I'm almost getting used to salt water, though I miss delicious lake Clearwater. I really wanted to find a cool pair of sunglasses. Word of warning, knock-off goods appear all over the place, if you come to Bosnia/Croatia, unless you're in a major city, you're not likely to find real things. That was fine with me, as I'm a miser. I just offer it as a warning. Nevertheless, i didn't find any glasses, I knew I should have gotten that pair of Armani's in Dubrovnik.

We took the bus to get there. The local bus company sold round trip tickets to the townsfolk, the tickets justifiably went quickly. They only cost 15KM round trip, which is a steal! That's just over 10 CAD. The trip was 4.5 hours each way. Even though it's a bit of time to get there, I had the feeling that anyone could have gone if they had wanted to. 15 marks isn't that much money, it was cool to do something fun that was accessible to the people here. I wish I had taken more photos, but the batteries I was using didn't have enough power output, so the camera just froze before taking a shot and shut down. Now I'm using near dead alkalines that work fine, I wish I knew... 

Canada Day Excitment

Here are some pictures from Canada Day. We had a fairly big turnout for our festivities. We had some relay races, a history lesson, fear factor, Canadian family feud, a giant word search and lots of cheers.

Here we see some kids digging into fear factor. We loaded a ton of ingredients into those containers, if they couldn't guess what was in them, we dumped water on them. Needless to say, they for the most part went home wet.

Here is Vanessa, Amanda and I running the Canadian Family Feud. It went fairly well, but a lot of the kids don't know much about Canada, so some of the answers were tough. For old times sake we said that there were fish in Canada.
The massive word search was a lot of fun. It was a pain to make , but it turned out well, which is good. They even found Calgary!
Here is the yellow team doing their cheer: "Banana is Unite!" As you can see, we didn't get a ton of boys out, their loss really.