Belgrade mornings

Belgrade morning, though it is already 1.15 p.m.

Walking from the station to the youth hostel was a necessary history lesson; bombed-out buildings revealing their surreal interior of electric wires, rebar beam cages and debris of what once served as government offices. Signs of war less than a decade old.

At the same time: the trams, the tremulous radiance of a Friday summer night, people walking around with ice-creams in their hands. The Bohemian quarters, the cold beer on the porch of "Idiott" at Dalmatinska 13; this could have been anywhere in south-east Europe.

At 3 a.m. in the morning we get back to the hostel. Over-tired I decide to type in the blog post I had written in my notepad on the warm train from Ljubljana. I struggle with the words, with finding the right tone. Afterwards I realize that I failed nonetheless, becoming patronizing in exactly the way I wanted to avoid. So I delete the post, virtual memory loss. The blogosphere does not need another liberal complaining about corruption.