Sometimes people stop from whatever they are doing, take a deep breath, look around and eventually come to some sort of conclusion, that makes them either change a certain thing or go on, steadily, with their lives. And some other times it is the basic human nature that makes us do exactly what we are told and expected not to. For instance, if drugs were perfectly legal, I think there would be less teenagers using them, as most of them buy such substances nowadays just to express their refusal to accept a society and its rules that take their dreams away and mess them up. It is easy to say - like the Inquisition medieval Catholic (or like the "modern" Orthodox one) church - "that is the hand of Satan", and it takes much more to try to understand things. Attempting to destroy taboo topics is a hard thing to do. And this does not apply only to drugs, sex, booze, religion or some other mental or physical product. It also applies to people. More, I could say, it applies better when it comes to people. Because people can be firm or stubborn when talking about an object or issue that cannot reply and pay them back. If I hereby state: "trains are bad", my statement ends up here, as trains cannot speak for themselves and argue with me. However, if I come to you and say "you are a loser", then I might get some kind of answer from you (answer than could be either verbal or physical - more like it). And this human interference has both its good and bad aspects. I do not think there could be a war between mankind and mobile phones, yet there are many wars between different people. And I do not think there could occur love between a man and his computer, no matter how much people come to like this new technology; to like and to love, these are two totally different things.

The reason that made me write all these things is simple. I have a friend that has studied Serbian at the Languages Faculty here, in Bucharest. At first, she just applied for those studies because she was afraid she would not get accepted for English for the main foreign language, as there were far more candidates for that. Then, step by step, she came to enjoy it and nowadays she speaks it fluently.

After coming back from "Western Eastern Europe", I felt the need to wash myself from the western dust, not that I had not liked it, but I needed to get back to the Balkans. There is a tendency of dividing this part of the world into what people call nowadays "Eastern Europe", on the one hand, and, on the other, The Balkans. Most international travel agents divide their European products like this: 1. Europe (meaning from Austria to the West); 2. Eastern Europe (Poland, Slovakia, The Czech Republic, Hungary, Slovenia and Croatia). Period. Why? Simple: because, first of all the other countries eastwards or southwards from Budapest do not match the living and development level and standards of "Eastern Europe" up here, and there is also a big cultural difference. People in the Balkans are loud, inquisitive, they make a fuss about anything, they hate fancy things, like to enjoy themselves, to bargain and make jokes about everything. And this situation is not very 'cool' for someone that travels here just to cut off another country on the map and to proudly say "been there, done that". That is why the Balkans miss most times from the travel agents' websites, or they are mentioned somewhere in the "extreme adventures" column. I am not saying this as if it would be a bad thing. Far from it, as the high tourist flows - while being good for the domestic economy - spoil the wildlife, the traditional values, the genuine things, turning them into industrial artifacts.

Returning from Budapest home, I felt this urge to go somewhere less touristic, less organized, less international. There was a need for plain, cheering people. And when my friend mentioned - willinglessly - Belgrade, the bell rung. That was it. She also wanted to go there, despite the fact that it was not the best time for such a trip, as there were only two weeks left until the elections where Mr. Milosevic was to be replced by Mr. Kostunica. My information about Serbia - apart from the geography I had learnt loooong ago (and had forgotten most of it) - relied on the newspapers and CNN reports, which I was to find all false and politically influenced. Most columns in the Romanian newspapers either copied the international agencies releases (and were, therefore, far from reality), or followed the same local topics, either making fun or elegantly blaming the Serbians for God knows what (I haven't met until now two neighbouring countries whose people do not share a kind of inborn hatred between themselves). As for the Yugoslav (at that time the country was still called Yugoslavia) Embassy in Bucharest, I called them and they only told me that I needed no visa; asking more from that man that was obviously annoyed by my calling him, could have started another Balkan War and I surely did not wish so.

There was obviously no time - or need - for some planning, especially that I do not hate, but rather despise all package tours, all pre-paid arrangements, all hotels and luxury restaurants and so on the face of Earth.

"There is an InterCity train to Belgrade, there is an InterCity train to Belgrade, I am sure of that, I used it when we went to Nis during some students exchange before the US bombing started", Andreea firmly said.

And we went to the railways office to buy tickets for that train.

"InterCity to Belgrade, huh?" the lady there asked us. "Yes, if you people go to Sofia, you have an InterCity from there to Belgrade" she said with a wicked smile on her face. Of course that going to Sofia was insanity, that would have meant a much longer trip and a more expensive ticket. "There is only one train left for Belgrade and it is empty almost all times; the sleeping wagon belonging to the JZ is often not attached to the train, as there are no clients for it", she sadly said.

We bought tickets and left. The next day we got into the R260 blue train, in a wagon which had no plate saying where it was going; we were to take, therefore, the train to nowhere. However there was written with chalk on one of its doors "Belgrad / 464". In the whole wagon there was only one "tourist", except us, an old lady from Republic of Moldova, she was going to Belgrade to visit her daughter that was married there. Despite the fact that they speak the same language like we do - Moldovans use a very funny and hard to understand accent, plus some really impossible regional words. That is what kept us laughing for more than 3 hours while talking to this lady. She was extremely tired, after coming all the way from Chișinău, yet she had that calm that only the people from poor and remote areas have. She cared about nothing in this world, except for the fact that she wanted to see her daughter. She did not know - or care - about the situation in Yugoslavia.

She did not know - again - that she was supposed to have a stamp in her passport saying that she legally entered in Romania, in order to be allowed in Yugoslavia. Moldovans may freely come in Romania without passports, but they need a valid passport and therefore a Romanian stamp in it, when they want to go beyond the Romanian borders. She just answered all our questions and worries with "Why wouldn't they accept me, my children? I do nothing wrong, I just go to my daughter". Her pure honesty would have moved mountains, there was nothing one could have said to argue with her.

The train was splitting the cold foggy autumn night while crossing the plains towards some low mountains in South-Western Romania. After uselessly trying to sleep on those damaged benches, we gave up and kept on talking to the lady, or rather listening to her. She told us about the situation in Moldova, about the hard times she had - as a child - when the Soviet Army took over Moldova and the people there were either extremely repressed, or taken away to Siberia, to some work camps in that freezing place. She then told us about the long years when talking in Romanian was a major crime and one could have been thrown in jail for that. And I realized how lucky we were. Romania is far from being a heavenly land, its economy is not doing very well, roads can be poor, politicians can be extremely stupid (well, for this there is no monopoly anywhere) and the living standard - very low. Yet there is a sense of freedom and of "live and let live" that should make us all thankful to God or to whatever we believe in.

At around 1.00 AM the train reached the big gorges the Danube makes while crossing some low mountains between Serbia and Romania. There is a big artificial lake set up to make the ships' passing easier and to provide both countries with some electricity. The lights on the barrage threw some mysterious rays over the other side of the river: what was there, in the neighbouring country? The dark, cloudy night, as well as the wooden hills there were, kept this question unanswered. After passing through some of the gorges, the night train reached Herculane, a spa dating from the Roman times. The constant noise made by the wheels on the rail track, as well as the fact that nobody seemed interested to use this train, as there was a much cheaper (and with the same "comfort" standards, however a bit slower) domestic train following the same track just hours later, reminded me of the old war films. There was this scent of isolation and solitude in that wagon, where nothing seemed to move or change, where nobody seemed to get in or off. However, sadly, things were to change soon, too soon...

A few hours later we reached a city that I had never visited, Timișoara. The 1989 Romanian so-called 'revolution' (or rather coup d'etat) had started there. The station platform was full of people with huge bags and all sorts of cases. The smugglers' day begins early in the morning and ends up late at night. These people rushed into the train, to fill the empty compartments. Old people. Hopeless people. Women that I would have never thought they were able to lift a 5 kg. bag, however they were throwing the heavy 20 - 30 kg. packages on the luggage shelf like they were dealing with a purse. They were helping each other like no other people would do. They knew each other, they made jokes and shared coffee. There were two women that got into our compartment. After a honest, yet very brief "hello", they started to take things out of the bags.

"These bags are too big, the bloody customs officers will ask for a 20 DEM bribe instead of 10", the older one said to the other, that we were to learn that was her niece. "Could you please stand up for a second, young man?", she politely asked, then, with a very precise move, took off the seat back and hid some clothes there. Then she did the same with the woman from Moldova. She put the seat backs in their places and lifted the whole bench, just to hide some other merchandise underneath.

"Thank you very much, excuse us, but we have to make a living one way or another", she said with a dim voice. "My husband is unemployed, he's been fired when the company he worked for was bankrupted and I have children to raise; nobody hires a 50 years old woman in these times. So, I go twice a week to Pancevo, to the bazaar there, and sell clothes I buy from Romania; then I buy from there foodstuffs and sell them at home, in Craiova. It isn't much, but it helps."

"But why didn't you get into the train in Craiova?" Andreea asked her, as the train we were in had crossed that city some 6 hours ago.

"I took the accelerate train, it was less expensive."

"But the last accelerate train that reached Timișoara from Craiova, got here 7 hours ago!"

"Yes, we tried to get some sleep in the train station, but with all this expensive luggage, we couldn't."

The reasons and arguments she was presenting were nothing new for me. Yet the way she talked about things was moving. Blaming those people would have been a crying shame.

After all the bustling around, some 30 minutes later everything settled. Some of the smugglers started playing cards. Some tried to get some sleep. Some others were still trying to hide some of the merchandise, while others, more nervous, were smoking in the passing hall. At a certain moment everybody started to take out some money.

"Here Costi comes" the older lady said. "Costi dear, come here, I need 300 Dinars!"

Costi was a young, rather small man. He had suffered a railway accident, and his both hands had been cut off from the elbows. That is why he had a shirt with big pockets. In the right pocket he had Romanian Lei, while in the left one he had Yugoslav Dinars. As he could hardly manage, everyone would take the amount of Dinars he / she needed, and put in the other pocket the equivalent for that exchange. It was unbelievable how honest these people were between themselves.

"Doesn't anyone ever trick Costi?" I asked, out of curiosity.

"To trick Costi? Then what are we here for?", the short, but sufficient answer promptly came.

Then a silence lay among those people. They were tired, sleepy and the hard life they were having was inlaid on their exhausted faces.

Soon the train conductor arrived and everybody started to give him money. The bribe was about 25% of the ticket price and he looked very strangely at us when we showed him real tickets. Stamora Moravița, the Romanian border station, was half an hour away, and the two women started to tell stories about their experience during the last months. They had once bought from Romania some really cheap caps, quite a bargain. Like 100 of them or so. They hadn't checked what they looked like or so. So, they had gone to Pancevo, to sell them, right after the NATO bombing. Then they had been almost beaten up by people and imprisoned by the local police. Why? Because the caps had been painted in the US flag colours, and there had been written on them in big letters :"The US Navy". No need to say that they had had to burn them all in the Pancevo bazaar.

Time went by this way and the train soon reached the last Romanian station. Everything went smoothly, as all smugglers paid what they were supposed to, and then, in the dawn light, the train slowly moved towards Yugoslavia. Vrsac Station looked very badly, it was old and badly maintained.

"Have you been in Yugoslavia before? the old lady asked us.

"No, I have never been here, and the same goes for this woman from Moldova, only my friend here went there sometime ago"

"Then you'll be taken out of the train"

And, indeed, when the customs officers arrived, they took us out, in some room of the station, together with some Moldovan "girls" that probably were to be illegally "exported" to Italy, across the Adriatic Sea, some first time smugglers that were not in the customs computer, and the woman from Moldova. The customs clerks asked us some questions, how long did we intend to stay in Belgrade, what was the purpose of the trip. Telling them that we were tourists would have been the most weird and stupid thing to do, so we just said that we were visiting some friends. They seemed bitter with the old lady, especially about her missing stamp in the passport and the fact that her official invitation to Yugoslavia (she needed such a thing, we did not) was expired, but her simple words and looks, as well as the tears that appeared on her face while telling them that she had not seen her daughter for more than 10 years, determined them to let her go. While we were waiting for our passports there, the customs officers checked the train. Soon after we got back in the train, we departed for Pancevo. In some small station before that town, there was a couple of young Serbs that got into the compartment. They looked so innocent, and I think they had the shock of their lives when the two women asked them - in a bad Serbian - to stand up, as they wanted to take the merchandise and get off the train. The sun was up in the sky when we got in Pancevo Glavni Station, at 8 or so in the morning. The smugglers fastened to get off the train. Handbags, suitcases, lots of plastic bags, carts, they all soon filled the platforms that seemed to be designed that way to suit the needs of these people. Fifty minutes later, after crossing the Danube, we reached the major train station in Belgrade. The train was full of coffee plastic glasses, torn sheets of paper, ropes, smashed empty cigarette packs, crackers leftovers and so on. "Dirt" as one would say. I prefer to call it the proof that those people existed, and I honestly do not know how many of us would resist such a tough life, as, after a sleepless night, they were not going to sleep or rest, but to stay in a windy or sunny or rainy open air bazaar, and sell things.

As I always feel myself attracted by trains and all that involves them, I was very curious about the station. It was quite small and not complicated. The few platforms and the small building beyond them reminded me of the books I had once read about the old times' Balkans. The city looked strange in my eyes, with a long line of stairs leading upwards towards the centre, through a vivid marketplace. The narrow street we were walking along was surrounded by small old buildings, hosting that kind of unique tiny shops that sell everything, one could never meet outside that part of the world. As Milosevic's regime also meant a restricted foreign currency market, the Deutsche Mark's or US Dollar's official exchange rates were 10 times worse than they were in reality, so we made a small detour, crossing the marketplace a few times until we found someone that was changing money. Serbs were well known for not tricking people with it and so we trusted the old man that we were shown to. He was officially selling honey and other bee products but he was completing his income by changing money.

We got 30 Dinars for a DEM, and that was a good trade. As we were to learn later from another Serb, it had happened once that - in just one day - the Dinar had fallen with 80% as related to the Deutsche Mark, so ever since everybody was keeping savings and major amounts in foreign currency. That was no new thing to us, as the extremely high inflation and the bad banking system at home made people do the same.

After this "routine" thing, we had to move on and find a place to sleep. Soon we got into the city centre, we first reached a wide avenue on which there was Moskva Hotel, a very big and good-looking one that hosted, as we were told, the former royal family. We moved on and reached the famous Kneza Mihaila Street, a delightful walking alley surrounded by some of the nicest buildings around, with many books and antique shops, terraces, coffee shops, bars and restaurants. This street led to Kalemegdan, the city fortress built upon a hill top beautifully looking over either Sava and, further on, the Danube. Most of the fortress was arranged as a park nowadays, and the good thing was that there were no restrictions or fees to pay to get in. Right under the fortress, at the bottom of the hill, close to the Sava quay, there was a big fuss going on, with workers setting some big stage; we were to learn that very night what there was 'cooking'.

We came back and found a phone to call some acquaintance we hoped would find some cheap hotel or so for us. It was a guy that we had never met before, he was just recommended by someone that was recommended by someone that...and so on...anyway, thing was that he was the end of a very long chain of people that started with some of Andreea's friends and ended with him. He would not talk much over the phone, so he asked us to go and meet him. And that way I got to meet the Belgrade public transportation network. Belgrade, located on several hills around Danube, had no developed underground train lines, so everything was focused on the local buses, trolley-buses and trams. And, during my 5 days stay there, I did not see two buses of a kind. Most of them looked very very bad, as if they survived some war (and indeed, they survived a certain war). However they were very fast - though shaking and noisy - and therefore good. Not to mention that a ride was extremely cheap, about 0,10 DEM. After a 2 hours wander over some score streets, we found that man's house and - luckily - he was at home. He had this empty apartment in Mirijevo area, and he happily gave us the key, no questions asked or rules imposed; as for paying, he did not even want to hear about such a "stupid" thing. Mirijevo was a neighbourhood out of the main city area, and a bus ride to that place took about 30 minutes. The massive concrete blocks I was so accustomed to, looked majestic on that hill, especially that they were very big.

We got back to the city centre, just to discover one of the best attractions there was: food. Local fast foods offered burek, pljeskavica, cevapcic and other Turkish-based products. And I have said nothing about the extremely delicious cakes and sweet pies and so on...

We walked and walked around the old narrow streets, or the wide boulevards, until evening came. It felt so good to visit a city with no tourists whatsoever, and especially without those crowds of Japanese and American tourists I had met in either Prague and Warsaw. Then we met a couple of Romanian girls that had come there for some intensive courses and we all headed to what people in Belgrade called "the terraces' avenue": Skadarska Street. This was very narrow, with buildings in different styles and hosting restaurants, terraces, bars and so on all along, without any other shop or institution there. And the best thing was that one could not see there two similar places; above all there was this terrace where they served only "palacinke", meaning pancakes. However I had never seen so many different stylish pancakes: they had pancakes with all jams and chocolate creams, then with icecream and nuts, then with yoghurt, then with meat and cheese, then...and then...and then... After getting fed up, we went to Kneza Mihaila Street, to walk around. The autumn night solitude was all of a sudden interrupted by some loud music coming from the Kalemegdan. The stage we had seen earlier on the Sava shore, was ready now, and there was this huge rock concert going on. Lots of young people were going that way. We hung around for a while, then kept on walking and hardly noticed that midnight had come. It was stunning to see that all shops on Kneza Mihaila were open at that time, including book shops, fast foods and so on. There were lots of young people walking around, even more than at daytime; God, Serbs know to have fun and to pass on the hardships! The whole city was full of light and there was always some music in the air. We took one of the last buses and got to Mirijevo tired, but enchanted.

The next day involved a trip to Novi Sad.

"The best city to visit here, very nice fortress, very nice and vivid place", Andreea happily said. However life was to put a dark cloud over her memories. We got to the major bus stop in Belgrade and took a coach, reaching Novi Sad after a 2 hours ride, after crossing many beautiful towns and villages, impeccably neat and pretty.

We got into a local bus and headed to the medieval centre that was, indeed, very interesting. The old streets and narrow passages, the churches and parks, they seemed somehow deserted.

"They used to be so alive, these streets, with all commercials and people hanging around...", Andreea sadly said, and her words were to follow me the whole day.

The reason for this solitude was out there, beyond the nice medieval quarters, on the Danube. As we were approaching the river quay, there were several graffitis and other statements painted on some buildings' walls: "Stop the bombing", "No more killing", "Yanks, go home", "It is finally over". Those are things one could never forget. Even though I had not been there to witness the real thing, such testimonies still make my hands tremble on the keyboard. We moved on and reached the quay. Just a few meters to the left there was a building site in a place where there had been a bridge. The isolate pillars that used to sustain the bridge looked like some stone crosses raising from the water. Crosses that were a proof of the humanity that mankind seem to lose day by day. Danube might cover there a lot of iron junk or garbage due to the bombing, but it also flows over the soulless corpse of the last human-like feeling there has been on Earth. We went on, alongside the quay, sadly looking on the other shore, where the fortress was.

A fortress that was hardly accessible now, when there was only one bridge left across Danube (actually not "left", but rebuilt), a bridge that was used by both trains and cars (as it was very narrow, it could be used only one way, by either trains or cars, at a time). That bridge was not very close to us, but the fortress was worth the long walk. It had some interesting walls and offered a wide view over the surrounding places; also there was a very Paris-like artists' neighbourhood.

"At least there are no junk sellers any more", my friend said, yet this was hardly of any comfort.

On the way back we saw the mobile bridge gathering and we rushed to use that one instead of the long walk over the other we had used to get there. One more gazing look over this desolate river was more that one could have stood and we silently walked towards the bus station. On the way back to Belgrade no village, no building or people could get out attention, as the sad image provided by Novi Sad - or rather by what some mad people did to this place just out of ambition and hatred - seemed to be enough for that day.

The next day involved a deeper and better insight in Belgrade's life, as I met a chat friend from Pancevo. My worries and comprehension of the happenings there, were sadly cut off by his statements, while we were walking close to the destroyed Ministry of Internal Affairs.

"Despite the so-called embargo, there is a lot of money being invested in Serbia now, by the Deutsche Bank; the same goes for Bulgaria; they tried to physically conquer the Balkans during WW2, they did not succeed, and they do so now, but wiser, by using the economics", he said while I was trying to make some tourist-like pictures, to show the world what "military targets" look like (actually the building I was shooting was nothing but some former school; however it seems that in Washington schools are military bases too, as the NATO planes had bombed it to the ground). He however warned me to be careful while shooting pictures of the bombed buildings. As there were very few tourists in Belgrade - the police officers (also mostly annoyed about the coming elections) were very restrictive with things. Slobodan had faced this himself, when, some weeks ago, while trying to make some pictures with a Russian friend of his, got arrested for "trespassing the estate property" and taken to the police headquarters, under the blame of being a "spy and traitor"; however the Russian passport had solved it all in no time.

The stunning cheering Serbian spirit emerged, when Slobodan said: "However, the bombing was pretty funny, we had never had so many rock concerts, and parties; at daytime everybody was having parties and meetings and so, and at night time we were all going into the shelters; I've never seen the Serbs so tight together, so, I have to admit, it was a good time, apart from the horrifying happenings". It was so weird, we were talking in English and at a certain moment he said "90% of the young people here speak English, yet you can easily die of starvation if you use it, after the war". He then mentioned the many cases of cancer determined by the pollution caused by the bombing of either the Heating Central in Belgrade and of the chemical factories in Pancevo. Actually I had heard of those before, as the pollution cloud reached Romania and many peasants in the south-western area complained that there was no vegetable growing because of that. The story went on and on, and, if not for the so alive spirit of that city, the trip to Yugoslavia would have been more like a mourning journey.

Crossing the city and watching the big electoral commercials, depicting either Milosevic or the other opposition leaders, I reached a building that was paying the price of war, but on the other side of the fence. It had bulletproof windows and consolidated fences, yet those had been useless facing people's rage and annoyance. The windows were broken now, the once white walls were all painted in logos and statements like this: "Go home, yanks!", "Stop it!". There was a Nazi zvastica somewhere, close to the US flag; in two words, that had used to be the American Embassy, and there was nobody there now. Time passed by and soon it was night again. Being tired and waiting for the Romanian friends that had gone to buy some food, I sat down in the middle of Kneza Mihaila street, not knowing what institution I was in front of; and also not noticing that sitting down in the streets was not a common thing to do (it was the same in Romania or Bulgaria, but...) and it meant a certain expression of opposition. There was this group of Serbs and one of them came to me and asked me something in their language, something that I did not understand and replied in English. He went back and a girl came to me saying:

"Hi, where are you from?"

"Hi there, I am from Romania."

"Cool, what are you up to?"

"Nothing..."

"It will all start soon, you will see, all friends will join us!", she eventually said and smiled to me.

Luckily my friends came and - as they spoke Serbian - they cleared the situation immediately. Those people were against Milosevic and they were preparing a big rally against him, to make people vote for a change. And the building I was in front of was the opposition's headquarters. So they thought I was one of them... I am one of them, as I am always against something, just to express my individuality and freedom. We went away, as I dislike politics and absolutely reject the hatred it involves, despite the fact that I also dislike leaders like Mr. Milosevic, that restrain people's freedom. I was to find out the next morning that those people indeed started a big meeting and went to the Parliament building to say what they had to, however the police intervened and arrested many of them. God, life is weird sometimes, on both sides of the 'fence'...

Time passed by...burek sa mesom, Mirijevo, the Kalemegdan, the shaking buses like at home, the Danube that seemed to gather all sorrows in Europe, all the way from the Black Forest Mountains in Germany, they all were getting in my head and made me stick to that city, until the time came to leave. We went for the last time on Kneza Mihaila Street, looked at the places as if we wanted to make everlasting pictures with our own eyes, then went to a merchant there and bought lots of postcards I was to send all over the world. They had this kind of 'making-fun-of-the-war' pictures, also some mostly serious and - of course - the one with the NATO F-117A military plane the Serbian army had gunned down, saying "Sorry, we did not know it was invisible / Greetings from Serbia".

Such contradictory things were hustling through my head when we headed to the station to get into the same blue train that was to leave at 05.52 PM. The train station and its platforms looked very desolated now, there was an evening breeze, and the sun was slowly going westwards. Some dead leaves blown by the wind and going in circles made the departure even harder. Belgrade had not been - by far - an exquisite, outstanding city, it couldn't be compared to Prague or Krakow, yet the places, the people, the pages of recent history we had witnessed there made us think about it a lot. Walking alongside the platform we saw a well-known Romanian actor getting into the sleeping wagon. He would never know what he missed by staying there, all alone in that wagon, instead of meeting the real life and the real people that were to fill the seats wagons. We just went to some wagon and got inside in an atmosphere filled with a lot of memories. And we sat on that cold and timeless bench, waiting for the train to depart. It is amazing how a train or wagon or compartment can survive all those people stepping into it; people laughing, or crying, or arguing, or simply being silent. I think that if it could talk, a train would have plenty to say, lots of stories...

The train eventually started and - as the sun was setting - we got close to the border. The same fuss, the same crowd of people followed in Pancevo. The smugglers were bringing to Romania sacks of cereals, plastic bags full of spices, packs of dried vegetables and other foodstuffs that were cheaper in the neighbouring country. They had heavier luggage this time and it was more difficult for them. A woman got into the compartment and put her small but heavy like hell bag on the bench. She was absolutely exhausted, she couldn't say more than 10 words until the border station. A man dropped in and hid some cigarette boxes under the metal board that was protecting the train heater; I had never known there was such a thing there... He just said "'ll come back later to get them". Later would mean in Roșiori de Vede, where we arrived more than 6 hours later. The fact that Pancevo wasn't that far from Vrsac made them hurry up and the perfect place for hiding merchandise from the customs workers seemed to be the train attic. One of them went inside that narrow place and another guy was handing him sacks of beans bought from Yugoslavia. When he finished he got off the attic and said: "Thank you, oh God for this long cool autumn, for in summer I had some hard times, it was so hot up there". Of course that the customs officers knew about the places where they were hiding things, yet it was part of the mutual understanding that the smugglers should put things away, so that if there was a superior control, there was nothing discovered. That was the way things worked.

The same old station, then the same Romanian flag over Stamora Moravița, then the same bunch of people getting off in Timișoara Nord. And the same night, dreaming of the places I had got so familiar with, dreaming of Mirijevo, dreaming of Sava, dreaming of the pink haired girl I had once seen in the streets of Belgrade. And the same night - where I ate for the last time that extremely tasty 'burek sa mesom'. I was asked later by someone "why don't you start cooking yourself that damn meat pie, so that you stop annoying everybody with it???". Well, because it would never taste like on Skadarlija Street, because it will never be the same. The air, the endless music, the people having fun, the surviving spirit of the Serbian youngsters, that was also a part of the burek sa mesom that I enjoyed so much. And if I was served burek right now, it would not be as good. Just because.

Ne jede burek ko ima, nego ko je naucio.