Home train museum

Have you ever wished you had a really huge toy train? How about a real train? Or maybe even a train museum?
Some people just don't settle for a wish. Some of us always want the real thing!

Every day, on my way to work, I pass by this ordinary looking house (you can see my trusty old bike in the bottom right corner)


I guess this one guy living there has settled for nothing less than a real thing. In front of his house he has the real tram wagon and two (2!) real-size old locomotives. All of which are museum material, so I guess he must feel like having a home train museum. I guess most people would say it's just a heap of old rusty rubbish belonging to a rubbish dump.


The amazing thing is that this house is located just five minutes (by bike) from the Ljubljana city center. You can walk right by the house and not even see the thing. Who would have a train parked in front of his house, right? There isn't even a railroad track nearby.

Let's face it - you'd never expect a locomotive in a backyard. So I'm pretty sure most of the people passing by don't even know it is there.

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Food in Belgrade

No matter where you go, you have to eat. Right? Right!
So what can one get on his plate when in Belgrade? Here are a few dishes from different restaurants around Belgrade, the capital of Serbia.

Despite of the fact that Belgrade is nowhere near the Adriatic (or any other) sea, one can choose from quite a wide choice of seafood dishes. Some of the seafood restaurants are even supposed to be quite good.
These two grilled mackerels looked and tasted like they have died at least three times and even that weeks ago. Not very tasty at all...



Most of the restaurants have at least some of the traditional dishes on their menus. The most famous are pljeskavica

(a Serbian version of a hamburger), cevapcici (or ćevapčići to be specific, are made of same kind of meat as pljeskavica, but shaped differently), burek (cheese- or meat-filled pastry).
On the photo is a generous portion of cevapcici with fries. If anything, you don't need to worry about portion sizes in Serbia. Any meat dish ordered usually has at least enough meat to satisfy a hungry lumberjack. This portion was delicious.


Regardless if it is a main dish or desert you want, you can stop at one of the Pancake places. There one can choose from a variety of sweet and salty pancake dishes.
The choice of the evening was a chocolate filled pancake with walnuts and ice-cream. And it was a huge one. The salty ones looked just as good.


Considering the prices I guess everyone was satisfied with the food. Sometimes you just need to be prepared to wait a little bit longer - after all this still is the Balkans. Time does run a bit slower there. I guess when on vacation, that's just what you want. ;)

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Trip to Belgrade (Part 2)

As I mentioned in the previous post my girlfriend just got back from Belgrade. This time I was left home alone, so the credits for these photos go to her.


Driving around the old part of the city one can still see effects of US bombings on surrounding houses. It is one of those reoccurring stories. First the US Army (still reffered to as the aggressor army by locals) buys bombs and pays its soldiers to demolish a need-to-be-liberated-country and then it needs to be rebuilt - again (at least partially) with US money.

The whole civil war thing, the bombings and the following socio-economic crisis, has left it's impact on people. They don't seem to trust each other as easily as before the war.

However in some aspects things have stayed the same. Numerous brass bands can be seen on the city streets. They try to keep the moods of passersby as high as possible. The city center remains alive late into the night. And it doesn't mater if it is just another weekday night.


In addition to all this, basketball scene is still very much alive. The locals consider it almost a national sport. Some of the players from former Yugoslavia have even left quite an impression on NBA (e.g. Drazen Petrovic, Toni Kukoc, Vlade Divac, Peja Stojakovic and many more).
Many street basketball courts can be seen around the city. The ones with lighting remain crowded long after sunset every day.

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