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Last night I met my sister’s pal Marko. He showed us the Cathedral of Saint Sava which is absolutely huge, I think he said it is the biggest in the Balkans.

After that we went to his local called Maska, it was a nice laid back place with a good decor and ambience. It was here I had my first ever dalliance with the spirit rakija, it tasted like flavoured vodka to me.

Then (after quite a few beers) Marko said ta-rah and we (I was with one of the German lads and an Aussie girl from the hostel) went in search of Savsko Jezero. It’s an island off the Sava with a lot of different bars round it. It took us not far off 2 hours to walk there and was in no way worth it. There was only one bar open and it was very expensive, not far off the equivalent of 4 quid for a small bottle of beer. I got to experience turbo-folk first hand though and realised that’s what the Bosnian lads on the train were playing on their phones the other night, awful. We left after 1 drink.

I recall Christoph (the lad from Hamburg) telling me about an Irish-Cuban bar in Prague called O’Che’s. I thought that was funny I did.

Right I’m telling you, there is an International mosquito conspiracy afoot, no sooner have my last lot healed than they get me again. I’ve got 8 fresh bad and welty bites in random places that are driving me mad with itchyness. I ruddy hate the sods.

I was really hoping to see the Tito Masauleum this morning and was told it was about a half hour walk by the hostel. No chance, it’s an hour minimum and a very tough route to work out too. I walked half of it and then jumped on a bus but jumped off again early when I saw the Red Star Belgrade ground, time was getting a bit tight to make my train so I decided to have a look at the Marakana instead of the Tito museum.

I actually really enjoyed it, the ground is quite run-down but has a lot of character with lots of cool stenciling and graffiti on the outside walls. I done a full circuit and then went in the club shop which is actually in the ground so you can see right in to the stadium through adjacent railings in the gates.

There was also an unofficial shop next door with slightly edgier gear on sale. I bought a really cool t-shirt for 15 Euros, it says on it ‘Red Star is calling’ (in Serbian obviously) and it was a toss-up between that and the ‘Epicentre of madness’ one, but the former had a cooler picture and design.

I didn’t get as many pictures as I wanted as that bobbins camera I bought in Vienna has the battery life of a 4 pack of dodgy brand AAs sold near the counters at Aldi. When I get back to Albion I’ll be getting what I can for it on eBay and sorting an alternative.

One thing I forgot to mention was how errie the derelict Yugoslavian army HQ looks in the middle of Belgrade as they were bombed by NATO in 1999 as part of a campaign to try and prevent further genocide in Kosovo. See here for details.

I’m now on the train to Timisoara in the west of Romania and I should be there in 5 hours. The train itself has definetely seen better days, probably at some point in the 19th century, I’m a bit concerned that I’m going to have to get out and push. I’ve heard that the trains in Romania aren’t great though, you can tell by looking at the schedules and the large travel duration for what looks to be a relatively short journey. Maybe I should try and blag myself one of these.

Crikey, that was a bit of luck. At what I thought was 20:19, I changed the time zone on my phone to match Bucharest and while doing this it occurred to me that Romania might be an extra hour forward again to Serbia (so GMT +2), which indeed it is. Now as my train was due in at 20:55 and it was now actually 21:19, this presented a bit of a problem as it was likely I’d missed my stop. Very luckily for me the train was running latex 15 minutes later and we were there.

I’ve just arrived in the hostel and it’s nice. The owner is a very funny and animated guy and so is the one room mate (or Rom mate) I have so far. I like Romanians. This should be a good place to rest up for a couple of nights, just what I need as it happens.

Huge game against Arsenal tomorrow, I’ll be gutted if I don’t find somewhere to watch it. If City can do the Gooners (again) then people will really start to sit up and take notice. It will be hard though, personally I think Arsenal have a better team than both Liverpool and the Rags and in Arshavin they have the player of the season in the making (though I think he might be injured for this game, thankfully), to think we paid double the price to get Lescott!