Serbia

If only the war had reached Serbia and Belgrade in partilcular, I think the country would be rather different. The south i very Slavic, with Cyrillic the main written language, whereas the north is distinctly Austro-Hungarian and has architecture to match. Belgrade is almost a blend of the two, which makes it neither here nor there and you end up with a city that is "just ok". Its a little beige but there are occassional pockets of grandeur. The people are, well rude is a good way to put it. The seem to go out of their way to get into yours, they all look grumpy and they dont really seem to want to help others. Unless, of course, there is money involved and then they are your best friend. It had a real communist feel about it, with proud displays of old military equipment, and a mix of the new, money driven capitalist attitude, demonstrated by the tennis court next to an old castle wall, with tanks directly on the other side.
In all honesty though, if you break down all the facets of life here, you would think it isnt a great place, but all together they combine to make a city that is "just ok", but not bad. We had a bad experience with a hostel here. It had no identifiable marks on the outside to suggest that there was a hostel there. The address was written down incorrectly and the "directions", if you followed them, led you to a place across the street, with further instructions to "call if you get there and you cant find it". Well, I dont know of too many backpackers who take a roaming mobile with them, I think a sign would be a much better idea.
When we got into the place, the girl who 'worked' there wasnt much help and Im not sure if she really knew what was going on (she WAS blond...). There were a lot of things that went wrong with that hostel and I think they knew it because when the time came to write a review for it, my booking had been "cancelled".
We spent a couple of days in Belgrade and we were going to leave Serbia at that, but we changed our minds and went north to a charming town called Novi Sad. Im glad we did because this place was quite nice and gave Serbia a better name.
As I said earlier it is a more Austro-Hungarian town, very small but it had character and as they say, character goes a long way. Also, the people were friendly (and the hostel was great). There really isnt too much to say about Novi Sad, there is a festival here at a certain time of year and the inhabitants seem genuinely stunned when tourists visit outside of the festival period.
It is a very quaint little town with a large town square that you could while away quite a few hours if you wanted. We are now leaving the Balkans behind and making another salient into Romania.