Yesterday we arrived in Belgrade, Serbia by train and today we are at our friend Steve's apartment. My first impression of the apartment building was a dark entrance with a bare lightbulb hanging down, spooky stairway and broken windows. But, when once I finished my climb of 96 steps carrying luggage, we arrived at the only stained-wood door in the building.

Once inside, I saw a gorgeous home where with wooden floors, two stories, arched doorways, a kitchen, living room, study, three bedrooms and two bathrooms. It is very beautiful inside and most comfortable.

This morning, we found a pastry shop and headed to the Knez Mihailova pedestrian mall, literally two blocks from Steve's apartment. The pastries we bought we on average $2.50 for the four of us and they were scrumpcious. At the pedestrian mall, you can find a wide variety of different clothing stores, antique shops, and for some reason a shoe shop every two feet (no pun intended). After seeing and buying a couple of items, we headed back to the apartment.

After Steve got home from work, we went to dinner at Pivnica Kasina. A place with a lot of meat and beer and in general very good food. Then we headed to the sports center to see a basketball game between Partizan (one of the local teams) and Moscow. It was the last game of the regular season and there was a lot of rooting and cheering and police in riot gear just in case the crowd got fiesty. It was a great game however unfortunatly, Moscow won.

The next day we headed out to explore the city, trying a new pastry shop and going to the same coffee shop called Coffee Dream. We then worked our way so that we could go see where Steve worked. Steve's job is to be an advisor to the curriculum writers and teachers of upcoming police officers in Serbia. We got to meet many nice people in his building and had lunch at a place called Club 11 where I had wonderful spaghetti.

This morning after rushed packing and jumping into a taxi, we arrived at the train station in Budapest. We then caught our train on Platform 13 to Belgrade, Serbia.

I'm writing this entry on the train. We will arrive this evening around 8:00 pm. We are going there to visit our friend Steve Smith who is working there now teaching law enforcement training to police trainers in Belgrade. So far we have been riding in comfort. I don’t really like long train rides because sometimes they aren’t smooth. But this one has been so far.

Bugsly