Bye-Bye Bosnian Baby...I'm Back To Belgrade Again

Sexual.

Sensual.

Selma.

I need a cold shower.  Quite frankly this is sexier than all that American booty dancing.

Selma Bajrami, my fantasy Turbo-Folk girlfriend

The Balkans were formerly part of the Turkish-Ottoman Empire and still has a lot of Turkish and Middle-Eastern influence.  I had a Serbian friend tell me that Bosnian and Albanian girls are the best dancers in the former Yugoslavia because of their Arabic origins.  If that is true then Turbo-Folk singer, Selma Bajrami, is a fine example of that kind of dancing.  By chance I met her in a club in Sarajevo, Bosnia in 2010.  I'm still smacking myself for not asking for her phone number that night.


My current Bosnian baby wasn't mad anymore.  She lay on top of me, moving her hips against mine and touching me under my shirt.  I likewise ran my hands under her clothes and quietly whispered in her ear.  She caught my eye from time to time as we moved together to some psychedelic hippie funk she had put on Youtube.  I lay down in anticipation while she continued her Arabic grinding.  My hands moved lower.

"Hey you American fucker. Get a room...but not here."

I have some great Serbian friends.  My friend told me there was Russian Couchsurfing couple in Nis who had a car and were heading for Belgrade within an hour.  I vaguely remembered meeting a Russian couple during the last 2 days of insanity in Nis.  Nis is always a blur.  My friend explained the deal succinctly, "Ride with them and pay only gas, or wait and pay more for a bus...Fucker."

I had friends I could stay with in Belgrade, and now I had a quick way to get there.

After my friend gave me a travel update, he left me alone again with my Bosnian baby.  We continued moving and grinding together for as long as time allowed.  I wanted her and - as with many others I had meet - I knew it wouldn't happen.  At the moment I needed to see her naked and bare and dancing in front of me.  We were kissing and touching out of urgency and raw emotion.  The chaos of the moment inappropriately made my mind conjure up images of NATO planes flying over Sarajevo.  This girl needs a rescue mission.

Those dreams evaporated in the incredible heat of the Southern Serbian summer.  Before I could reflect  further, I was in the back seat of the Russian couples' little car, staring out the window and cursing myself for desiring a wild life of women, drink and dance over a simple life with just one woman who I truly desired.  I am still thinking about this.

To avoid highway tolls, the Russians drove on the service roads that followed the main highway to Belgrade.  We were in no hurry and stopped in several small towns for sightseeing.  We took pictures in front of historical monuments and they recalled their previous visits to Serbia.  They were a happy couple...one of many Russian ex-pats who lived on the Southern Adriatic beaches of Montenegro so that they could escape the bitter cold of the country they were from.  Serbia was just a brief vacation for them to arrange their paperwork to continue their ex-pat life.


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The Russian and I spoke in English of our countries long love-hate relationship with each other while his girlfriend periodically snapped at him in Russian.  She couldn't speak English but was able to understand everything.  As we approached Belgrade, they checked the map frequently to make sure we were taking the right way to my friend's apartment in the city center.  They wanted to continue sightseeing so we choose a hilly backroad that followed the Sava River.  Although I could see the urban mess in the distance, the winding road we were driving on felt very provincial.  One side of the road dropped off into the glistening river below while the other side meandered away into several green farm plots.  The houses were small, quaint, terracotta constructions that looked of the era before Communism took hold.

The tranquil beauty disappeared as we entered the city limits.  Small rustic houses gave way to the typical clunky, multicolored Communist blocs I have seen in so many parts of Slavic Europe.  The hilly topography of the land contributes to Belgrade's disorder as it makes the city appear to be falling into itself.  Apartments awkwardly pile up and start to tumble head-over-heels into each other.  Trash collects in corners of the streets while the smell of cigarettes and coffee seeps from the cracks in the buildings. The single road we were driving on ceased to meander in one direction and splintered into a million little spiderwebs that got swallowed up in the urban decay.  

It's all so wonderfully, beautifully, ridiculously chaotic.  The 'White City' is falling apart all around me.  I want to fall apart with it.

Spomenik Neznanom Junaku