Sarajevo

I'm moving to Sarajevo in March. It's very cold there now. According to my friend Devin who's been living there now for over 2 months, all of Eastern Europe has been in a deep freeze since early December. The beautiful snow, he says, that fell until New Years', now has either been melted by the sun or is so dirty now it barely looks like snow except up in the mountains.

Over the summer I took a van ride up one of the mountains, where at the top water naturally bubbles out of one of the rocks. They call it the "spring of life." Crystal, pristine, wonderful water. One can drink and drink and never get tired of that water.

The flat where I'll be living is a stone's throw from the old part of the city; one can see the minarets from the balcony and clearly hear the Muslim call to prayer echoing throughout the day from the loudspeakers. There are old tattered billboards that haven't been torn down since the war; every other vendor sells soft ice cream--exotic flavors like kiwi and black walnut and hazelnut. And everyone walks around as though they're on vacation...slow and purposeless.