the winner: ecuador

sorry bolivia but you will have to wait. can't say what was driving force in choosing ecuador other than having met a few more ecuadorians versus bolivians.

i am 4 days away from flying to ecuador and i have no idea what i'm getting myself into. its not like im going into a country that has an ongoing war or anything. but regardless i should probably do my homework. its not like i do it anyways when i travel but for some reason i feel especially inadequate on this trip.

for example, last night i found out that ecuador uses american dollars as currency. i also found out that ecuador has one of the largest inca ruins in the americas. what else...

i guess that's it for now. stay tuned

serbia, i miss you

today i woke up in a bed that wasn't perched on the highest part of a five-story building. the roof didn't have quirky looking slanted roof windows, and when i woke up i didn't find my arm and back riddled with mosquito bites. 

no, this new room had none of these features. 

yet

still, i miss it. 

i miss the turkish coffee in the morning.

i miss the faint rumbling noise of traffic from down below

i miss the random conversations of earlier former yugoslavia 

i miss the fact that a half liter of beer was never more than $2

these past 4 days spent in belgrade were great. nobody really treated us like tourists. maybe because hardly anyone comes here. if i'm right, i sure hope it stays that way.  

if you ask me, i can't really say why i came to belgrade other than my friend brianne being an insane novak djokovic fan and wanting to visit his cafe; which is amazing if i might add. 

the specifics of choosing a city are never set in stone. 

it's rare to find a city that once done circling and prodding, you'd come back to. 

belgrade, is one of the few exceptions.