In this post, I mentioned that we were going to the US (actually, the US Embassy in Belgrade) because my passport had been washed. We decided to try and take the train to Belgrade. (In Serbian, it would be something like Путовали смо до Београда воѕом). That probably isn’t right, but it is close.
We hopped the local train here in Чачак and traveled to Пожега (about 45 min or so). We weren’t real sure where we would get off, but we knew we had to change trains. We asked the conductor (well, we tried). He got the idea and told us. When we got off, I saw him looking at the schedule and he told us a time. We didn’t really understand but didn’t know how to get a better answer. We decided we would wait and see what happened.
Well, a train came along and Београд was announced so we got on and sat down. The conductor came along and looked at our tickets. He told us we needed to pay more (I understood that) but made like I didn’t understand. I thought he just wanted to get more money from us. Eventually, he found someone who spoke english that confirmed what I thought he was saying so we paid him more динари (dinars).
The guy we met turned out to be from Italy. He, his brother, and I talked most of the way to Београд. Every little bit, the train would stop and let another train pass. We had to stop and wait at a few stations. Overall, the trip was much nicer than the bus because we could get up and walk around…however, it took about twice as long. Here is a picture we took while the train was stopped waiting:
We went to Belgrade early to see some friends. They introduced us to some of their friends, and we had a wonderful time.
While we were there, we had a chance to meet some Brothers and Sisters and worship with them. It was so amazing. We heard a sermon on Matthew 6:25-34. I found that message passage convicting to me (I say passage because I didn’t understand much of the sermon). Later that day, a few people got together for prayer. There, we heard Isaiah 61 read. That was purely God because I had read that same passage that morning and was convicted by it. God is awesome!
Monday (понедељак I think I spelled it right) we went to the Embassy. There was a line; however, we walked up to the door, showed the guy our US passports, explained what we needed, and went right in. They showed us where to go, we told a lady what we needed, and she said sit and wait. We waited < 10 minutes and were called up to a window. We told the lady what we needed, she took our money, and said they would call us in 10 days (or sooner if it was done). In the end, the whole thing took < 30 min. We didn’t get to do much while we were there. The embassy looked nothing like I thought it would inside (probably post 9/11 security measures changed everything).
For more pictures, you can look in our flickr photostream or the set with pictures of this trip to Belgrade.