Austria

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I was able to take off one full workweek and two weekends over the Christmas holidays and visit my childhood friend Igor, his wife Mateja and one year old son Luka. Since it was little difficult to find a good connecting flight to Ljubljana, the capital of Slovenia, I’ve booked a flight to Vienna, Austria. Igor offered to pick me up in Vienna so I booked my ticket without much hesitation.

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The flight was quite comfortable. For some reason I always get excited about the in-flight movie program and must admit that Austrian Airlines have excellent in-flight service, food and entertainment. I watched couple of movies and as I was about to start reading the Da Vinci Code when the captain announced landing. I was very excited to meet up with my Slovenian friends.

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Washington - Vienna flight gets in very early, around 8am. Since I had no additional bags to wait for, I quickly cleared the Austrian Immigration. As soon as I walked out to the arrival section, it felt like I walked into whole new world. Well, this world comes with “all-inclusive” clouds of tobacco smoke with a taste of heavy roasted espresso coffee.

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Luka, Mateja and Igor were already on the airport waiting for me. Despite the cold and rainy weather, we’ve decided to spend the entire afternoon in this beautiful city. Vienna is the largest city in Austria and main cultural, economic and political center. We focused on the Cathedral of Saint Stephen and the local coffee shops. The Stephansdom (Cathedral of Saint Stephen), is a beloved symbol of Vienna and the site of many important events in Austria's national life. This is where I captured a father and son – mirror reflection moment. Austria is always fun during Christmas. The area around the cathedral was buzzing with people buying last minute presents.

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I realized that I could use this opportunity to meet up with another good friend, Teodora. Last summer, Boris, my “kum” from Toronto got married and he honored me to be his best man in the wedding. His wife Sladjana’s counterpart, Teodora, lives in Vienna suburbs with two Bosnian girlfriends, Irma and Sofia, for the last couple of years so I rang her up to join us for lunch. Teodora was working that day but she invited me to Vienna on my way back to Washington.

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On the way to Slovenia we stopped near Graz to have some famous Austria stew and amazing strudels for desert. Luka was sleeping in the back seat as we were crossing the border to Slovenia.

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Republika Srpska Bosnia & Hercegovina

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TESLIC: Now is time now for me to tell few things about the trip back to my dearest hometown of Teslic. Teslić (Теслић) is a small town and a municipality in Republika Srpska entity of Bosnia and Herzegovina, located southwest of Doboj, west of Tešanj and southeast of Banja Luka. So, as I have returned back to Washington DC couple of months ago, I think now is time to focus and try to get inspired to finish up this part of my traveling story.

So, Milorad and I were pretty much getting sick and tired of constant partying in Montenegro so we decided to make a move and escape the mighty state of Montenegro. It took us only about 30 minutes to pack our bags and find our way up the countless old-town stairs to the bus station in Herceg Novi. Milorad and I are like brothers, and this was just another fun life episode we were sharing together. We agreed to meet in Guca within the next week or so.

At this point I was still unsure where I was going. I did not have a good feeling about Teslic at this time of the year and quite frankly subconsciously I was trying to avoid going there. Why? Well, it is a very complicated matter and I will try to explain in detail in my up-and-coming autobiography blog.

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Anyway, both my brother Goran and my dad Janko still live in Teslic. Goran works as an interpreter for Polish army forces as a part of European Union for the last few years. It is always nice to spend some time with my brother. He has grown into a true gentleman and I am so proud of him.

For the last few years I visited Teslic once or twice per year but only for few days at the time. It is a very emotional experience and I get goose bumps every time I drive across the town’s main bridge. This is some sort of a love and hate relationship between my birth town and me. All year long I think of my dad Janko, brother Goran and all people I grew up with, people I know.

I always get so excited when the time comes for me to visit but as soon as I get there things change. As soon as I get there I feel like I get into a constant anxiety state of mind and something makes me think I must not stay long. I get to feel like I must leave as soon as possible and run as far as possible and never look back. I guess I should talk about that stuff some other time.

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So, on to the more fun stuff...an overnight bus to Banja Luka from Herceg Novi and I was on my way back to Republika Srpska, Bosnia & Hercegovina and Teslic. Cold morning it was that day. Goran was waiting for my at the bus station with his WV Golf. Goran loves driving and he takes good care of his vehicle. The drive from Banja Luka to Teslic takes about an hour, depending on the rush hour; perfect time to catch up and learn about the latest news from Teslic.

As usual, the plan was to stay for few days and then take off to Italy, my last European destination before I head home to Washington. The town was quite in the morning. We parked at my brother place to drop of my stuff and went to have some breakfast and coffee. My brother owns a cute studio at the main town square with the beautiful view of the new Orthodox and a recently rebuilt Catholic Church in the town center as well as the surrounding hills in the background.

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The next 10 days were probably the best time I’ve ever spent there. My brother and I had a blast. The month of August is the time when most people working abroad come back to Teslic to visit. The town was full of familiar faces, people were happy to be back visiting family and friends and I felt like the war was totally forgotten. We’ve spent many nights at the Usora river front drinking local beer and fine vine, sang old nostalgic tunes and ate tons of good food.

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Then it was time to leave again. This time I was not running away. This time I felt something new has happened here and I was very happy with myself and everything that surrounded me during my stay in Teslic. Now, I had to make my way back to Serbia to see Guca, I think the most amazing music festival in the world. When he visited the festival Miles Davis said "I didn't know you could play trumpet that way".

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