Day 5: Saint Sava Byzantine Temple and Great Fun in the City

Another enjoyable, interesting day in Serbia.

Starting off the day, we trekked in the spring heat (83º! and in our business clothing) to the Sveti Sava Temple: a gorgeous Byzantine style Orthodox temple.

For its mystical old world look and style, it was only constructed in the 1930s, thanks in great part to Russian sponsorship, especially the gold leaf. This has interesting political implications for the Serbian people and the Serbian Orthodox Church.

This is the largest Orthodox church in the world by volume. The interior was truly stunning, and this is possibly the most moving and beautiful artwork depicting biblical scenes in my opinion. Even as a person of unspecified faith, this temple elicited a mystical appreciation from me.

Another building worth noting is the ruins of the 1999 bombing left standing in the city center. Here's how it looks, sharply contrasting with the other buildings around. In perfect irony, these are the ruins of the Ministry of Defense.

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After that, we went back to the Faculty of Political Sciences (FPN) to have our final lecture and have a Ukraine Crisis Resolution Simulation, and I dare say we should send our ideas to Moscow and Washington. When sharing the doc to the students, I cracked a joke if anyone had Putin's email address.

After that, two friends and I went and got dinner and drinks and shopped. Andora found the blazer of her dreams, perfect for tomorrow's Parliament briefing visit.

Tonight was when I started to get my bearings in the city and feel a sense of being there. My sense of direction helped the group and I get home twice now, and I'm pretty proud of that as someone who used to consider herself directionally insane, in the words of my favorite Good Place character, Chidi,

The local grocery store was cheap so we got a few drinks and some Kinder eggs along with the locals who had a similar idea at 11:30pm. I worked up the courage to drink out of the city fountain, which is totally potable water, and it tasted great honestly, even better than the hotel water. Very refreshing! Here's a video.