We Do Adventure

By some happy coincidence we ending up being in Mostar this weekend as the city's new Mepas Mall opened. When we lived in Mostar we watched the old hospital buildings where it now stands being demolished. We witnessed the digging of an enormous hole and watched as a giant concrete structure began to appear. Then we moved to Jajce. Almost two years on the construction is complete and it's open for business. Business on the opening weekend was busier than we've ever seen in a shopping centre in Bosnia and Herzegovina. Shoppers and sight-seers were out in force, but we saw enough people parading fresh purchases to guess the shops won't be disappointed by early trade. The first night queues in McDonalds – only the country's third, and its first outside Sarajevo – were huge. We waited over half an hour to get served; so not exactly fast food, although you can't blame the staff for that. The next day security guards had been stationed to manage the melee. While t...

It's not a picture I'm proud of but I'll say I guess it had to be done to mask the clear lack of principled behaviour on display here. As someone who has enjoy living in a land beyond the reach of McDonalds and Starbucks it is unfortunate to have to confess that this weekend's trip to Sarajevo saw us not just sampling McDonalds traditional fast-food but also indulging in their take of the Starbucks formula. One of the key strengths of the McDonalds brand is that, whatever you think of it, their food tastes the same wherever in the world you eat it. I don't care much for McDonalds' ability to steam a burger to within an inch of its life, but their hot apple pies and ice cream are a special kind of plastic magic. But who would have imagined they could tackled the decent coffee and cake thing? I was genuinely surprised; I certainly won't rule out a return visit. And that's a confession I didn't expect to make.

This was lunch. I can't say I'm proud of it but I present it as an interesting case study of economists; neatly summing up both the psychological power wielded by global brands and the well known fact that scarcity increases demand. As we've mentioned before, Bosnia and Herzegovina has no McDonalds. This is by no means a bad thing. The country has plenty of quality home-grown alternatives to the most famous burger in fast food. However Croatia has McDonalds and that means the lure of the Golden M is never far from the travelling kind. We once spent twelve days in Manhattan. Despite there being seemingly a McDonalds on every corner that wasn't occupied by a Starbucks we only stepped inside once, when needing to find a 'rest room' after a trip on the Staten Island ferry. We had no inclination to eat there. Years before we left the UK we'd stopped considering McDonalds as a fast food option, except in an absolute emergency. So why did I find myself eating a...

I've always found shopping in other countries an exciting experience. In the days before the Euro you'd grapple with exchange rates and confusing currencies and pray you were getting a bargain. I will always be slightly disappointed that we fell just a few thousand Lira short of spending a million in cash on our honeymoon in Italy! Bosnia Herzegovina may not yet be in the EU but its currency, the Konvertible Mark (KM) is pegged to the Euro. As I write there are about 2.5KM to the pound. Some things here are so cheap compared to the UK it's almost embarrassing, others are not. Second-hand cars do not depreciate in the same way. But eating out is cheap, even when it's expensive by Bosnian standards. A slice of cheesecake at Sarajevo's most expensive cafe was 4.90KM; significantly less than London prices. Two people can easily get a good lunch for the cost of one McDonalds. Bosnia Herzegovina joins Armenia, Albania and the Vatican City as the only European countries w...