We Do Adventure

2012 has been a great year for British sport, most notably at the London Olympics. We were in London for the New Year celebrations the year it was awarded the games and by some happy symmetry we are getting the chance to see this year out on the banks of the Thames tonight. But our thoughts are already turned to Sarajevo and its Olympic mountains, where we'll be spending this coming weekend. Sarajevo hosted the Winter Olympics in 1984, a games most famous in the UK for Torvil and Dean's contribution. But for us it is another potential piece of symmetry that has captured our imagination. Earlier this month the European Olympic Committees announced that Sarajevo will host the European Youth Olympic Festival in winter 2017. It's been a great year for British Sport; we look forward to some great years ahead for winter sport in Bosnia and Herzegovina.

Having reminded myself earlier this week that today would mark the 5th anniversary of our first trip to Sarajevo I thought I'd be only right to dig out an old video to commemorate. This video was filmed the four days of that visit. In the last 5 years over sixteen thousand people on YouTube have watched me talk about my first impressions of the city; many have left comments saying things like "I  am thinking of going there, your video helped me in my decision, thanks"  or "I  have also been to Sarajevo. I  love it."   As videos go this is not the most professional looking or sounding I ever produced but it is an honest record of our first visit to Bosnia and Herzegovina.

Today I did a quick 'there and back again' to Sarajevo. This was made all the quicker by the completion of another section of motorway since the last time I made the trip; that was mid-May, if my memory serves me right. It's strange to think that the six-and-a-month gap between that trip and today's represents my longest absence from the city in the last five years. We arrived to wintery-cold in the country's capital on Thursday 29 th November 2007, on a now discontinued BA flight from London, at the start of our first trip to Bosnia and Herzegovina. Since then large parts of the city have become familiar stomping grounds. But while we can look forward to faster journeys to Sarajevo in the future we are unlikely to see any change to times to Mostar. Geography dictates the winding mountain roads are unlikely to ever be widened. We are taking some of the young people who attend Novi Most activities in Jajce to Mostar this weekend. The temptation is to try to ...

It wasn't so long ago that I wrote about a bus ride from Zagreb to Jajce. When I did I would have considered it quite a long trip. No longer. Last week was bookended by two 28 hour bus journeys. Sarajevo to Oldenburg, in northern Germany, and back again. In a little bus. 29 seats, 25 passengers and 3 drivers. As near to non-stop as was possible. Had the bus been able to reach the speed limit on the motorways the trip may have been many hours shorter but the seats did recline a little, the air-conditioning worked and it made no worrying noises! Needless to say this is my new benchmark for long-distance road travel. It was a trip of many firsts, many of them being borders crossed by young people who had never been outside of Bosnia and Herzegovina before. I'll leave comments on their interest in the comparative price of chocolate for another post and instead say something about the reason for such a bus ride. We were attending a international event for teenagers called Teen...

Much has been written, tweeted and retweeted, today about the beginning of the war in Bosnia and Herzegovina and the 11,541 red chairs laid out in Sarajevo to commemorate those who died there. I saw this photo on Facebook and felt it expressed my feelings better than I could in words. This stretch of street in Sarajevo is a place we know well now - we were last there last weekend - but I have no idea what it was like to be there during the siege, although we have friends who spent four years trapped inside the city. Occasionally war stories crop up in conversation but it's never something we've asked questions about. We will never be part of that past but we are here now, working for the future of the people here. It is right that, on all sides, what happened is not forgotten; that it is remembered so it never happens again. That twenty years from now the country can look back on two decades of peace and progress, not a descent again into division and destruction. (If you'v...

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.

We'd watched it grow but we'd never been up. Yesterday, we visited the Avaz Twist Tower in Sarajevo for the first time. The decision was made by its proximity to the place we were spending the night but mostly by the gloriously clear blue skies stretched over Sarajevo. Although they had postcards pushing a parallel with the Empire State Building the two are very different experiences. For one thing there are no snow-topped mountains to be viewed from Manhattan. Without a double the Avaz Twist Tower does offer the best panorama of Sarajevo. If there was one disappointment it was that the open-air section of the 36th floor viewing gallery was closed, meaning the 35th floor cafe bar provided the better views. But as it would be wrong to gain that much elevation without stopping for coffee we did have time to savour them.

Upselling is every sales-assistant's dream. If the guy behind the counter had known I'd only come out with the intention of picking up a few plectrums he'd have been slapped himself proudly on the back for coaxing customer through the purchase of a nice new guitar amplifier. Instead he chose to comment on the irony of an English guy buying perhaps England's finest rock'n'roll export, a Marshall amp, in Bosnia. It was a slightly impulsive purchase, although not an entirely unpremeditated one. The amp I brought with me from England has been playing up and experience says that it's the sort of playing up that is not easily rectified. I have been keeping an eye out for a small, all valve combo. When I saw the Class5 today I knew my search was over. It looks great, sounds fantastic (and will hook up to a 4x12 cab for sonic enormity!) and, best of all, was a wallet friendly price very comparable to its UK rrp. Given that I usually expect to pay half-as-much-aga...

Yesterday was, as you probably noticed, the 1st May. Prvi Maj is a big deal here in Bosnia and Herzegovina and cracking out the barbecue seems to be the appropriate response. That's what Rowan did with some friends while I and a another friend took a trip to Sarajevo to indulge in some holiday weekend cinema. Don't you love it when you're driving somewhere and all the traffic is going in the other direction? We had that - both ways. So I'm putting this out there as a top tourist tip: visit Sarajevo on 1st May. The weather's great and the crowds are out of town! Enjoying the sun (and cheesecake) in a favourite roof-top cafe. Rolling with the punches (punctures?!) on the long drive home.

I've said a few times since moving to Bosnia and Herzegovina that I should be keeping a list of 'things I wish I'd paid more attention to in school'. Unsurprisingly, language lessons would be near the top of the list but, perhaps less obviously, vehicle mechanics would be right up there too. I don't remember if the local comprehensive I went to even offered such a GCSE but it would have been really handy if they did. I ability to make an informed guess about the possible outcomes of what was probably inadvisable activity might have soothed the nerves a bit on my latest auto-related adventure. It was Sunday afternoon and we were up on Jahorina, one of Sarajevo's Olympic mountains, with Rowan's parents and an old family friend. I was the driver and one of Novi Most's Volkswagen Transporters was our transport. When we came to move the vehicle from one part of the resort to another it quickly became apparent the driver's side rear wheel had locked up....

It has been our observation that in the world of retail Bosnia and Herzegovina has yet to evolve in to the fiercely competitive market that we were used to in the UK. It's seems retail is not the only area this is the case. The World Economic Forum has presented its 2009-2010 global competitiveness report and Bosnia and Herzegovina comes 109th out of 133 major and emerging economies. What caught my attention was that this position leaves the country sandwiched between Uganda, just above it, and Cambodia, just below it. Those countries share the distinctive that at some point in their history they have been the byword for atrocities in their region. Does that make them fitting neighbours? From my limited perspective - I've visited neither Uganda or Cambodia - I would say no. I find it hard to reconcile the potential I see in this country with the stigma I've seen attached to the others. The sad reality this report highlights is that the mention of Bosnia and Herzegovina...

Britain has high-rises. We used to see some of south London's when we took the train into Victoria;, but our town had nothing above about six floors. Mostar has plenty of big buildings; we have a friend who lives at the top of one of them, on the tenth floor. We live much closer to the ground. Sarajevo has bigger buildings, or apartment blocks. Last week we stayed a few days in one of them; at the top, almost. Nineteen floors ups. The apartment itself was great. It had heating, a very welcome change from Mostar's buildings. Inside you'd never really realise how high up you are until you walk onto the balcony, or need to go out somewhere. This video gives you glimpse into both of those scenarios.

I put this video together today. It’s represents some of the more meaningful thoughts that came out of our trip to the British Ambassador’s Residence in Sarajevo for fireworks on Saturday night. I did leave with other thoughts, like whether it would be wise to public school ones children so as to better prepare them for this kind of occasion. Over the years people have commented of my diplomatic skills in managing people and projects but one thing is clear: I am not part of the diplomatic in-crowd. I might not have been hob-nobbing with the great and the good but I managed a good deed for the evening: offering a torch to a mother whose shoulder-mounted child had dislodged the back of her ear-ring. My mini-LED marvel managed to locate the all-important item amongst the damp grass. I could regale you with amusing snatches of conversation overheard over mulled wine but that would doubtless constitute some breach of state security, so my lips are sealed. However, I pulled out my camera lon...

We were in Sarajevo at the weekend. It’s a city famous for a few things but possibly its most influential export was the gun shot that triggered the First World War. Today you’d be forgiven for not noticing where it happened; a discreet plaque on the wall of a small museum marks the fateful spot. I know where it is and it makes me think every time I drive past it. But after this trip I was left with more than the usual food for thought. I drove back into Mostar with the city doing an impression of a ghost town because of the local football derby. We hardly saw any people, let alone any violence; most of the people loitering on the streets were police leaning on riot shields. However, up the road in Siroki Brijeg a football match didn’t happen because violence erupted beforehand and a FC Sarajevo fan was shot dead . We got this news the same time as the report of another close-to-home incident. We’d been staying in Grbavica, a suburb of Sarajevo, on Thursday, Friday and Saturday. On Mon...

In less than an hour we’ll be on the road to Zagreb. Why? Because tomorrow night U2 will be playing their first Balkan concert since they played Sarajevo in 1997. U2 fans should know the history behind this but if 'Bill Carter', 'satellite link-ups' and 'Miss Sarajevo' mean nothing to you read on. You may be a little less well versed in the back story but I'd still recommend this article on U2.com . It’ll give you an insight into why we’re so excited to be going. That and it’ll be an awesome rock show!

Actually my mother never said what I’m about to say. We never had a computer at home when I was growing up. Even if we had it wouldn’t have been online as that didn’t exist (at least not in the lives of normal people) back then. The maternal advice in question is, of course, don’t meet up with people you’ve meet online. It’s not bad advice. As a youth worker I’ve given it , in all seriousness, to several young people who were about to do the sort of stupid things lead to teenage girls making headlines for all the wrong reasons. However, as an online video maker I’ve broken it on several occasions . (Although the first time my parents were loitering nearby; could have been caution or curiosity!) Today, on a brief visit to Sarajevo, Rowan and I met with someone who, until now, has only been an online contact - ‘the other British blogger in Bosnia’ . (In truth, I’m probably ‘the other’ as they were here first!) At four o’clock Rowan and I were sitting on a park bench across the river from...

I’m sure I’ve mentioned a few times before the exceptional quality of the early evening light in Bosnia and Herzegovina. I might not have mentioned the incredible starry night sky we witnessed a week or so back. I don’t think I’ve ever seen the night sky look so beautiful. It provoked a friend to ponder if perhaps there’s a correlation between the increase in light pollution and decrease in belief in God. But tonight a drive in the dark back from Sarajevo gives me two very different light-related tales. There is but one main road that connects Mostar and Sarajevo. For almost the entiretiy of its length it is single carriageway, breaking into three lanes only on its steepest sections, for the benefit of those desperate to overtake a painfully slow lorry grinding uphill. They go painfully slow downhill too but for that you must supply your own patience! In the two and a bit hours it took to drive home I must have seen more than a dozen cyclists chancing their luck with no lights on their...

Rowan’s sister once saw Robbie Williams sitting on a park bench in London. That was back when he was the star and to suggest Take That could successfully reform (without him) and go on to pull off the largest stadium tour the UK has seen (ever) might have got one sectioned! I’ve visited London many times and can’t claim a single celebrity spot. Ok, so I once saw a woman who was the spitting image of Madonna on the corner of Leicester Square and Charing Cross Road. The huge dark glasses looked legit but as the blond hair wasn’t buried under a baseball cap the lipstick was too conspicuously red I'm convinced it wasa try-hard and not the real deal. Last night we were enjoying a late-night dinner with the guy who drove us to Bosnia, outside a bar in the Old Town of Sarajevo. Sarajevo, the capital of Bosnia and Herzegovina, would surely be the place for celebrity sightings. However in my case a complete ignorance of the names and faces of the local glitterati is always going to make tha...

This post is a hotel recommendation for visitors to Sarajevo, capital of Bosnia Herzegovina. What follows can be read as an honest endorsement or a shameless plug. Should you choose to think the latter know that we paid our bill in full and only the tiniest box of chocolates changed hands. My wife’s family have been visiting us is Mostar this week and wanting to take them to Sarajevo she was hunting online for a suitable hotel. Anyone who been will know parking in Sarajevo can be a real headache, and, anyway, most sights are easily reached on foot. We once stayed in Guesthouse Halvat , which came well recommended. However, they were already fully booked on the dates of this trip. With a bit of hunting around online she turned up Hotel Konak – a competitively priced and conveniently placed establishment. I’ll gloss over the small incident that left the staff profusely apologetic and say instead it was a pleasure to encounter staff who seemed genuine in their desire to provide efficient...