Cavities and heart palpatations

Before I left, people asked me what Bosnian food was like. I said that from what I knew there is a lot of meat in most things. The other thing I knew about Bosnian cuisine was the importance of "coffee culture". Traditional Bosnian coffee looks like Turkish coffee served on copper trays with small porcelain cups inside of copper holders and poured from a tiny copper pitcher. Traditional coffee is served with sugar cubes. There are also the options of coffee (espresso), cappuccino, or coffee-with-milk (big or small) as seen in other parts of Europe. All of which is usually served with two sugar packets.

Coffee culture means that when you go for coffee with someone you stay and talk for one or two hours, coffee is an event. To this extent, I have learned quickly that what I think of as a cafe is not the same thing here. A cafe may only serve coffee and does not have any food. So, in my first few days I would wander into a cafe looking for lunch and find coffee. This was fine because I had my stash of American granola bars (thank you Mummy) until I realized that my diet consisted of coffee, sugar, and granola bars. Now, while you don't have to add the sugar, I am not an avid coffee drinker. Sure, I love me some Dunkin' Donuts iced coffee, I do claim to be from the Boston area after all, that being said, I'm no coffee connoisseur. It tastes very strong to me and well, just better with some sugar. Until I find myself walking around again and notice my heart beating in my ears and my teeth feel all mossy in my mouth. Yeah, time for less of that.

So, I've gone out in search for traditional Bosnian cevapi (chuh-vah-pee) which is small grilled rolls of minced meat served with diced onions and half a grilled pita. I found a place in the old town and walked in and sat at an empty table. Eating is a social activity and so the restaurant was filled with families with kids, groups of friends, etc. The waiter came over and asked me something (probably what I wanted) in Bosnian and I gave my usual shrug-sorry-help me-garble of a reply to which he smiled and pulled out a menu asking, "English?" I said yes and pointed to a medium cevapi and said, "cevapi," which he then repeated and I nodded and smiled. My Bosnian language skills are really coming along quite well. The waiter was very nice and would give me a wink and smile any time he brought something over.

Flash forward to last night (two nights after first having cevapi) when I decide I should go out to dinner again and try something new. As I'm walking I think that I don't want to go to some fancy place further away, I'll stay in old town. Here comes the tricky part of finding a place to eat. Remember, a cafe doesn't serve food so that rules a lot of places out. Then I don't want a place that's empty on a Friday night but I don't want a super crowded place either. So I pass the place that I ate at before thinking to myself that I really ought to try some place new. The next block houses a sister restaurant to the one I've had a few nights earlier so, why not. I sit down and realize that it is the exact same menu. I laugh to myself and think that at least now I'll know how to order a little bit better, I'll order the small instead of the medium and I'll order a jogurt like I saw others doing last time. So the waiter comes over aaaand it's the same guy as before. He smiles and kind of stifles laughter as I outright laugh as I order. He was equally as nice to me this time and I plan to go back again but next time I will hopefully be with some other people and be able to order in Bosnian.