Dear Reader,
Welcome to our monthly column in which we try to be faithful to our objective - decoding cultures.
We plan to bring news with intercultural overtones to you, adding our personal interpretation in the hope that this contributes to better mutual understanding.
Sincerely, Karin & Richard
We read in the news…
Belgrade to Sarajevo and back…
The more or less symbolic reopening of the Belgrade-Sarajevo train link got quite a lot of attention in the media at the end of the year, including a feature on BBC Television. Thanks to two passport checks and four locomotive changes, the journey now takes longer than it did 18 years ago, when the 'Olympic Express' was the pride of Yugoslavia. Of the three carriages that comprise the new service, one belongs to the Bosnian Serb railway, one to Serbia and one to the Sarajevo rail authorities, and the Bosnian Serb carriage is disconnected at the border before reaching Sarajevo…
The end of Europe?
A posting on the Blogactiv website on January 29 raised an enduring issue: where does Europe end? According to Mr Sarkosy, it stops at the Dardanelles, which at least qualifies part of Turkey for membership of the Europe Union if she manages to meet all the other strict criteria demanded of her.
