Story of a city on the evening of a war.

At first the Dempsey jersey draws some double-takes. Some palpable disbelief. A few smirks and tongue-in-cheek nods, like I'm playing with fire. Hope you know what you're in for.

In Bosnia, football is deeper than religion. It's identity. Sarajevo has only a little of what could be called street art, but it's filled with graffiti. Ugly scrawls like prison tattoos mainly marking territory, name'dropping for what in England would be called firms, or in America simply gangs, dedicated to football teams, with larger clubs having several competing ones. In many cases identifying with the team is secondary to your supporter affiliation, your barra brava. In Mostar I thought the "Red Army" tags I saw everywhere were holdovers from the Croatian War, or the Serbian forces from the onslaught of the early Nineties. War'cries still audible from decades ago. The truth is the same basic idea, but wrong timeframe. The Red Army is the supporters group for FK Velež, one of Mostar's two football teams. I know this because I met one of its footsoldiers. My hostel owner's nephew who drove a small group of us around Herzegovina explained that FK Velež is the club for Mostar's Bosnian supporters, traditionally unapologetically left-wing (he openly expressed his deep love for General Tito, the Communist leader of Yugoslavia who died a good decade before he was born). Velež is the bloody rival of HŠK Zrinjski, Mostar's other football team- this one supported by Croats and the extreme right-wing. A city's people divided by loyalties only ostensibly about the football on the field, but more'so a way to suggest the War is more dormant than truly completed, aggression merely sleeping. The frequent riots and clashes between the two groups, the fact that he changed out of his Velež shirt when crossing into a Croat and Zrinjski neighborhood to avoid instigating a fight, pretty much supports this.

Everywhere I go in Sarajevo, I see Vedran Puljić. His image is stenciled all throughout the city like an obscure Che Guevara. In the Baščaršija, on buildings across from the cathedrals, south of the Miljacka River, and sprayed huge on a heartfelt if artistically-lacking mural upon the city's Olympic stadium. He's dead, of course; no living person stirs such genuine loyalty or iconography in a free society. He was a supporter of FK Sarajevo, 24 when he was killed, apparently by police, during massive hooligan rioting between two firms in 2009. Couple that allegiance with the implied open rebellion against police authority, a romanticized subversiveness, and you not only spawn a dangerous legend, but announce to the observant visitor what it is the people around you hold dear.

So yeah. I knew what I was in for. Maybe not the same as traveling to an away game at Azteca (no bags of urine raining down from above) but every second I had on a US soccer jersey on the day they were playing the Bosnian national team, I was, by definition, the enemy. Because empty name aside, there's no such thing as a friendly. 

Game day was my fifth and planned final day in Bosnia, a country I've been strangely protective towards since it came into existence in the early Nineties, and that I'd only come to love more when actually visiting it. The elderly hostel owner had taken to me immediately, playfully chiding me for Americanizing how I pronounce my last name, away from the traditional Polish inflection. I was welcomed back from an overnight trip to Mostar like a prodigal son, with kisses on my cheek and a proud announcement she'd not only kept my same bed reserved but made sure my other four dormmates were now women. "Like a harem. Just for you." The city's bars were simple but absurdly fun. Tall tables set out along the sidewalk, even on the opposite one across from the actual bar, people huddling around with an open sky above and the city around, a palpable enjoyment of summer and the optimism such heat brings. On my second night out I met 3 members of the US team I'd be watching in a few days who had just arrived in Sarajevo from their various European clubs. I wished them luck in the game before giving them advice on bars around the city. An hour later, we then met Bosnia's star player, Edin Džeko, and watched as cars double-parked abruptly in the narrow street so kids could run out from the passenger seats for a picture with him. The food, the scenery, the breathtaking women, everything a perfect payoff for the twenty years of anticipation toward finally coming to Sarajevo. So it was difficult for this city, filled with everything I'd come to love so quickly, to be against me, even if it was just for the evening.

The cab never shows so the four of us walk the mile and a quarter uphill to the stadium. The American, British, and German girls with me all adopted Bosnian gear, my lone US shirt lost in surrounding royal blue and yellow, rivers of Džeko jerseys weaving through the bullet'ridden streets stronger and faster than the Miljacka. We arrive at the overflowing stadium shortly before kickoff, but still with time to pregame at one of the two adjacent bars, since we recognize our hostel owner's son at one of the tables. As we got closer to the stadium, to gametime, the novelty factor of the Dempsey jersey wore off and rather than smirks from the occasional passerby, it was stares from packs of scalp'shaven men, whispers and neck'cranes and more whispers. We finish our bottles of Sarajevsko and start off toward the stands, saying goodbye to the dorm owner's son and to an older man in full yellow and blue gear who'd been speaking to me exclusively in Bosnian and laughing at jokes I could guess at but not comprehend. I offer my hand with an "I think you'll win 3-1... We'll at least get one... Good luck," and he returns the shake with a smiling "See you after the game" and when I try to pull my hand away he won't allow it and then repeats, this time minus the smile "See you after the game." I nod a deadpan goodbye and enter the stadium with the girls, and we take some of the only remaining seats which are the rows to the front, less'valued because of the ambulances and sideline boards obscuring the view. Not to mention you're that much closer to the giant metal fences of chainlink diamonds, the old pens banned decades ago in England after 96 supporters were crushed to death at Hillsborough. Walking down to the front, my back is to the Bosnian crowd behind me, my DEMPSEY nameplate drawing even further attention as the only American supporter in our entire fenced'in quarter, one of only about 20 or 30 in the entire stadium of twenty'four thousand. 

When the Bosnian team takes the field there are flares, and chants like penned'thunder from throughout the ground after each of their two opening goals. The Bosnian fans, and yes my accompanying German, English, and American contingent, stand to drum on the plastic seats in celebration. I just grin the appreciative smirk of the outsider, my loyalties too rooted to join in or to be pleased with the scoreline, but seeing the people of a city I love so happy is an acceptable consolation. At halftime a number of fans go to the section's concession table which is two men pouring paper cups of Pepsi from a 2'liter. When the US scores a harmless goal ten minutes later ("We'll at least get one") there's little distraction from the continued buzz of Bosnian domination. But the second US goal that comes just 4 minutes later is met with anger and immediate looks towards me from the fans around. I don't celebrate externally, I'm reckless but not an idiot. It stays at two'all for almost half an hour, which seems like the perfect scoreline, everyone leaving with at least an exciting game, but then Jozy Altidore scores two more American goals within three minutes, the first an absolutely filthy free kick, and the final consolation goal by Džeko doesn't lighten any moods or make my walk home any safer. It ends 4-3 to the US and despite taking my jersey off after the fourth goal to salvage a little anonymity on the walk back down the hill to the city center, I still get a few "Have a good night Dempsey"s from disappointed Bosnian fans. But thankfully far less stares and pointing mumbles.

I manage to find some of those other elusive American supporters afterward and my celebration goes too long. I miss both my alarm and early morning flight, making it to the check-in counter 15 minutes too late, but just in time to see a contingent of the US team checking-in beside me to redisperse back across Europe. The conversation with my cab driver back to my hostel starts with the game, but quickly shifts topics to the city, the women, the film festival that's about to start and the round'the'clock parties it brings with it. He recommends I stay to experience it and the only thing holding me back from doing that is reality, not emotion. Because I no longer feel an outsider, not the enemy of last night's expired conflict. Still an American and still my Sarajevo and in my last few hours in the city before my overdue departure, these two designations find a proud harmony.

For rebecca.

"To my friends in New York, I say 'Hello,'
My friends in L.A., they don't know
Where I been for the past few years or so,
Paris to China to Colorado..." - One Republic


I was turning around to leave again just eighteen hours after arriving, so that's why I was in the small car. My backpack accompanying me to make for a quicker goodbye. That was the logical decision made in the morning by Miran, the forty-something owner of the eponymous hostel in Mostar that I'd stayed at for a brief night made briefer by the unreliability of Eastern European trains. The ones delayed by the extensive border checks between fledgling countries that loathe one another. 

I took a train rather than a bus from Sarajevo to Mostar because of Rebecca West. Her six-week journey through then-Yugoslavia on the eve of the Second Great War is retold in the extensive and impossibly-dense Black Lamb and Grey Falcon; it's the essential book for any serious traveler to the Balkans, despite now being eighty years old. Reading it in modern day means you're doing so for its philosophy, its musings on how life once was before the contamination of the contemporary reached the villages comprising her trip. It means reading with the cruel hindsight of history she, for all her wisdom, lacks. As a travelogue, it has little use; in its twelve-hundred pages of minute descriptions, what quaint civilization wasn't razed by modernity was devoured by warfare. That of the '40s, the '90s, or our newest century- take your pick. But I rightly assumed one experience of hers would hold pretty true from her era to mine. I chose the train rather than the far more frequent bus because of Rebecca, and because there are only so many paths a train can take out of a valley. Only so many ways out of the holes we dig ourselves in. Eighty years can pass, but the train tracks in impoverished countries pretty much stay in place. 129 kilometers of travel at the speed of honey, letting her and I both centipede past the same massive earthen sharkfins rising out of jade rivers. Through nature stunning but unstrategic, in the World War she knew would surely come and the civil war she didn't.

Still, because of its earlier delay at the Croatian/Bosnian border, the train is two hours late in getting to Sarajevo and it carries me into Mostar past eleven at night instead of just after nine. Past the point when the hostel's social circles are pretty much solidified, or at least when there are no longer empty chairs left around the table to sit with the large group on the patio. Which was fine aside from the twinge of jealousy that the cute blonde backpacker also staying there was already flanked by other eager guy travelers. Another road fling never to be. So instead of conversation with the blonde, or any of the others, I chose to wander the city by night. Walking on Mostar's shined'by'wear cobblestones convexing streetlight back at my eyes, as I followed a many'folded map from Hostel Miran to the Old Bridge that spans the Neretva River. Stone leaping above the water as it has for almost six-hundred years, save the decade following its arbitrary destruction in 1993 during the Bosnian war, and prior to its replacement in 2004.

I wake in the early of the morning and it's back to the Bridge again, while it's still mine with minimal sharing. Mainly an old Italian couple and a local man walking his dog to have in my photographic foreground. I'm on the banks of the trickling Neretva before the arrival of tourists and the preening teenage boys goading money out of them, promising to dive the 30 meters off the Old Bridge to the water once the collection reaches 25 Euro. I get back to the hostel for their semi-famous day tour, the reason I chose to stay there in the first place. Before we head to a Dervish monastery perched above a river, or to a hilltop Ottoman fortress, or to Herzegovinian waterfalls, Miran splits our group of 15, me and the fourteen occupied seats from the night before, into two groups. And that's when I'm assigned into the small car with the other 2 backpackers who will also be taking the evening train back to Sarajevo. Two early 20s Brits, a redhead named Aidan and his friend that looks like the offspring of Eric Bana and Frank Turner. Along with Miran's also early 20s nephew, and an Argentinian backpacker, our tiny red car keeps pace with the larger van. Sitting in the smaller car means I'm missing out on more commentary from the absurdly colorful Miran, so rather than anti-establishment anecdotes and the more-than-occasional tactless sexism, the five of us talk football. Of Villa and Fulham, of the Bosnian star Edin Džeko, underutilized striker for Manchester City and current god of Sarajevo, who I'd met while out drinking a few nights before. Of how Džeko donates constantly to Sarajevo children's programs and hospitals, as he too vividly remembers being a small child during the city's Siege. Our young Bosnian driver is also an ultra- think English hooligan without the beer drinking. Just the fighting and flare'lighting, and the confession about how he has to change his shirt between stops because we're entering a mostly-Croatian part of the region where his team's colors and badge could easily provoke violence. Football loyalty being the proxy form of freshly'remembered war. In addition to football, Miran's nephew is also a huge basketball fan, and when he finds out I'm from New York he eagerly asks me about what seeing a game in Brooklyn is like, in the house that Jay built. Of how Barclay's compares to the Garden or to Staples Center in LA. 

For us five the words and jokes all come pretty easy and in between the sights that were advertised is an experience less tangible that wasn't, and a realization I miss one more thing I never realized I lost between LA and New York. It's the simple act of riding in a car with friends. Windows down, sunshine in a heatwave summer, and a soundtrack subtle in the moment that turns Pavlovian the next time you hear it. It was Dre 2001 back in senior year, usually in Vince's 80s Bronco, grabbing breakfast burritos from Corner Cottage or weaving around the Burbank hills. On almost monthly college trips out to Vegas, the year that followed Irwin and I turning 21, it was The Killers' Hot Fuss, cranking "Midnight Show" when we hit the top of the ridge on the 15 when the glowing promise of the city reveals itself and we would hurtle down to the dwarfing Strip with unrestrained smiles. In this Herzegovina summer it's OneRepublic that I don't realize is on until the five of us are caught in a moment of quietude, each looking out the windows with our eyes rather than our camera lenses. A silence not from boredom, or awkwardness, but a communal if subconscious recognition of contentment. Something so basic and ubiquitous that the top 40 song with its rudimentary lyrics is actually the perfect accompaniment. It's a moment we can all understand and we can all appreciate. Its very accessibility is what makes it beautiful. Our five cultures, biographies, and languages all overlapping for just these few car rides and hours but each easily understanding and agreeing. Our Venn being the football and the car ride, the attraction to Bosnia, and the words we take in while also meditating them out, our communal present and our individual futures....

Oh this has gotta be the good life,
This has gotta be the good life, 
This could really be a good life,
A good, good life...

After the song and hours at the Kravice waterfalls, more silent reflection of simple happiness as a particular cerulean dragonfly kept returning to perch unafraid on my knee, it was back to Mostar. The two Brits were also on my evening train back to Sarajevo, the one with far more daylight to see the Bosnian countryside Rebecca had urged me towards. We didn't talk past the casual goodbyes on the Sarajevo platform that mirrored the farewells to our Argentinian and Bosnian brief friends back in Mostar. More afternoon friendships where further communication or contact info traded would only muddy harmonious memories. The discs in the Venn were already slipping apart, towards future cities and soundtracks, but now with another song to bring a vivid moment back. At least for me, hopefully for the other four, and maybe for another traveler in the future. One who is in a car because of a train because of words that don't stop speaking even when the author and her world have long disappeared.