Of course we arrived in Belgrade on just three hours of sleep and a really heavy week in Berlin barely behind us. Hello culture shock. Hello foreign language. Hello Cyrillic alphabet. Hello 45-minute Serbian history lesson from 600BC to the present courtesy of Marko and his ‘original Belgrade taxi-driver’ friend. Hello Belgrade.

Marko was our host.

And an ‘organisator’.

And a rock star.

Photo by Ana Jelic


Upon arrival at his family home – we were staying with Marko, his mum and cat – we received some Turkish coffee and natural remedies for our general wellbeing. Then we went out to meet the massive friend circle in a local restaurant, which included Dracula who was doubling as our security for the weekend. He also happens to be a Belgrade punk legend and a sweet, sweet man.

Some hours later after much meat, multiple Rakia, many beers and a wee joint, it was communicated to me at a bar on a riverboat that I was going to be on a live TV talk show that very night, the first night in Belgrade. Okay. Go with the flow. Let’s do it. Make yourself comfortable...

“This Is My City, welcome to Serbia! So what’s this show

all about?” “Dobro vec?e! Ah. Hmmm... Can I get back to you on that?”