Belgrade is the capital and the largest city of Serbia. It is located in the central part of Serbia on the rivers of Danube and Sava. The city is very well accessible by bus from Budapest but the only problem is waiting for passport control at the border crossing as Serbia is not a member of the EU. I literally waited for 6 hours so I decided to travel by plane on my way back to Prague.

In my opinion, there is not so much to see in Belgrade when I compare it to other European capitals. Most of the city is ugly and the local architecture looks communistic. But that was exactly what I expected considering the country´s poor history. However, I have to say that the city center is pretty cool. The most beautiful place of Belgrade is definitely Kalamegdan park. I also liked Republic square. There are also some nice historical buildings and churches all around the city. I have also visited Nicola Tesla Museum and a very bizarre Museum of contemporary art. The nightlife in Belgrade is very wild. There are a lot of clubs, most of them are at the Danube riverside in the city center. My favorite was KST because the "Foam Party" there was just unforgettable :D

I took trips around the country with my fellow interns almost every weekend. We visited Novi Sad, the second largest Serbian city and much nicer than Belgrade. The most beautiful thing about Serbia is its stunning nature. We made trips to the meanders of the river of Uvac and Tara national park. They offer a lot of breathtaking views.

I took my internship at Key to Metals. It is a swiss company that provides a database of (not only) metallic materials and their properties to customers all around the world. The Serbian branch of the company resides in a detached house on a very quiet housing estate in the Belgrade suburbs. There were 10 of us in the office, including me and another IAESTE intern, a cute girl from Thailand ♥.

Most of my job was mapping the data of certain materials and writing some reports. My colleagues were then processing the data in order to improve the system of searching for them. It got really boring after a while but it had to be done by somebody so the company hires interns to do this as nobody else wants to do such a boring and time-consuming work. This is how the internships in most companies work so I did not really mind it to be honest.

I have got 5000 RSD in cash every Friday. I did not really care about money but I guess it was sufficient to cover my everyday expenses. The company also paid for my lunches every day and they also paid a certain part of my rent. I really appreciate that as there were about 100 other interns in Belgrade and my employer was probably the only one to take such a good care of the interns ♥. It was also the only employer to pay directly. Other interns got paid through the IAESTE office.

My colleagues talked to me very rarely but all of them were really kind and willing to help me if I needed it. There was no language problem as everyone in the office was talking in English to me. On the other hand, the communication with other locals was not always so smooth. Not everyone spoke English in Serbia. A lot of people, especially the old ones acted grumpy when I talked to them in English. Fortunately, I have learned to speak a little Serbian very easily as it is a Slavic language so I had no problem.

I paid about 7500 RSD for accommodation. Even if it was not the full price the accommodation was super cheap. I stayed at the dormitory with all the other interns. First 3 weeks I had a room on my own and then I was given a roommate. It was provided by IAESTE. My room was clean but the dorm was very old and it definitely needs to be renovated. There was no kitchen in the whole dormitory and the laundry service was also unsatisfactory. Some of my fellow interns had also constantly problems with their key cards. Fortunately, my internship ended on 30th August. On the next day, everyone had to leave the dorm to vacate the rooms to the home students that were starting the new school year at the local high school. IAESTE failed to provide any information until the very last moment and eventually, the interns ended up at even worse places.

An IAESTE member was supposed to pick me up at the bus station but I arrived with a 6-hour delay. I called him immediately after entering the country and informed him about the delay and he assured me to arrange somebody to pick me up but when I arrived nobody was there and he was not answering my WhatsApp calls. I spent about 1 hour at the station to get in touch with him to get the address of the dormitory. IAESTE did not organize any events for the interns. On the other hand, People in the IAESTE office were always kind and helpful to me. Only a couple of other interns complained about people in the office. But I have to say that they did a perfect job as they informed my Thai colleague ♥ about my arrival so she met me about 5 minutes after it and took me to work the next day. This was really unexpected considering that I arrived to the dormitory at 11 PM :D

Since all the interns were accommodated in the same dormitory, we were meeting all the time. We created a WhatsApp group and anytime somebody wanted to do something, he wrote the message and the others joined him. We were a big family.

I have played football with the other interns on the concrete court next to the dorm a couple of times. We also went go-karting and played paintball. I also visited a champions league qualification football match of Red Star Belgrade (Crvena Zvezda) and a basketball match between Serbia and Greece. Bot matches were sold out and the atmosphere was just amazing. The only cultural event I visited was a beer fest in Belgrade. There were some concerts taking place on the stages, some of the performers were pretty good, some of them were not. I was upset to miss the concert of Five Finger Death Punch which took place just a few days before my arrival in Belgrade.

Street food in Belgrade is very cheap and unhealthy. The most typical dish is pljeskavica which is something like a burger with a huge grilled slice of meat. You can customize it by yourself with any vegetables and sauces you like. Other dishes were čevapi which is almost the same as pljeskavica but in a different shape and homemade sausage. As we had no kitchen in the dormitory I ate this almost every day. It was the only option. Vegans in Belgrade probably starve to death. A typical Serbian drink is Rakija. I liked it very much.

I kept in touch with my home via Facebook and messenger. In Serbia, almost nobody uses them so we communicated via WhatsApp.

If you want to see nature, you will need to rent a car. Stalk me on Facebook, I can get you a contact on the best car rental in Belgrade.
If you are making a 2 or more day trip, check twice if the landlord really confirmed your reservation of accommodation. This can get tricky :D
Travel by plane so you will not get stuck at the border crossing.

fridge and kitchenware
And a lot of patience if you travel by bus or car :D

an interesting point to my CV
a lot of new friends from all around the world
stories I will remember for a lifetime

As I mentioned earlier, I had problems after arrival but in the end, we solved them. They helped me a lot after my arrival by putting me in touch with my colleague. They were also very helpful with giving me the Serbian SIM card and setting up my mobile phone. They did not do this to everyone so later I had to help some other guys struggling with it. Arranging accommodation for the ones staying also in September was a disaster even though they knew from the very beginning that this situation will occur.