#D8N2BiH2018 Continued...

Our experience continues here in Bosnia and Herzegovina as we enter the second (and sadly, final) week of the internship. The last few days have been full of fun and educational experiences!

Last Thursday we visited United World College Mostar, an awesome school located in the city center that is the first UWC in the Balkans and the only one with an explicit aim to contribute to the reconstruction of a post-conflict society. They're doing some amazing things and we were excited to learn about it!

On our way to the mall we had to stop by the Bruce Lee statue in the park for a quick picture. No one I've talked to so far is exactly sure why he's here, but I'm glad he is.

The park in the city center is beautiful.

The students had a relaxing afternoon and went to the Mepas Mall during the day for a bit of a break (and, of course, some shopping).

Next up we visited the American Corner again, where Inga Kotlo talked to us more about their mission and their work.

The American Corner (and others like it) is an extension of the US Embassy and provides many educational opportunities for students and adults alike. One of the students remarked after leaving that they were glad to see our tax dollars overseas going to such good use.

Our education continued in the evening as our friend Vesna Lovrić of Fortuna Tours showed us around the Stari Grad (Old City) and explained the local history and culture.

This building has a shady past... you'll have to come to Mostar to learn more!

Kayla did a good job remembering her Bosnian/Croatian words :)

The obligatory picture in front of Stari Most from the other side of the bridge :)

Vesna is a great tour guide, I would highly recommend using Fortunate Tours when you come to Mostar on your next trip!

The next day we were back at INTERA Technology Park for training. In the morning students worked on learning about SolidWorks and how to use it for programming. In the afternoon they visited AlfaTherm, a successful local company located in the same building as INTERA that specializes in thermal energy solutions.

The students visit AlfaTherm and learn about the work they do not just in BiH, but in surrounding countries as well.

The students in front of INTERA.

Mladen Kostić, Chief Technology Officer, shows students around the 3D printing and laser cutting machines.

The students also learned about the CNC machine that they have and the trainings they do, which would be the application for the SolidWorks programming they did in the morning.

Later in the evening we did some more exploring of the city, including climbing up into the tower of the Franciscan Church located in the center of town. It provides a beautiful panoramic view of the city.

The view from the top!

We had heard there was some artwork inside the monastery and asked about it. We were surprised that Father John, one of the monks who lives there, actually greeted us and took us on an impromptu personal tour of the monastery!

He and another monk showed us the library and some of the books they have that they are most proud of, including some dating back 1,000 years!

Fr. John also provided us with some history of the monastery, including a wall listing the Franciscan monks who died at the hands of Tito's partisans.

The tour guide then took us into the new chapel that's still under construction after it was destroyed during the last war. They are slowly rebuilding while they continue worshipping there. We had a chance to see many of the pictures of the previous church and learn about the last war through the eyes of the congregants.

That evening and the next day we had a chance for some more fun, including bowling, a piano concert, and a canoe safari at Adventure Trebižat, a local canoe company in Capljina (a nearby town) that provides an awesome canoing experience (and an amazing lunch!)

Griffin bowling a strike at the Mepas Mall's bowling alley during some downtime.

The beginning of our adventure as we traveled along the River Trebižat.

This was the first canoe experience I've had that included some rapids, and it was a lot of fun! Our guide was excellent and somehow managed to get us through each rapid without ever tipping our canoe... truly an accomplishment.

Afterwards we had one of the most delicious chicken meals (and they even made a delicious veggie side for us) under the shade of the trees.

On your next trip to BiH you have to visit Adventure Trebižat! The guides are excellent, the scenery is amazing, the water is crystal clear, and it was an awesome experience. They're also amazing cooks! Check them out on Facebook.

We ended the evening back in Stari Grad for dinner and some shopping. A good way to end the night!

Metal working goes back a long time here, and you can still see local craftsmen doing their thing in the shops along the main street through the city.

Sunday was our second visit to Sarajevo, our Sister City through the Dayton Sister City Committee. This year we began our trip by taking the train into town (highly recommend, although it leaves at 6:45AM!) From there we began the experience at the Sarajevo Tunnel Museum, which allows you to learn about how the citizens of Sarajevo survived by bringing in supplies through a tunnel that most people can't even stand up in.

Map depicting the situation that the citizens of Sarajevo found themselves in during the three years that their city was under seige.

The museum is at the entrance to the old tunnel, which was kept secret even by journalists during the war because they knew it was the only supply line into the city for its citizens.

They have renovated a part of the tunnel to allow visitors to walk through a small portion of the 3,000+ foot long tunnel, which ran underneath the airport. You have to duck the whole way because it's less than 5 feet high.

We saw many examples of the mortars that were launched into the city by those laying seige to the city. You can still find the marks left throughout the city.

A mockup of what was the typical living situation for people living through the seige. A small stove filled with anything one could find to burn and a small amount of rations were the norm.

After the tunnel museum we had to visit the start of WWI, which was the spot next to the Latin Bridge that Gavrilo Princip shot and killed Archduke Franz Ferdinand.

Up next we stopped at the Sebij Fountain in the Old City, where legend has it that if you drink from the fountain you'll return to the city. It's worked for me twice now!

After walking around a bit we visited Cjenovnik, a delicious Čevapčići restaurant recommended by locals.

So much čevapi... so good...

We stopped in the shops as well, including this one where they ground coffee the old fashioned way!

After walking for a bit we stopped at Markale Market, where we saw the spot where a mortar round struck, resulting in the death of over 60 people and prompting the US to become more actively engaged in resolving the conflict.

One of the mortar "roses" that have been filled in to memorialize the war.

The market is still bustling today, and it's a great place to get some fresh fruit and vegetables.

One of the cool things about the city is the dividing line between the "Old City" and the Austro-Hungarian influenced part of the city. You see a dramatic change in the buildings/architecture from the Ottoman influence of the 1400-1800s give way starkly to 19th century Austro-Hungarian buildings, which is pretty interesting.

Another stop we made was to the Galerija 11/7/95, which was the first museum dedicated to memorializing the genocide to open up in Sarajevo. Since the students do a poster project about genocide, the exhibit by the TRIO Sarajevo, a graphic design group that used their skills during the war to create posters that borrowed from popular culture in order to get peoples' attention around the world in the hope that world powers would do something to intervene in the war.

They have a number of documentaries showing, including one that chronicles the measures that the people of Sarajevo took to gain international attention with the aim of getting people to intervene. One even included a beauty pageant entitled "Miss Beseiged Sarajevo" in 1993 that sought to gain the world's attention.

We stopped by one of the many bridges on our way back to the train. We learned that this one was believed to have been designed by Eiffel (of tower fame)!

We ended our visit with a trip up to the Avaz Twist Tower, which provides an amazing view of the city.

Enjoying some sight seeing from the top.

Thankfully we had a beautiful/cool day, so the weather was perfect.

Afterwards we enjoyed some snacks at the cafe before heading back to Mostar. The students had to get some rest because Monday is the beginning of their embedded internship experiences! More to come...

Dayton to BiH 2018 - First Impressions

Dayton to BiH 2018!

We're back in Bosnia Herzegovina! This year's group from the Dayton Regional STEM School includes some great representatives - Nate, Griffin, May, Kayla, and Anya. I'm excited this year to be joined by my wife, Amanda Grieve, and fellow Dayton Sister City Committee member, Peggy Kelly.

We left Dayton and traveled through Chicago and Munich, finally landing in Dubrovnik, Croatia, on June 9. We spent a fun night exploring the city, including traveling across the top of the wall of the city, going into the shops, and (of course) eating a ton of great food!

The view from the top... of the wall! Watchers of Game of Thrones or Star Wars may recognize Dubrovnik as Kings Landing or Canto Bight!

Another view from the wall.

A wedding was going on at the main cathedral at the center of town.

We caught the processional while getting a "light" snack of meats and cheeses.

Seems like we try new food each time... this time it was smelt, which I've never had before. Delicious!

Some of us got up early the next day to go swimming and wading in the Adriatic...

Others of us missed checkout and had to be shamed accordingly.

Thankfully we all made it to a delicious breakfast before we got picked up!

The next day we were glad to see Ana, Gorana, and Mateo, who picked us up to head into Bosnia and Herzegovina. Our first stop was Vjetrenica cave, a beautiful cave that contains the greatest level of biodiversity in the world. The rock formations that were formed over millions of years were beautiful, and we were blown away not just by the views, but also by the continuous wind that flows through the tunnel, sometimes as high as 55 miles per hour.

It was hot outside, but right here in this spot at the mouth of the cave was very cold from the wind!

Inside the cave was beautiful.

The rock formations are millions of years old and it was amazing to see what slow sediment accumulation does when you have so much time.

These creatures live in the cave and we got to see one (will have to go in person to see it!) I didn't know they could live for so long, the one we saw was over 50 years old! The "human fish" is pretty cool.

We also went inside to learn more about the museum's history and how they've learned about what is inside.

Next up we headed into Mostar to meet our homestay families and have dinner. The next day we got up early to check out the Economics Faculties of the two local public universities that make their home in Mostar - The University of Djemal Bijedic and University of Mostar.

Touring the University of Djemal Bijedic with Dr. Azra Bajramović, who gave us a tour of the facility and told us about the projects their students do, which sound a lot like what we call project-based learning.

Jelena Jurić showed us around the University of Mostar and provided an overview of the programs and degrees students can pursue.

We were excited to see that the University of Mostar's economics magazine (which their students run) is now edited by Dario Šaravanja, one of the students who came to the United States to participate in our first year of the exchange program! You can find their Facebook page here.

After a lot of walking we had a delicious lunch at Restoran Radobolja, an upscale local restaurant that Amanda and I were fortunate to have eaten at on our first trip.

The food was delicious!

We had some time to kill, so we stopped at one of the many places you can get gelato and had all kinds of delicious flavors.

We also had a chance to catch up on what we'd learned from all of our experiences so far.

Up next, the students learned how to fly a drone at INTERA Techology Park, our amazing partner organization in this exchange program. They ended the night with a visit to Code Hub Mostar (Facebook page here), an awesome new project of INTERA's whereby they have started a co-working space in downtown Mostar.

Dino Jolić of AirRec gives the students a demonstration on how to fly drones.

Nate gives drone flying a try.

After drone flying it was time to head to one of INTERA's newest projects, Code Hub Mostar, a beautiful co-working space located in downtown Mostar. The students got to join students in the Mostar Summer Youth Program for Code Hub Mostar Movie Night: Vol. 1.

The next day we went into town to visit the US Embassy and Telemach, a major internet, television, and telephone sponsor for our trip for the second year in a row. It was a great opportunity to meet people at an innovative company in the country and learn about their work.

Anya talks to the cameras after we learned a bit about Telemach to discuss the things she likes about the country and the experience she's had so far.

Nate also got his 15 seconds of fame in the spotlight.

After Telemach we stepped briefly back on US soil to visit the US Embassy and learn about their mission here in BiH and how an Embassy functions.

Unfortunately we didn't get a picture inside this time, but here's us outside the United States (in BiH)!

While we didn't get to stay in Sarajevo long (we'll be back on Sunday for sightseeing), we did get a chance to have some ćevapi!

Mmmm... it's been too long.

One of the many views on the train ride from Sarajevo back to Mostar.

The waiter explained that one meat plate wouldn't be enough to serve five of us...

This is one meat plate. Delicious, and enough for five people! We had a great dinner at Šadrvan.

After a beautiful train ride back home from Sarajevo to Mostar and some dinner in Stari Grad (Old City) we got some rest, then woke up refreshed as the internship experience kicked into high gear as students visited the Center for Technology and Culture, a local makerspace and educational organization that teaches students how to use a range of different technologies. For the second year in a row, students were grateful to have Ivan as a teacher as they learned how to do Arduino programing, which allows students the opportunity to program controllers that can complete tasks using switches, LEDs, and potentiometers.

Nate working hard trying to get his program to play a favorite song of his.

Griffin worked on programming a message board.

Agreed.

Many thanks to Ivan (far right) for hosting us once again and teaching the students some valuable skills!

Up next was a visit to the American Corner Mostar, where local students from 16 different schools in and around Mostar were showing off the collaborative projects they'd been working on at STEAM night. The American Corner of Mostar is one of 9 in BiH and one of over 400 around the world. These educational organizations are sponsored by US Embassies and work with local student groups to further the missions of the embassies in the countries in which they are located. It was great meeting some of the students who have benefited from these programs and seeing their amazing work!

Our tour guides Lemeana and Marija greeted us when we arrived and showed us around.

Our tour guides were exceptional and it was clear that they were proud of the work they'd done, as well they should be. They've been doing 3D printing and Adobe software and much more!

We got to watch a video compilation of the Photoshop projects they'd been working on, which allowed them to place themselves in locations all across the US.

It was a packed house, and with over 140 students in the program they had to have multiple STEAM nights to accommodate everyone. Glad we got to visit!

We enjoyed learning through some of the games/apps they showed us that they like to use.

Before turning in for the night we went to the Old City to climb up into the Karagoz Bey Mosque, one of the mosques in the city which allows guests to climb up into the minaret. It's an amazing view of the city!

There were so many of us this year we needed two pictures to fit all of us!

The other half of the group!

The view from the top!

Later on that night we tried our hand at painting the bridge... I would say the success levels were mixed.

That's it for now, although we've barely had time to sleep so far, let alone write, so more to come soon!