When I spent a year living in Austria, I made the most of it and travelled as much as possible. Heading back from Istanbul where I'd spent New Years Eve with my girlfriend, Jenny, my route cut straight through Bulgaria, Serbia and Croatia. I sent here back to Munich by plane because I didn't want her to travel through an area that was still somewhat unsafe (what audacity made me think I should go it alone?), and took the train, travelling as I had for most of the winter break; sleeping on the train, spending the day in a different city, sleeping on a different train, different city, and so on. To me, Belgrade at that time was just a stop on the train. I couldn't even get a visitor's visa for the country. To get a visa, I had to have a hotel booking, and as my hotel rooms were various train compartments, barely reclinable seats, and in one instance under a bench in a train station, getting a hotel room was a bit beyond my budget. The transit visa I had to get still has pride of place in my passport, but it meant I was only allowed to spend hours in Belgrade waiting for my next train. I spent those hours wandering about, going nowhere in particular, just taking the place in. There's a lot to be said about going somewhere and just looking at things, and I don't mean the museums and famous landmarks- I mean just getting a feel for the place, watching the people walk down the street and live their lives. I walked down several random streets, took one or two photos, got back on the train, and carried on to my next stop (which happened to be under the bench in a train station, I think it was Graz). This was January 1999. In March of that year, NATO bombed it in protest of what was going on in Kosovo. They bombed transport and utilities (and the Chinese Embassy) in an effort to end the war. I remember the atmosphere of the place- it was an overcast, cold day. It didn't rain, but it threatened to long after I was on my way. There seemed to be a sullen resentment about the place- not at anything I could discern, but there nonetheless. I took a photo of myself leaning against a lamppost, just a random spot I stopped at, that happened to be a street with several embassies and consulates down it- I remember all the flags, just not which ones. I took a photo of the train station. Wonder if they were hit in the bombings. . . But when I heard about Milosovic's death and his arrival back home to Belgrade, I could picture it. I could see the place, painted grey in the rain, again with a sullen resentment hanging over it. Resentment against the fallen dictator who led thousands to their deaths in a megalomaniacal attempt to build himself a larger, stronger nation. Resentment against the world and the forces that brought a once-porweful man and the saviour of their dreams to such a sad end. Because whether he was evil or miscast, dying alone in a foreign prison cell and arriving back home in a casket in the rain for a funeral your wife can't attend because of arrest warrants for her issued by the country you tried to build is a pitiful end.