On Thursday we prepared ourselves for our first train journey: the eight hour trip to Belgrade, Serbia. After trekking down to the station and finding right platform we were all aboard and ready to go. We were in a compartment of six, it was fairly spacious and comfortable. It was also very cold at times although a lady in our compartment told us we were lucky as we were in the only carridge with heating that worked (sort of).

The journey was fine, we saw some nice scenery and went through some snowy mountains. It got more and more snowy as we went along. Other highlights of the journey included:

• the very inquisitive border police
• the toilets, which were literally a hole. You could see the tracks running underneath. Nice
• a group of guys blantently smuggling a lots of dodgy tracksuits across the border by spreading themselves all along the train

We eventually arrived at about nine o'clock in Belgrade. There was a lot of snow. We tried to follow the inadequate directions to our hostel. Eventually we asked someone on the street and he went out of his way and took us there which was VERY nice of him. Otherwise it would have taken all night, despite the best efforts of our official geographer (Alan, obviously. My sense of direction is extremely poor, basically non-existent in fact.)

The hostel seemed nice, smaller than the other place but nice enough. We went into town and bought a cheap pizza from an outdoor taken away place. We couldn't really read the menu so we just picked two. Alan was horrified when they both came out covered in mushrooms. He just about survived this ordeal.

The next day we went to a large fort and park which was very close to the hostel. There was a lot of snow, it was all very pretty and nice. We checked out Belgrade Military Museum, mainly because it was there, and it was warm. After that we headed to Belgrade zoo, also located in the fort area, which was amazing. We were the only people there. We saw a lot a very cold looking animals. The zoo was massive, it took us hours to get round. It had the works: lions, elephants, bears, giraffes, monkeys and a lot of wolves for some reason. We were impressed. Alan trod in some yellow snow a few times, which was unfortunate.

We headed back to the hostel, having decided to cook in that night. We made possibly the worst pasta I have ever eaten. Seriously, it was bad. I don't know if it was the pasta, or the sauce or the combination of the two but it was like mushy cardboard. We binned it secretly, and tried not to look jealous of the Italians cooking what we assumed was some incredibley nice pasta.

We had some wine and chatted to the two Italian guys, both called Antonio. Also the French and two Serbian guys who ran the hostel gave us some Serbian wine. I got to speak a bit of French which was cool. Later on we headed into town with the Italians and went to a bar and then a club, which was absolutely heaving. Got back fairly late and crashed out.

The next day we chilled out a little, and went for a stroll around the city (after a lie-in, abviously). We decided to go out for a cheap meal in the evening, as we are doing well on the budget so far. We went into what we thought was an Italian looking place. It turned out it was Serbian, which was good. We spent some time pointlessly looking at the menu, as we could not make out anything on it. Luckily, we noticed the couple at the table next to us were eating what appeared to be a large pot of meat and potatoes, so we ordered that too. There was a LOT of meat, so Alan was happy. We nearly finished the lot, it was tasty.

We headed back to the hostel and packed up ready to get the train to Croatia the next day. I hope its warmer there...

We'll update this again in a few days after we've checked out Zagreb. xxx