Bright lights. Big City .Loud Noises. and a Castle!!

I am now one week into my stay here in Belgrade. This endless summer is fanastic, although that whole global warming thing is a bit of a bummer. I left all my summer clothes in Zagreb and now have worn my only two warm weather articles of clothing in this 30 degree Celsius heat. Its toasty. And magnificent. Yesterday morning i spent sitting in the park inside of the castle wall and doing my readings on the region of Sandzak (Sandjak) where we are heading in a few short hours. Sandzak is a region full of textile industry, and importantly, Muslim Bosniak serbs. So- the muslims who are closely related to the Muslims of Bosnia but are actually Serbian nationality. When everyone else was bailing out of Yugoslavia, Belgrade was sincerely interested in not giving reason for this region to decide it wanted to be bosnian/kosovar/montenegrin. As a result twenty years later the government has invested nothing in the region (the poorest in the country) but allows them this sort of autonomy in that a very blind eye is turned to financial activity. It is definitely the middle child of this country.
But the castle is still my favorite part of this city. It is huge, and a lot of it is still intact despite this city being destroyed 40 times and changing power some 65 times. If i take a bit of a detour on my way to school i walk past the Zoo- a great collection of animals in the smallest and most unnatural cages ever. its very depressing- and through the castle gates. and then the inner castle gates, and then through a park with an amazing overview of the river confluence, and then out the other sides of the gates. It is wonderful.
Classes are interesting too- we are learning a lot about the region, and recently about the ubernationalist youth groups. They are incredibly disturbing. The members are so young- the leader of Obpraz could not have been more than 19. Yet they have an agenda of Serbia for Serbs. which they violently support. There was supposed to be a Pride parade here, and it was canceled because the government said they could not protect those marching from the groups like this. The whole city is covered in grafiti and posters saying things like : There will be no parade. There will be blood. Mostly, they think that the Muslim population should be expelled, the Jews are planning on taking over the world- starting with the west, the Roma should be sent back to wherever it is they originally came from, and that no Serb is a homosexual. These groups, are very neonazi.This is obviously a sub culture here- and by no means representative of the whole. But it exists and makes itself heard.
People here are very open and willing to share there opinions. I really appreciate this because you can ask anything and you often recieve more than you thought you possibly could on the subject. Everything is opinion (presented as fact) of course, but its refreshing to be so honest.
My host family is again wonderful. Buba and Rade are my host parents. Buba is again a magnificent cook. She made these peppers the other day that were just incredible. Also living here is Buba's cousin (in some form) Yavonna who is also 20 and studying Micro-biology at the university here. She comes from an outer city, so lives here during the year. She is great fun. And has class all the time! Yesterday she had class from 8 am until 9 pm with one one-hour break. Yikes.
But- off to read/pack travel to Sandzak! more later to be sure...