Sarajevo Sunrise

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I arrived in Sarajevo at 5:45am after a taxing 40-hour journey from Montreal. As I sat exhausted on the Cathedral steps in the frigid 6:00am air, waiting for my Dutch friend Elias (whom I met last summer) to pick me up, I decided to try and finish the Yugoslavian history book I was reading so as not to arrive a complete ignorant fool. I reached a chapter about the infamous 1994 Sarajevo "market square bomb," when 68 civilians were slaughtered by a lone mortar shell. It was an event that shocked the world and did more than anything to prompt international intervention in the war. I looked up from the page and realized I was sitting within sight of that very square. Only then did I notice the bullet hole ridden walls and impact craters visible everywhere, scars still festering 10 years after the end of the war.

Shortly after this sobering moment, Elias arrived shivering, sporting a hooded sweater and bloodshot eyes, grumbling about having to wake up so early -- forgiveable, considering he was letting me stay in his appartment for a few days. I snapped this shot from his window moments after walking in -- my first picture in Bosnia.