Spring

It has sprung.

Although it was snowing in Sarajevo last week, and it wouldn't surprise me if it would do so again next week, the past few days it's been 16 or 19 degrees, sunny, blue-skied and winter is a distant memory. While usually only half of Sarajevo is out drinking coffee and wandering around during the afternoons, the past few days everyone has been out blocking the pavements, acting like they're on holidays in a new city, buying ice cream for the children, and showing off new sunglasses (you can get Ray Bans in the market for about seven euro here - I'll be stocking up before I ever come home).

It's been quite lovely.

A group of us spent yesterday hiking up the hills outside of town to visit out favourite mountain-top hut, where Dragan serves up ustipči doughnuts with sour cream, sausages, rakia and beer. I think everyone in Sarajevo seems to know of Dragan; from his ramshackle hut constructed from sheets of plywood and corrugated iron, he has earned a reputation as a legendary host. A sticker on the window inside states that "this is the best place in Sarajevo", and I don't really doubt it. Yesterday however it was too hot for the wood stove inside, so we sat outside in the sunshine playing with the dogs who belong to Dragan and other hikers, staying far longer than planned and really drinking more than we should considering that we had to walk back down the mountain again.

Tuesday was International Women's Day - you might think that's just an excuse for me to give you a human rights-themed lecture, except that its a serious occasion here (as in most post-Soviet and post-Socialist countries), where it functions as a sort of Valentines Day, Mothers Day and Little Christmas all rolled into one.

Sarajevo in newborn sunshine on Women's Day was lovely. Each and every street corner had an over-coated man selling red roses and carnations, and people buy flowers and chocolate not only for their female loved ones but also their colleagues. Businessmen in suits carried armfuls of bouquets around the city, and teenagers in scruffy runners trailed long-stemmed roses from their backpacks. Girls walked around with flowers giggling. The restaurants and cafes were full of women either being taken out to lunch by someone male, or having lunch out with groups of other women.

In fact it's such a special day that at 10am we got an email telling us that all the Organisation's female staff could leave after lunch. Not all the staff - just the female staff. How an international organisation gets away with that kind of discrimination, even on such a pleasant and generous basis, is entirely beyond me. I imagine it would trigger strikes and court cases in Ireland. But hey, I wasn't complaining about this gender-sensitive example of positive discrimination! The men didn't even seem particularly displeased either.... but that was because, as I suspected, they merely waited until 3pm and then went off home themselves. And because they had plenty of opportunity for remarking that this was most likely the decision of senior management so that the women would go home and cook for their menfolk on this most auspicious of days. How original. How we rolled our eyes.

So, it ended up that I too was one of those women having a boozy lunch. Three lady friends and I went for a meal which involved several glasses of wine, and spent most of the afternoon swapping inappropriate stories related to body hair, bras and much worse. Well, indulging in feminine clichés was entirely appropriate for the day that was in it, no?

Luckily for everyone concerned, Women's Day by coincidence was also Pancake/Shrove/Fat Tuesday, so with great assistance from a fellow Irish pancake-obsessed ex-pat, I hosted what I think I can presume was Sarajevo's only pancake party. Pancake extravaganza ensued: three different types of batter (crepe, fluffy, and a posh version involving mascarpone), a entire block of butter, three different types of jam, four varieties of fruit, two types of syrup, cheese, whipped cream, and a very large jar of nutella, amongst many other goodies.

Five days later, I'm literally still digesting it.