From the top...(08.06.10)

So here I am in sunny Sarajevo. The downstairs apartment is clean and very bare. It is surprisingly normal to be here - seeing as I am unable to speak to anyone properly.

There is a constant noise of construction from early morning - somewhere someone is always building something.

So this is my first day "living" here. Obviously I have been here several times before, beginning with a visit in 1997, shortly after the war ended.

What a different place it is now.

My abiding memory of Sarajevo, as it was, is leaning on a wall, in front of the iconic Holiday Inn, waiting for the rest of my U.K colleagues to come and meet me. It was a grey day and we had spent most of it walking through the scarred city that we had all read so much about.

As I was waiting I happened to look up to a building that I had named "the ghost" - an office building towering over the city with a house sized hole in the side of it. I glanced to the side of it, across the road from where I was perched, to the top of another building and noticed two soldiers on the roof with rifles pointed in my general direction. I looked around me and there was noone else to be seen. Unnerved, ever so slightly, I looked up to the top of the Holiday Inn - only to see two more soldiers with their guns trained straight down on me. At this point a slight panic set in... Why would they single me out? Is it because I had been loitering for more than a few seconds? Do I look overly suspicious?

Just then a huge tank came rumbling down the main road towards me again with soldiers aiming their weapons in my direction - I was about to put both hands in the air and plead for my life when I noticed a guy in the bushes near to where I was standing. He had come off his bike and seemed to be hidden there. Apparently I was not the one they were after. The soldiers in the tank jumped out and tackled the man. I have no idea what they thought, or knew, he was doing, but that memory will always stay with me.

The other '97 Sarajevo memory is of sitting in a cafe in the old town and ordering from a lady who seemed fascinated by me. The square itself, at that time. felt like it was from another world. The scarred paving showed evidence of snipers and explosions, as did the people missing eyes or limbs.

The lady serving us brought out the orange juice for everyone. Mine was thick and full of pulp whilst everyone elses was thin and watery. Then she spoke to me - I had to tell her I didn't understand and she seemed taken aback. Someone translated for me that she thought I was just like her daughter who she had lost just two years before during the conflict.

So here I am.... living in the place that has made such an impact on me for over 13 years.

Which came first... the chicken or the egg? Was I drawn to Mr B because he was from a country I had loved and a city that fascinated me OR was I drawn to the country and particularly this city because I was meant to meet my Bosnian? Who knows. Depends whether you believe in fate.... and as my first ever "professional" play (aged 15) I played a Bosnian Muslim in Sarajevo I can't help wondering.

So the adventure begins....

(The towers in 1997 and then in 2009)