good week...a few observations...a few adventures...

Well…I thought that I would take the time to write one more entry, for my own memory’s sake, to record the things that actually happened here in the last week or so since I last sat down to write.

So with the excessive snow fall and the fact that I was really in the mood to get some serious work done, last weekend was largely dedicated to writing. I really don’t mind at this point that I don’t know that many people socially. I have a couple friends here in Belgrade, plus a few in the broader region and that is fine with me for now. I am just so thoroughly enjoying time to write, and think about my work.

There is also this odd thing that others have commented on as well, and that is the fact that being here, working and productive, safe and solvent, but alone in a lot of ways…well…it gives one a chance to be really introspective, and I am really pleased about this. I have needed some mental and physical space from work and from home and all of that for a long time. I feel like the last 10 years has been a lot of rushing from one place to the next, from one country to the next, from one project to the next, and for a while I have been craving some time to get perspective…on my life, on what it means to be a “real live” adult, on what I want from life and from my career…and being here is really giving me the opportunity to do that, so I was happy to be on my own for much of last weekend.

Saturday of last weekend my landlord, Aci, came over to collect the rent, talk about the bills, etc. He lives in the north of the country, near the border with Hungary, so it was a bit of a drive, and with the snow, it took longer than usual for him, so it was nice to sit and chat with him for a little while. When I first met him and his wife, Caca, on my first night here, I liked them instantly. They are cool, and interesting and open, just really great people. I really appreciate their candor about their war-time experiences and how it changed their lives….or really interrupted and paused their lives…and I respect their global minded views.

Sadly, this time Caca couldn’t come because she was working, but Aci brought instead his teen-age son, just turned 18, and just got his driver’s license, (the age is 18 here)so Aci even let him drive!! Additionally they brought for me a desk for working!!! HOORAY! As well as a DVD player and a coffee machine! (though by now I have gotten used to boiling Turkish coffee or drinking these delightful instant coffees that I get at the grocery). When Aci’s son hooked up the DVD player, there was a DVD in there already so we used it to test. The video was the son’s Punk band, for which he plays guitar, called “South Punk” – cute, eh – and their posters are the characters from South Park but headless. Anyhow, I really enjoyed their company for the afternoon, and I look forward to seeing them next month. Also, when the weather gets nicer, I will go spend a weekend at their village in the north, so I am excited about that as well.

On Sunday of last weekend, after a day of working, I went and had dinner with my Fulbright colleague, “E,” and his wife, “M,” (who is one of my few friends here) and their 3 kids. I am sure I have said this before, but I am crazy about their kids! Smart, cute, nice kids! 3 boys! I think they are 2, 5 and 7. What an amazing thing for her to move here with no language knowledge and no abroad experience with all the kids and all of that!! I also think that if Serbia were your first abroad experience you would definitely appreciate Western European travel much differently.

What I mean is that a person who has first experienced some of the more difficult aspects of living in a less economically prosperous nation would not be one of those annoying Americans in Paris or in Italy who complain loudly that the 4-star hotel is hardly up to their 4-star standards, (standard complaints from Americans include small rooms, noise, stinky bathrooms, stinky people, no English TV (or no TV at all) and staff that doesn’t speak English [oh the nerve! People who don’t speak English in a country that doesn’t have English as an official language! Didn’t they know “Joe 6-pack and Sally Winebox were coming to see the Eiffel tower!] ).

Yes, it is true that most Euro-hotels, even 4-star ones, are much older than American hotels, with much smaller rooms and fewer amenities than American ones. That is just how it is. My opinion is any place that is not ridiculously expensive where you have no bedbugs+ private shower and bathroom + sheets and towels included = a pretty excellent Euro-hotel experience! You don’t go to Italy to sit in your hotel room anyway!

Anyhow, I imagine that coming to Serbia, which is great in a lot of ways, but is very different from home in a lot of ways, is a culture shock experience and this family with whom I am friends has done a truly excellent job. I have no doubt that anyone who came to Serbia as their first Euro-trip, and especially someone who managed 3 kids here for a year on their first abroad experience, will find even a 2 star Italian hotel totally suitable! (In fact maybe everyone should have to spend a week in a less economically prosperous country before they are allowed to go to France or Italy!) OK…well I digress…in short – great family, great meal, we have a nice time together and my time here has been made a million times easier with them here!

So last week then…Monday – home working.

Tuesday – I was to be at school for a meeting with my mentor, “S”. I was kind of frustrated because 1st - I never get work done there, which means I gave up a day of work, and 2nd because “S” has called me in for the same meeting like 4 times. We talk about the same things, but we never decide anything…what I will teach, when, etc. At this meeting, after the same conversation we have had on four other occasions, she told me she wants to meet me again on Friday morning. UGH! So to be sure that Friday’s meeting was more productive, I spent some time coming up with a few proposals and concrete ideas for her to actually choose from, and this seems to have worked out a lot better.

Anyhow, as we left the office on Tuesday the tram ride home took ages b/c the trams were diverted from the town center. Tuesday was the one year anniversary of the official declaration of Kosovo’s independence from Serbia and we had been getting messages from the embassy all week about the potential for mass protests. Last year the protests turned violent, the US embassy was set on fire and one protester died. As we got back home it was starting to get dark and you could smell burning in the air and hear whistles and yelling. I was supposed to meet a different friend that night for dinner, but I cancelled and decided I would prefer to stay inside and out of site. The protests were fine, easily contained and not too crazy, but better safe than sorry I think!

[So for anyone who may not be aware of the history and context of the region, I have created another post called “overly-simplified regional historical and contemporary political context…in a nutshell” so you can get an idea of what happened in this region and what is happening now]

Wednesday – Was my day to work at Women in Black this week, and I described the snowy drama of the whole thing in a previous post… Basically, after wandering in the heavy snow, confused by the fact that all my landmarks looked so different in the snow, I eventually made it to work, though late and wet.

So my other friend here is an American girl, “J,” who I work with there at WiB. She is a fulltime worker with them, and I basically help her with whatever she needs as her work load is way more than one person could do.

After work Wednesday we decided to go out for food and drinks. Having cancelled our plans several times before because I was absorbed in writing, I couldn’t cancel again even thought I was so wet and so cold and did not want to be out in the snow…but I do like this person a lot, so I sucked it up and we went out. After about 1 ½ hours wandering aimlessly in the snow with no clear plan of where to go, I was once again very wet and cold and really no longer interested in social interaction. I was about to throw up the white flag when we found an adorable coffee place, stylish and cozy, and we had a drink and chatted for a couple hours. It was nice. It’s nice to have a friend with similar intellectual interests as I have because we are able to kick ideas around together, which I think we both like very much.

Thursday was a work at home day again – though I watched episodes of the shows I downloaded a little more than I should have…bad bad girl! I don’t have cable TV here, so I really just either turn on Serbian news to practice listening or occasionally I find a late night English movie. Other than that, I download episodes occasionally that I am meant to watch as I am winding down in the evening, but when the new LOST comes out each week I cannot help myself!

So that brings me to Friday…an action packed day but overall the very best day of the week this past week! I was up early to go meet my mentor with which I had a fabulous meeting this time…a real breakthrough!! I will be teaching a Critical Media Studies grad seminar and team teaching another course for the Women’s Studies Center. HOORAY! I will also be helping her work on archiving tons of news media footage from the war on the website she has designed for the Media Center here at the university. I am so happy we had a good meeting and she seems to finally be warming up and respecting me!

We also decided that I should begin Serbian lessons, and I think I will start when I get back from Budapest. I have heard that there are free classes being offered in the city center at the Philology School, so I am looking into it.

After I left her I realized that once again I forgot to put my map in my bag so I flagged a taxi to go to my next destination. Now…I wouldn’t normally report something as mundane as a taxi ride, but I have to tell you about this strange “ABBA-esque” near obsession I am noticing here. 1st of all, every time I go to the grocery store there is ABBA and ABBA-like disco music blaring from the ceiling speakers. The first few times I thought it was a coincidence, but by now I have actually come to recognize the songs and even find myself singing along!!! (God the poor employees! I wonder if it plays all day, or it just happens to be on when I go in the evenings).

Anyhow, as I got into the taxi on Friday, there was this awesome ABBA-inspired song playing and the hook went something like

“Yes sir, I ken boooogie, if the mood it hits me right. Yes sir I can booooogie Boooogie Voogie”

And yes, the exaggerated “oooo” in boogie and then the “v” in what I assume is “woogie.”

This is cracking me up in the taxi with a driver who is fit, very masculine, about 45 yrs old, and jammin’ to this silly song…a song that will never leave my head I am afraid!

Anyhow, my destination in the “Boooogie Voogie” taxi was the city headquarters of the national airline JAT Airlines – downtown. I needed to buy my ticket to Macedonia where I will go for a conference next month…HOORAY! And I had to go in person because there was some problem on the website and the whole week it would not take my credit card. Sooo…I had to explain to the guy what happened, ask him to be sure I didn’t buy like 10 tickets, and then buy the ticket that I needed. I was nervous, but “Boooogie Voogie” had brightened my mood, so I was excited to give it all a try….And the best part was that I conducted the entire transaction in Serbian! Like a 20 minute conversation! I don’t even know if he spoke English!

So elated and high from that little successful conversation and my great meeting with my mentor earlier, I walked home through the city and took some nice photos (you can see below) of various government buildings and cool stuff in the downtown.

Then…what I thought would be the absolute icing on the cake…I went and bought a printer!!! FINALLY! I will use it at my house while I am here and then will donate it to the university when I leave.

But…the day got even better when, after coming home for a few hours work, I met up with my friend “M.” We had a couple drinks at their place and hung with the family, then we decided to try to find a cool spot for dinner…and HOORAY again!!! We were successful!!!

The place is located in the part of town they call “Silicon Valley” based on the predominance of plastic surgery gangster girlfriends that frequent the places. Now I am totally not comfortable at these types of places, but it was early enough that I felt like us “normals” would be OK.

The place was soooo cute! It looked like one of the cool Phillie spots, (or, for any readers from the former UGA/Athens crowd, like a larger version of 283 Bar) with small dinner tables in the front window.

OK, so the staff was not the nicest to us, and the waiter ignored us a little, but I don’t really care. I am not here for the service. The food, however, made-up for everything! It was the best restaurant meal I have had here!! We shared a salad and a pizza – a perfect amount of food – and the salad was a big green spinach salad with egg and bacon and grilled chicken…really great! The pizza was equally awesome! And even though by the time we were finishing, some of the Silicon “Barbie” type crew was starting to arrive, a group of which sat next to us and after a while I realized they were talking about us and making fun of us…I again couldn’t care less!

I was a little uncomfortable once I realized they were talking mean about is, but in all honesty, my general attitude about it is “Look, you are super pretty, and that’s great…good for you…work it for all its worth. I however am largely quite plain, and cannot really do anything about that. I do however take a little solace in the fact that I am here, visiting your country, taking in all the great things about it, but eventually I get to leave and you are stuck here with just your mirror and your gansta boyfriend…so laugh it up Barbie! No skin off my nose!”

So afterward we went back to “M” and “E”’s house, had a few more drinks and then I went home. It was a really good day all-and-all!

OK, so thanks for reading and here’s a few new photos I took Friday with descriptions and explanations.

I’ll write more when I get back from Budapest after next weekend…

Government Ministry Buildings:

OK, I don’t remember exactly what Government Business goes on here, but it is clearly important and the buildings were cool.

Trg Republika

This is the main square in the downtown where some of the major streets come together. You are right in front of the shopping street, next to the Studenski Trg, and right at the intersection of 3 major roads. In front of the statue is where you usually meet up with people to hang out. As in you say to your friends, like “Meet me at 8pm in Trg Repulika.”

Now I have no idea what the actual story with the guy in the statue pointing outward is supposed to be, but he is Knez Mihailova, for whom the shopping street is named, and Knez means like “Prince.” I have no idea what his role in Serbian history is, but I did think it was funny that that bird landed right on his head, and I don’t know what he is pointing at, but I was imaging that it is Kosovo and that he is saying “Yeah, that place is going to cause you guys some major shit storms over the years. You sure it’s worth it?”

Finally I took a close up of the inscription on the statue mostly to show what the local Cyrillic alphabet actually looks like.