Well, here I am, safely in St. Petersburg and somewhat adjusted to my new routine. You, however, would like to hear about the rest of my adventures in Serbia before I launch into a new set here in another new country. So, here goes. Tuesday night it rained the entire night, but by Wednesday morning it was clearing up a bit. Nikola's dad made us breakfast of fried eggs and ham - I miss having eggs for breakfast (although I've become quite fond of kaimek and kiselo mleko). I was excited because today was supposed to be the day that I met Masha, which had been my only real plan when coming to Belgrade. However, Nikola was worried about his semantics final the next day, so it didn't end up happening; instead, he studied all morning and I hung out with Aca.
The most exciting thing that happened to me all day was when I returned to my room after breakfast to find that it had been absolutely overrun with ants!! They were crawling on the desk and on the floor around my carry-on bag, but I couldn't figure out why because I didn't have any food anywhere, and they didn't seem to be congregating in any one specific place. Aca and Nikola were also at a loss as to the reason for the insect invasion, but since we couldn't find where they were coming from we decided to kill them as we saw them and hope that there wasn't anything around that would keep them coming back. Fortunately, it seemed to work (and I was more glad than ever that I slept in a loft bed :P). While Nikola studied, Aca and I tried carrying on a conversation in our respective languages (he spoke Serbian, I spoke Russian) to see how much we could understand each other. We kept it to basics - "What is your name", "How old are you", "What do you like to do in your free time"... the amazing thing was that I could, with a little bit of difficulty, understand what he was asking me!! He, of course, understood what I was saying much more easily than I understood him. It made me laugh because whenever he said something that I didn't quite catch or understand and I indicated that, he would repeat whatever he had said very slowly and with great exaggeration until I understood. It was slightly exasperating, but enjoyable. Then he began teaching me some Serbian words, but it didn't take long for me to remember that a 15-year-old boy is a 15-year-old boy no matter which culture you are in :P. He would say a word in Serbian and tell me what it meant, and of course I was eager to learn, so I would repeat it and he would break out into peals of laughter. It wasn't too long before I caught on that the words he was teaching me didn't mean what he said they meant. Silly boy. Well, he only got me once with that trick; after that I refused to repeat anything he told me to say (and after the third word that he told me for "hair", I was glad of it :]). But overall I enjoyed hanging out with Aca and getting to know him better - and I got along with him surprisingly well. Even Nikola was impressed with how well we interacted - and he admitted to me that that was something that he hadn't even thought of about my arrival. It turned out to be a very good thing, because Nikola studied straight from 12 until 5, and if I hadn't had Aca to talk to I might have been quite bored indeed. Lunch (at 5 pm) was leftovers from earlier in the week - I had some more chicken and pineapple casserole and Nikola ate the meat from Sunday dinner. After lunch he studied again for a while, but he had to go meet a friend at 6:30 before choir practice 7:30-10:00. I begged to be excused from rehearsal (I feared another mind-numbing 4 hours like Sunday) and, although practice was only 2 1/2 hours this time, Nikola let me stay at his apartment while he went. This allowed me to blog about my adventures up to this point, as well as working on "Imagine" both on piano and guitar (it sounds much better on piano, which unfortunately I no longer own :P). It was good to play the piano again, and a small part of me wondered why I had stopped taking lessons :(. Blogging and piano took care of the entire four hours that Nikola was gone, and when he returned at 10:30 we had supper (it made me smile to think that my schedule here in Belgrade was much closer to that in Maine than the 6-hour time difference would have made me think). Supper consisted of bread and liver paste (really, not as disgusting as it sounds), potato salad, cherry tomatoes (according to Nikola, it's like eating Kirby), and these really spicy cheese-filled pepper things that he couldn't prevail upon me to try (especially not after witnessing him run to the sink for a glass of water after eating one :P). Dessert was some kind of extremely rich cream cake of which I could only eat a few bites before giving the rest to Nikola. From what I could tell, it was made of mostly beaten egg whites, but it was thicker and sweeter than merengue. I went to bed soon after supper, which threw me off because it was already midnight even though it had been less than an hour since I had eaten.
I'm finally getting over my jet-lag, which is good; I think the day spent quietly inside really helped that (although since I'm in Belgrade for such a short time, I am loathe to "waste" a day not seeing any sights or meeting anyone). It was hard for me to believe that Thursday would be my last day; it seemed as though I had only just arrived.
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