Tuesday. Another rainy day, but that didn't stop us from going out and about this time. (Fortunately, I learned my lesson from the day before; I wore my raincoat, had my umbrella in my purse, and wore my slightly more waterproof hiking shoes in lieu of my soaked sneakers.) I got up at 8, even though I didn't go to sleep until around 1am; old habits are hard to break ;] Breakfast was burek and kiselo mleko again, but this time a different kind (of burek); more like a pizza made with flaky dough, two pieces placed on top of each other with the filling (cheese, today) in the middle. I ate with Aca because Nikola didn't get up until 10 (as usual, he was up even later than I was).
Our first adventure of the day was to go to Nikola's college, the Fakultet za Medija i Kommunikacija (a fakultet is somewhat analogous to a university department, although usually somewhat larger) in order to get his English grade. He had already seen it posted online, but the way the grading at his university works, he has a small red grade book in which the final grade for each of his classes must be recorded and signed by the professor of that class. I think he keeps the grade book through his entire time at college, and I'm not sure whether all of his grades are recorded anywhere else. Grading in Serbia works on a 10-point scale, with 10 being an A, 9 a B, and so on. 6 is still passing, but just barely. The grades are actually taken from a 100-point system, so in reality 91-100 is an A, etc. but when talking about or recording their grades students will say they got a 10 or a 9 instead of an 87 or 91.
I was rather impressed with his college; everything seemed quite new and modern, although not as well-endowed with technology as, say, Princeton (but where else is?) I didn't see very many classrooms because Nikola said there were quite a few classes or finals going on, but the rooms that I did see were quite open and bright. (Actually quite a contrast to the ancient halls and classrooms at Princeton :P). I also got a chance to see the radio studio where Nikola works in collaboration with several other (all older) students to produce the university's radio show; it was a surprisingly small space consisting of only the soundproof acoustic room and the soundboard and equipment outside. Apparently, this is also the place where English cartoons are dubbed into Serbian for Belgrade TV; when we walked in, one of the staff was working on an episode of "The Magic School Bus" which made me smile (it's one of my favorite childhood cartoons).
After leaving his college, Nikola took the opportunity to show me around the neighborhood; we saw the train and bus stations and walked along the bank of the Sava River (one of the two rivers which meet in Belgrade; the other is the Danube). Nikola stole my camera and became my photographer (to tell the truth, I was just waiting for this to happen. He loves taking pictures, although as my mom would say, he takes different pictures :]]). We walked over to the Belgrade Fortress, Kalemegdan, and climbed to the top of it, from where we could see the intersection of the two mighty waterways (and neither of us could remember for the life of us what the intersection of two rivers is called. Not a delta, not an estuary... help me out here, guys?) The fortress reminded me somewhat of Fort Knox in Bucksport with its arches and steps and ancient brick, although I'm sure it's much older. We stumbled across an outdoor art exhibit of sorts - a display of many different paintings of the fortress from across the decades, as well as other European art and some fantastic photographs of traditional Serbian life. Nikola was pleasantly surprised, as he didn't know about the art - I swear, it's always an adventure with that man. I would prefer to plan things and go places with a purpose, but as he would say, "Where's the fun in that?"
Unfortunately, it was raining pretty hard by 2pm and the wind had picked up, especially on the promontory of the fortress, so we both decided that any more sightseeing would have to wait for another day. We took a bus back to Nikola's apartment (thankfully, we didn't have to walk) and I got my first taste of crowded public transportation. It wasn't so bad, we could still move around, but comparable to a New York subway. I know it will be much more crowded in St. Petersburg.
When we got back to Nikola's apartment, we had lunch, which consisted of a chicken and pineapple casserole and rice. It was very good, especially after having been wet and cold. Immediately following our meal, we each took a (much-needed) nap - it was just that kind of day. When I woke up after an hour (a perfectly adequate nap in my mind) I went with Aca to see his school (grades 1-8) that he had just graduated from. It was a large multistory building with a courtyard in the middle which contained a playground for the younger children; and the interior looked much like elementary schools in America. After a quick tour through there, we again tried visiting Divna, whose apartment is right up the street from Nikola's, and this time she answered the door. Her apartment had the distinctive old-lady feel to it; the old family pictures on every shelf, the antique furnishings, the doilies. Aca showed me her loom - apparently she is a fairly skilled weaver and she made the fabric of her couch covers herself; she also quilts, crochets, and does all of the other things you would expect from a woman of 88. In fact, she reminded me strongly of Grammy in every point, from her apartment to her mannerisms. It made me miss her greatly and so glad that I had visited her before I left :]
Back at the apartment once again, Nikola finally woke up and we watched a documentary together entitled "The 7 Ages of Rock". He showed it to me because it featured Queen and Bruce Springsteen, both artists that I have begun listening to under Nikola's influence. It was very enlightening to see the way it showed the evolution of stadium rock from heartfelt music to extreme showmanship and back again.
Supper was at 8pm and consisted of "sandwiches" (buterbrodey in Russian) made from meat and butter or kaimek on pieces of bread. Both the meat and the kaimek comes from a local 'specialty' store that buys them from villagers on a particular mountain. It's about as 'organic and local' as it gets :]
After supper, Nikola needed to get to some hardcore studying, so he selected a few books for me from his library and 'banished' me to Aca's room for the night (I didn't mind. I understand the need to study and I was proud of him for making it a priority. It can't be easy juggling finals and a friend who needs almost constant supervision :]]). Although I climbed into bed at 8:45, I devoured four books (over 400 pages) before actually going to sleep at 2am. Guess I can't complain about not getting enough sleep this time :P
Wednesday, June 2, 2010
"Now you are real American girl"
Monday. Definitely the toughest day yet, and hopefully the toughest day period. It started early - I'm still waking up several times each morning because all that covers the windows is a very thin curtain that lets all the light in; and no matter how late I go to bed, I'm still almost invariably up with the sun, whether I like it or not. Finally got up around 8:45, which is definitely earlier than usual for this family (or at least Nikola ;]). Breakfast was some cranberry čai (tea) with med (honey) which was surprisingly good, considering that I don't like tea. I'd better get used to it, though - I have a strong suspicion I'll be drinking a lot of it in St. Petersburg. After the tea, Nikola and I walked to a nearby pekara (bakery) and bought some burek.
Cultural side note: Small, individually owned pekaras in Belgrade are like Starbucks' or McDonalds' in NYC (well, not quite that plentiful, but pretty close), and each one makes the bread right in the back so you know you're getting it fresh. Serbians (and, I suspect, Russians) eat a lot of bread, and a lot of dairy products (if you've noticed the frequent mention of kaimek, kiselo mleko, sir, and jogurt), especially for breakfast. On the way to the pekara, we passed a Russian Orthodox church that was having some kind of service and stepped inside. It was much smaller than St. Markos' cathedral next door but decorated in a similar fashion inside with stained glass windows, a big chandelier, and a bare and open concrete floor. There were probably 2 dozen people attending the service, which like the wedding on Saturday was replete with chanting in Old Church Russian and an ornately-robed priest. We were hungry, so we didn't stay long; Nikola said he'd never even seen the church open before.
The burek was a kind of flaky pastry with many layers, rolled up like a cinnamon roll with filling inside. It is of Turkish origin, as is so much of the food here (due to the many centuries of Ottoman rule in Serbia). I got two ham-filled and Nikola got one with cheese and one with mushrooms. There were also potatoes and other savory fillings. We sat at low, Turkish-style tables right in the pekara and ate our burek with jogurt, which is a very thick liquid but otherwise similar to kiselo mleko (kiselo mleko, or sour milk, is more sour than plain yogurt; jogurt actually tastes like plain yogurt but is of a different consistency). I have not thus far noticed whether Serbians ever put any flavoring into any of these dairy products as we are so wont to do here in America; if they did, I wonder whether they would call it something else.
Monday was the first day of the rain that had been predicted for the weekend and first part of the week; I merely felt fortunate that we had had three extra days of good weather beforehand. Having brought a rain jacket, I felt well-prepared to face the weather; however, I had not adequately considered just how wet my feet would get. I wore my cloth sneakers, which not surprisingly were soon soaked through. Since it is summer, the Stojanovics don't use heating in their house, and so drying my sneakers out would prove to be more of a procedure than I would have thought. The air itself is damp and cool, and as I write this on Wednesday evening, they are just now dry enough for me to move them back into my room, though still quite damp. Yet another example of how not to use proper footwear; again, I am only glad that I am getting these mistakes out of the way now.
Nikola's philosophy final was at noon, so I hung out with Aca for a while. Upon first seeing my makeup case when I arrived, Aca inquired as to what it was and when I told him, he asked me if he could do my makeup. I laughed and asked him if he was any good; he replied with enthusiastic assent and when I looked quizzically at Nikola, he offered, "Well, he does theatre..." One of the best makeup artists I know at home is Justin Patterson, so the idea that a boy can be good at makeup is not a strange one to me. :] So, when Nikola left for his test, I playfully asked Aca whether he wanted to give me a makeover, which task he promptly undertook with relish and mock seriousness. Although I had my doubts at sundry points during the procedure, the end result was surprisingly subtle and tasteful. Aca even straightened my hair for me, and when he finished he declared, "Now you are real American girl." It is very interesting to see just how America is portrayed to the rest of the world through television and other media, which is the only exposure Aca has really had to our country, despite Nikola's sojourn there.
After my makeover, Aca and I watched television until Nikola returned. It is astounding how much of America I found even here - there were American sitcoms (According to Jim, Hannah Montana, the Pokemon movie), English news channels (BBC and CBS), and cheesy, made-for-TV American movies such as you might find on HBO. Aca and I watched one about a troubled teen who takes a long trail ride with his ailing grandfather and in the process finds himself, you know, the classic story. Aca kept asking me throughout the movie "Is this like America? Is it really like that? Do they really do that?" I enjoyed his questions and tried to answer them as honestly as possible. Aca was also astounded to find that I could read latin Serbian (Serbian uses two alphabets, cyrillic and latin - cyrillic is like Russian [довиђенја] and latin looks like our alphabet, with a few additional letters [srečan rođendan]), which, after all, is not very difficult at all since Serbian is such a phonetic language and most of the letters in the alphabet directly correspond to their English counterparts. When I told Nikola of this, he rolled his eyes and shook his head, saying "Aca keeps forgetting that we have a genius in the house." Pssh. :]
Lunch, which we ate at 3 when Nikola returned, consisted of leftovers from yesterday's dinner. Since Nikola's parents both work, the family rarely eats together and food usually consists of either leftovers or what can be made from what is in the fridge. In that respect, the modern Serbian family is not so different from its American counterpart. After lunch, Nikola once again had to study; he has another final on Thursday (semantics). It reminded me very much of Princeton during finals week, with perhaps a bit less stress overall. He spared a few minutes beforehand to show me a few of his new favorite songs (Nikola's idea of a good time: listen to music together) and he played John Lennon's Imagine on piano for me. I had meant to acquire a copy of the sheet music from him at the end of last year, so I was very intrigued by the simplicity of the arrangement: my new goal is to have it memorized by the time I leave. I'm very relieved to finally have something to work towards; it makes me feel more productive, being a goal-oriented person. All of this sitting around and not knowing what we'll be doing from day to day is starting to wear on me, but I suppose it's a good growing experience :\.
Nikola had choir again, but this time only from 6:30-8:00 (thankfully - I don't know whether I could take another 4-hour rehearsal :P). On the way there, we had to run to catch the bus, but just before we reached the bus stop Nikola saw a man on the sidewalk selling LPs. It was music - of course he couldn't resist looking through them. But, just then the bus pulled up and I dragged him away; however, as soon as we were on the bus he began to lament. Apparently he had found the Pink Floyd (one of his favorite bands) album "Wish You Were Here" and the man was selling it for only 200 dinars (the exchange rate is right now approximately 85 Serbian dinars to the dollar, so that's about $2.50). Nikola even had a 200-dinar note on him, and by the time the bus reached the next stop he had decided that getting the album was more important than being on time to choir. So we got off the bus and rushed back to the man selling the records, Nikola worrying the entire time that someone would have bought the record in the 3 minutes we had been gone. Fortunately (for the both of us, I think :]) no one had and he raved all the way to rehearsal about his find. It was just the sort of thing he would do, running back to get a good deal on music. :]
After choir practice, Nikola, Yelena, Danilo and I met up with another one of Nikola's friends, Dacha (who is also the drummer in Nikola's band) and we all went to a stand-up comedy event, one of the first to be held in Belgrade. It was in the style of Eddie Murphy and Robin Williams, but it was (unsurprisingly) in Serbian. Between tone, body language, and the few words I caught I understood about 1% of his routine, and a couple of times I even got the punch line of his jokes, much to my delight. The routine lasted about an hour, and when we left the venue it was really raining hard. Fortunately, some of Nikola's friends gave Nikola, Yelena, and I a ride back to their apartments, so we were spared a dreary walk home.
Monday night was a rough one for me. Not being able to understand or engage with anyone but Nikola was really difficult for me, and for him too, I believe. One incident that brought the matter to a head was when several of the other members of Nikola's choir asked me a question in Serbian. After a second, I understood that they had asked whether he was my brother, but it took me long enough that they realized that I wasn't a native Serbian speaker. I was taken aback at being addressed - usually people ignored me as long as I stuck close enough to Nikola and didn't say anything - and that, combined with my fear of communicating in another language, made me unable to answer right away. Nikola saw this, but he was also surprised by the question and unsure of how to react; whether to wait for me to say something or to answer for me. I tried to say something in Serbian but they couldn't understand what I was trying to say, and eventually Nikola had to come to my rescue, explaining that I was American and so forth. I'm not sure how I wanted that interaction to play out, but I wasn't happy about what happened. Nikola could see that there was something bothering me and, like the good friend that he is, he did all he could to make me feel better. He was frank; he told me that I didn't know enough Serbian to be able to communicate, so I should just stick to English and hope that the people that I met knew enough to understand me, which was usually the case. I saw his point, but my stubborn pride refused to accept it: I didn't want to come off as the arrogant American who assumed that everyone spoke English. I wanted to learn the language; I had tried; I knew a few phrases but my fear of speaking kept me from effectively using even those when I got the chance. Every time I did manage to say something; dobro jutro (good morning), drago mi je (nice to meet you), laku noc (good night), my interlocutor would show surprise, which grated on me. Why did everyone think that I would come to another country without even trying to learn the language? Nikola had an excellent answer to this: "Erin, I know you. I know you're smart, and that you're trying hard. When you say something in Serbian, I'm not surprised. Those people you meet, they don't know you at all. You don't have "Princeton" or "genius" or even "Erin" written on your forehead. All they see is "foreigner." You have to accept that." He was right. Once people found out that I was American and couldn't communicate in Serbian, how could they know what I knew? They didn't know me. As hard as it was for me to accept, this wasn't something that I could get through by sheer willpower. I actually had to admit that this was beyond me, that I would have to rely on other people to help me. I can't call this culture shock, but maybe travel shock. I include my thoughts and feelings here in detail because I think it is something that has the potential to happen to anyone who travels outside their sphere of experience, especially if they cross a language barrier, and especially if they are smart and willful and accustomed to solving their own problems. I now see that it is important to realize that no matter how they wish to be perceived, the fact is that the people you meet are going to view you a certain way because you are foreign. They don't know anything about you, except that you are from another place. It's important in those situations to realize your limits, to accept help, to do away with pride and inhibitions. Put yourself out there, outside of your comfort zone, but don't be surprised if you fail. The important thing is to try.
Fortunately for me, I had a wonderful friend and host to help me get over that barrier and to reassure me. I was also beginning to feel that I was imposing on Nikola, since he had to speak English to me all of the time and act as my interpreter and guide. He assured me that that wasn't the case, and that we knew each other well enough that he would tell me if it ever became that way (I believe him, too). He said that he loved speaking English with me, because it was something that he didn't get to do very often. He even went back through the routine of the comedian, letting me tell him what I had understood and explaining the rest to me so that I could laugh with him at all of the jokes. He brought back my smile which had faded under the weight of my worries. I'm so glad that I have a friend like him to help me get through all of these new and difficult experiences. It felt so good to talk with someone that I knew, and whom I knew had felt a little of what I was feeling, not so long ago. Thank God for friends.
So, if any of you reading this blog feel so inclined, you can pray for me about that - that I won't be a burden to Nikola for the last couple of days that I'm here, and that these experiences here in Serbia will prepare me for Russia. God is definitely working out for good the fact that I'm here for a week before going off to a place where I may not have such a hard time communicating, but where I won't have this friend and helper with a foot in each world. Please pray for boldness for me, that I will get over my fear of speaking in a foreign language, which really boils down to a fear of making mistakes. You can also start praying for travel safety again, as I'll have two stages on my journey from here to Russia. Pray that all connections are made smoothly and on time, that the transitions between countries are made without any difficulty, and that I easily find my ride on the other end. If you're really ambitious, you can pray for all of the other Princeton-in-Petersburg students who will be traveling from the States this weekend, that they will all have safe travels with no mishaps or lost luggage. Pray also for my witness here to the Stojanovics and to everyone I will encounter in Russia.
Also, feel free to leave me comments here on the blog - any and all encouragement is more than welcome. And thank you for reading, for accompanying me on my grand adventure.
Cultural side note: Small, individually owned pekaras in Belgrade are like Starbucks' or McDonalds' in NYC (well, not quite that plentiful, but pretty close), and each one makes the bread right in the back so you know you're getting it fresh. Serbians (and, I suspect, Russians) eat a lot of bread, and a lot of dairy products (if you've noticed the frequent mention of kaimek, kiselo mleko, sir, and jogurt), especially for breakfast. On the way to the pekara, we passed a Russian Orthodox church that was having some kind of service and stepped inside. It was much smaller than St. Markos' cathedral next door but decorated in a similar fashion inside with stained glass windows, a big chandelier, and a bare and open concrete floor. There were probably 2 dozen people attending the service, which like the wedding on Saturday was replete with chanting in Old Church Russian and an ornately-robed priest. We were hungry, so we didn't stay long; Nikola said he'd never even seen the church open before.
The burek was a kind of flaky pastry with many layers, rolled up like a cinnamon roll with filling inside. It is of Turkish origin, as is so much of the food here (due to the many centuries of Ottoman rule in Serbia). I got two ham-filled and Nikola got one with cheese and one with mushrooms. There were also potatoes and other savory fillings. We sat at low, Turkish-style tables right in the pekara and ate our burek with jogurt, which is a very thick liquid but otherwise similar to kiselo mleko (kiselo mleko, or sour milk, is more sour than plain yogurt; jogurt actually tastes like plain yogurt but is of a different consistency). I have not thus far noticed whether Serbians ever put any flavoring into any of these dairy products as we are so wont to do here in America; if they did, I wonder whether they would call it something else.
Monday was the first day of the rain that had been predicted for the weekend and first part of the week; I merely felt fortunate that we had had three extra days of good weather beforehand. Having brought a rain jacket, I felt well-prepared to face the weather; however, I had not adequately considered just how wet my feet would get. I wore my cloth sneakers, which not surprisingly were soon soaked through. Since it is summer, the Stojanovics don't use heating in their house, and so drying my sneakers out would prove to be more of a procedure than I would have thought. The air itself is damp and cool, and as I write this on Wednesday evening, they are just now dry enough for me to move them back into my room, though still quite damp. Yet another example of how not to use proper footwear; again, I am only glad that I am getting these mistakes out of the way now.
Nikola's philosophy final was at noon, so I hung out with Aca for a while. Upon first seeing my makeup case when I arrived, Aca inquired as to what it was and when I told him, he asked me if he could do my makeup. I laughed and asked him if he was any good; he replied with enthusiastic assent and when I looked quizzically at Nikola, he offered, "Well, he does theatre..." One of the best makeup artists I know at home is Justin Patterson, so the idea that a boy can be good at makeup is not a strange one to me. :] So, when Nikola left for his test, I playfully asked Aca whether he wanted to give me a makeover, which task he promptly undertook with relish and mock seriousness. Although I had my doubts at sundry points during the procedure, the end result was surprisingly subtle and tasteful. Aca even straightened my hair for me, and when he finished he declared, "Now you are real American girl." It is very interesting to see just how America is portrayed to the rest of the world through television and other media, which is the only exposure Aca has really had to our country, despite Nikola's sojourn there.
After my makeover, Aca and I watched television until Nikola returned. It is astounding how much of America I found even here - there were American sitcoms (According to Jim, Hannah Montana, the Pokemon movie), English news channels (BBC and CBS), and cheesy, made-for-TV American movies such as you might find on HBO. Aca and I watched one about a troubled teen who takes a long trail ride with his ailing grandfather and in the process finds himself, you know, the classic story. Aca kept asking me throughout the movie "Is this like America? Is it really like that? Do they really do that?" I enjoyed his questions and tried to answer them as honestly as possible. Aca was also astounded to find that I could read latin Serbian (Serbian uses two alphabets, cyrillic and latin - cyrillic is like Russian [довиђенја] and latin looks like our alphabet, with a few additional letters [srečan rođendan]), which, after all, is not very difficult at all since Serbian is such a phonetic language and most of the letters in the alphabet directly correspond to their English counterparts. When I told Nikola of this, he rolled his eyes and shook his head, saying "Aca keeps forgetting that we have a genius in the house." Pssh. :]
Lunch, which we ate at 3 when Nikola returned, consisted of leftovers from yesterday's dinner. Since Nikola's parents both work, the family rarely eats together and food usually consists of either leftovers or what can be made from what is in the fridge. In that respect, the modern Serbian family is not so different from its American counterpart. After lunch, Nikola once again had to study; he has another final on Thursday (semantics). It reminded me very much of Princeton during finals week, with perhaps a bit less stress overall. He spared a few minutes beforehand to show me a few of his new favorite songs (Nikola's idea of a good time: listen to music together) and he played John Lennon's Imagine on piano for me. I had meant to acquire a copy of the sheet music from him at the end of last year, so I was very intrigued by the simplicity of the arrangement: my new goal is to have it memorized by the time I leave. I'm very relieved to finally have something to work towards; it makes me feel more productive, being a goal-oriented person. All of this sitting around and not knowing what we'll be doing from day to day is starting to wear on me, but I suppose it's a good growing experience :\.
Nikola had choir again, but this time only from 6:30-8:00 (thankfully - I don't know whether I could take another 4-hour rehearsal :P). On the way there, we had to run to catch the bus, but just before we reached the bus stop Nikola saw a man on the sidewalk selling LPs. It was music - of course he couldn't resist looking through them. But, just then the bus pulled up and I dragged him away; however, as soon as we were on the bus he began to lament. Apparently he had found the Pink Floyd (one of his favorite bands) album "Wish You Were Here" and the man was selling it for only 200 dinars (the exchange rate is right now approximately 85 Serbian dinars to the dollar, so that's about $2.50). Nikola even had a 200-dinar note on him, and by the time the bus reached the next stop he had decided that getting the album was more important than being on time to choir. So we got off the bus and rushed back to the man selling the records, Nikola worrying the entire time that someone would have bought the record in the 3 minutes we had been gone. Fortunately (for the both of us, I think :]) no one had and he raved all the way to rehearsal about his find. It was just the sort of thing he would do, running back to get a good deal on music. :]
After choir practice, Nikola, Yelena, Danilo and I met up with another one of Nikola's friends, Dacha (who is also the drummer in Nikola's band) and we all went to a stand-up comedy event, one of the first to be held in Belgrade. It was in the style of Eddie Murphy and Robin Williams, but it was (unsurprisingly) in Serbian. Between tone, body language, and the few words I caught I understood about 1% of his routine, and a couple of times I even got the punch line of his jokes, much to my delight. The routine lasted about an hour, and when we left the venue it was really raining hard. Fortunately, some of Nikola's friends gave Nikola, Yelena, and I a ride back to their apartments, so we were spared a dreary walk home.
Monday night was a rough one for me. Not being able to understand or engage with anyone but Nikola was really difficult for me, and for him too, I believe. One incident that brought the matter to a head was when several of the other members of Nikola's choir asked me a question in Serbian. After a second, I understood that they had asked whether he was my brother, but it took me long enough that they realized that I wasn't a native Serbian speaker. I was taken aback at being addressed - usually people ignored me as long as I stuck close enough to Nikola and didn't say anything - and that, combined with my fear of communicating in another language, made me unable to answer right away. Nikola saw this, but he was also surprised by the question and unsure of how to react; whether to wait for me to say something or to answer for me. I tried to say something in Serbian but they couldn't understand what I was trying to say, and eventually Nikola had to come to my rescue, explaining that I was American and so forth. I'm not sure how I wanted that interaction to play out, but I wasn't happy about what happened. Nikola could see that there was something bothering me and, like the good friend that he is, he did all he could to make me feel better. He was frank; he told me that I didn't know enough Serbian to be able to communicate, so I should just stick to English and hope that the people that I met knew enough to understand me, which was usually the case. I saw his point, but my stubborn pride refused to accept it: I didn't want to come off as the arrogant American who assumed that everyone spoke English. I wanted to learn the language; I had tried; I knew a few phrases but my fear of speaking kept me from effectively using even those when I got the chance. Every time I did manage to say something; dobro jutro (good morning), drago mi je (nice to meet you), laku noc (good night), my interlocutor would show surprise, which grated on me. Why did everyone think that I would come to another country without even trying to learn the language? Nikola had an excellent answer to this: "Erin, I know you. I know you're smart, and that you're trying hard. When you say something in Serbian, I'm not surprised. Those people you meet, they don't know you at all. You don't have "Princeton" or "genius" or even "Erin" written on your forehead. All they see is "foreigner." You have to accept that." He was right. Once people found out that I was American and couldn't communicate in Serbian, how could they know what I knew? They didn't know me. As hard as it was for me to accept, this wasn't something that I could get through by sheer willpower. I actually had to admit that this was beyond me, that I would have to rely on other people to help me. I can't call this culture shock, but maybe travel shock. I include my thoughts and feelings here in detail because I think it is something that has the potential to happen to anyone who travels outside their sphere of experience, especially if they cross a language barrier, and especially if they are smart and willful and accustomed to solving their own problems. I now see that it is important to realize that no matter how they wish to be perceived, the fact is that the people you meet are going to view you a certain way because you are foreign. They don't know anything about you, except that you are from another place. It's important in those situations to realize your limits, to accept help, to do away with pride and inhibitions. Put yourself out there, outside of your comfort zone, but don't be surprised if you fail. The important thing is to try.
Fortunately for me, I had a wonderful friend and host to help me get over that barrier and to reassure me. I was also beginning to feel that I was imposing on Nikola, since he had to speak English to me all of the time and act as my interpreter and guide. He assured me that that wasn't the case, and that we knew each other well enough that he would tell me if it ever became that way (I believe him, too). He said that he loved speaking English with me, because it was something that he didn't get to do very often. He even went back through the routine of the comedian, letting me tell him what I had understood and explaining the rest to me so that I could laugh with him at all of the jokes. He brought back my smile which had faded under the weight of my worries. I'm so glad that I have a friend like him to help me get through all of these new and difficult experiences. It felt so good to talk with someone that I knew, and whom I knew had felt a little of what I was feeling, not so long ago. Thank God for friends.
So, if any of you reading this blog feel so inclined, you can pray for me about that - that I won't be a burden to Nikola for the last couple of days that I'm here, and that these experiences here in Serbia will prepare me for Russia. God is definitely working out for good the fact that I'm here for a week before going off to a place where I may not have such a hard time communicating, but where I won't have this friend and helper with a foot in each world. Please pray for boldness for me, that I will get over my fear of speaking in a foreign language, which really boils down to a fear of making mistakes. You can also start praying for travel safety again, as I'll have two stages on my journey from here to Russia. Pray that all connections are made smoothly and on time, that the transitions between countries are made without any difficulty, and that I easily find my ride on the other end. If you're really ambitious, you can pray for all of the other Princeton-in-Petersburg students who will be traveling from the States this weekend, that they will all have safe travels with no mishaps or lost luggage. Pray also for my witness here to the Stojanovics and to everyone I will encounter in Russia.
Also, feel free to leave me comments here on the blog - any and all encouragement is more than welcome. And thank you for reading, for accompanying me on my grand adventure.
Srecan Rodjendan!!!
Sunday morning. So, normally, I would have woken up rather early and gone to church, either Westerly or Calvary Chapel. Since Nikola and his family are Serbian Orthodox (and not practicing), Sunday was really no different from Saturday. I woke up at 9:30 and read my Bible before getting up for breakfast. Nikola got up around the same time although I later learned that he had not returned home until 5am... apparently this is normal for Serbian teens, but I rather think it is more true of teenagers in general in places where there is a vibrant nightlife (i.e. not Maine).
Breakfast consisted of prženica (which is very similar to french toast although I'm not entirely sure it is made with eggs), mloko (milk, but much thicker than even whole milk - and Nikola told me this was the skimmer version; I now understand why he was partial to half-and-half while he was in America), and a thick, soft cheese very similar to cottage cheese, along with kaimak and xleb (bread) again. Once again, I found that most of the food was quite good, although not exactly what I'm used to having for breakfast.
After breakfast, Aca and I went to the corner store down the street to buy a newspaper. Aca, finding that I knew Serbian numbers, offered to let me buy the newspaper but I declined - I'm still skeptical of my communication skills in a real-life situation. We also attempted to visit their grandmother, Divna (divna means "wonderful" as well as being their grandmother's name, an amusing coincidence). However, though Aca insisted that she was home, we could not rouse her either by ringing the doorbell or calling her phone, which reminded me strongly of my own mostly-deaf grandmother, and so we returned home. At this point Nikola informed me that, regrettably, he actually had to study for his final tomorrow, so I was left to fend for myself for a while. After the flurry of activity the day before, this was a more than welcome respite. I blogged for a while (the two posts previous to this one) and Aca, who asked me several times what I was doing, was impressed at the amount that I wrote. So am I, now that I go back and look at them. :] Mrs. Stojanovic very generously fixed me some ice cream with fresh strawberries, and I found the ice cream to be indistinguishable from that which we have in the States.
In many ways, Serbia is a test run for when I am in Russia; for instance, I am learning which footwear I can and cannot successfully walk around town in. Unfortunately, a particularly poor choice of shoes on the day of my arrival has left me with a large and painful blister on one of my heels which now makes it a bit more difficult for me to walk a great distance. However, I suppose that it is better for me to get these foolish mistakes out of the way now so that when I am in St. Petersburg in a potentially much less sympathetic environment and no choice as to how much walking I will be doing every day, I will avoid repeating them.
For dinner (around 4pm) we were given a treat as Divna came over and the Stojanovics ate as a family. Divna speaks no English, so my part in the dinner conversation was extremely limited, but I didn't mind. I figure that the more time I spend listening to and absorbing the rhythm of a Slavic language, even if it isn't Russian, will help me with my listening comprehension and cadence when speaking. In fact, I sometimes surprise myself with how much I can understand; when Divna began inquiring about me, I could tell that they told her that on Friday, I was leaving for St. Petersburg, that I would be studying Russian there, and that I would be there for 8 weeks. Admittedly, most of this is due to the similarities between Serbian and Russian, but every little bit of practice helps!! Dinner itself consisted of a first course of čorba (vegetable soup, very plain), followed by a sort of cheese pie, cooked carrots, paprika (peppers), rice, and meat. I had tried the peppers at the wedding and knew that I didn't like them, and I've never been particularly partial to cooked carrots, but I tried everything else and found it to be quite good. After dinner, we had a treat - Divna had made a dessert similar to strawberry cobbler, topped with a sort of whipped cream, which was very delicious indeed.
After dinner, Nikola had choir practice for a whopping four hours. He sings in a choir that is affiliated with the (small) Jewish community in Belgrade, although (obviously) one does not have to be of Jewish lineage in order to join. It is also open to singers of all ages, and the members range from students such as Nikola to older men and women, including one gentleman who, Nikola informed me, had been a part of the choir for forty years. They have a concert coming up next Monday and so they have practice nearly every day next week, although this rehearsal was the longest. I sat in a corner and read, but four hours really is quite a long time to be doing anything. I was impressed by the span of the choir's repetoire - I heard them sing in Serbian, English, Hebrew, French, and Spanish, everything from ballads to scat. They are fairly impressive, though not the best singing group I have ever heard, and evidently their director thinks they could stand a great deal of improvement, for he often raises his voice when correcting them (he reminded me much of Mr. Kimball, my theatre director in high school). Nikola had two friends in the choir who spoke fairly good English - Danilo, who was an exchange student in America at the same time as Nikola (he went to South Dakota, to a rural community, and I felt bad for him, knowing how difficult the transition was for Nikola, coming from a large city to a small town), and Yelena, who lives in the building just across the courtyard from Nikola. Danilo walked back to Nikola's apartment with us and told me a little about his experience in America; unfortunately, it wasn't as positive as Nikola's, since he was originally placed with a rotten host family. Hopefully, I will like my family in St. Petersburg, as I can see how much of an effect it has on one's experience. Fortunately, the Stojanovics (and especially Nikola) have been absolutely wonderful hosts and I am thoroughly enjoying myself in this new culture.
I was particularly eager to rush back to Nikola's apartment because Sunday was my sister Emily's sixteenth birthday, which I was very grieved to be missing. I have quite possibly missed my sister more than any other member of my family during my freshman year of college, since it was only two or three years ago that we really began to get along well, and I felt that I owed it to her to be there on what was a very special day for her. Knowing that I would be here on her day, I took her shopping before I left and told her that she had $50 to spend, but I still was very anxious to talk to her on her birthday. Fortunately, we got back to Nikola's apartment at 10:40pm, which is 4:40 in Brewer, and caught Emily on Skype. It was great to see her and the rest of my family again, and to prove to them that I had, indeed, arrived safely halfway to the other side of the world. Nikola also enjoyed seeing my family, and, like last year, he sang the birthday song to her in Serbian, to her great delight. I hope that she enjoyed a truly wonderful birthday.
After that, I reminded Nikola that I was still trying to recover from the jet lag, so he allowed that I should go to bed, it being already 11:30. I believe it is worth noting that this is the earliest I have gone to bed since arriving in Belgrade, and sincerely hope that this will not become a pattern for the remainder of the summer, but fear otherwise. For all of my world travels, I still remain me, and I am a firm believer in that old saying of Benjamin Franklin's: "Early to bed, early to rise, makes a man healthy, wealthy, and wise."
Breakfast consisted of prženica (which is very similar to french toast although I'm not entirely sure it is made with eggs), mloko (milk, but much thicker than even whole milk - and Nikola told me this was the skimmer version; I now understand why he was partial to half-and-half while he was in America), and a thick, soft cheese very similar to cottage cheese, along with kaimak and xleb (bread) again. Once again, I found that most of the food was quite good, although not exactly what I'm used to having for breakfast.
After breakfast, Aca and I went to the corner store down the street to buy a newspaper. Aca, finding that I knew Serbian numbers, offered to let me buy the newspaper but I declined - I'm still skeptical of my communication skills in a real-life situation. We also attempted to visit their grandmother, Divna (divna means "wonderful" as well as being their grandmother's name, an amusing coincidence). However, though Aca insisted that she was home, we could not rouse her either by ringing the doorbell or calling her phone, which reminded me strongly of my own mostly-deaf grandmother, and so we returned home. At this point Nikola informed me that, regrettably, he actually had to study for his final tomorrow, so I was left to fend for myself for a while. After the flurry of activity the day before, this was a more than welcome respite. I blogged for a while (the two posts previous to this one) and Aca, who asked me several times what I was doing, was impressed at the amount that I wrote. So am I, now that I go back and look at them. :] Mrs. Stojanovic very generously fixed me some ice cream with fresh strawberries, and I found the ice cream to be indistinguishable from that which we have in the States.
In many ways, Serbia is a test run for when I am in Russia; for instance, I am learning which footwear I can and cannot successfully walk around town in. Unfortunately, a particularly poor choice of shoes on the day of my arrival has left me with a large and painful blister on one of my heels which now makes it a bit more difficult for me to walk a great distance. However, I suppose that it is better for me to get these foolish mistakes out of the way now so that when I am in St. Petersburg in a potentially much less sympathetic environment and no choice as to how much walking I will be doing every day, I will avoid repeating them.
For dinner (around 4pm) we were given a treat as Divna came over and the Stojanovics ate as a family. Divna speaks no English, so my part in the dinner conversation was extremely limited, but I didn't mind. I figure that the more time I spend listening to and absorbing the rhythm of a Slavic language, even if it isn't Russian, will help me with my listening comprehension and cadence when speaking. In fact, I sometimes surprise myself with how much I can understand; when Divna began inquiring about me, I could tell that they told her that on Friday, I was leaving for St. Petersburg, that I would be studying Russian there, and that I would be there for 8 weeks. Admittedly, most of this is due to the similarities between Serbian and Russian, but every little bit of practice helps!! Dinner itself consisted of a first course of čorba (vegetable soup, very plain), followed by a sort of cheese pie, cooked carrots, paprika (peppers), rice, and meat. I had tried the peppers at the wedding and knew that I didn't like them, and I've never been particularly partial to cooked carrots, but I tried everything else and found it to be quite good. After dinner, we had a treat - Divna had made a dessert similar to strawberry cobbler, topped with a sort of whipped cream, which was very delicious indeed.
After dinner, Nikola had choir practice for a whopping four hours. He sings in a choir that is affiliated with the (small) Jewish community in Belgrade, although (obviously) one does not have to be of Jewish lineage in order to join. It is also open to singers of all ages, and the members range from students such as Nikola to older men and women, including one gentleman who, Nikola informed me, had been a part of the choir for forty years. They have a concert coming up next Monday and so they have practice nearly every day next week, although this rehearsal was the longest. I sat in a corner and read, but four hours really is quite a long time to be doing anything. I was impressed by the span of the choir's repetoire - I heard them sing in Serbian, English, Hebrew, French, and Spanish, everything from ballads to scat. They are fairly impressive, though not the best singing group I have ever heard, and evidently their director thinks they could stand a great deal of improvement, for he often raises his voice when correcting them (he reminded me much of Mr. Kimball, my theatre director in high school). Nikola had two friends in the choir who spoke fairly good English - Danilo, who was an exchange student in America at the same time as Nikola (he went to South Dakota, to a rural community, and I felt bad for him, knowing how difficult the transition was for Nikola, coming from a large city to a small town), and Yelena, who lives in the building just across the courtyard from Nikola. Danilo walked back to Nikola's apartment with us and told me a little about his experience in America; unfortunately, it wasn't as positive as Nikola's, since he was originally placed with a rotten host family. Hopefully, I will like my family in St. Petersburg, as I can see how much of an effect it has on one's experience. Fortunately, the Stojanovics (and especially Nikola) have been absolutely wonderful hosts and I am thoroughly enjoying myself in this new culture.
I was particularly eager to rush back to Nikola's apartment because Sunday was my sister Emily's sixteenth birthday, which I was very grieved to be missing. I have quite possibly missed my sister more than any other member of my family during my freshman year of college, since it was only two or three years ago that we really began to get along well, and I felt that I owed it to her to be there on what was a very special day for her. Knowing that I would be here on her day, I took her shopping before I left and told her that she had $50 to spend, but I still was very anxious to talk to her on her birthday. Fortunately, we got back to Nikola's apartment at 10:40pm, which is 4:40 in Brewer, and caught Emily on Skype. It was great to see her and the rest of my family again, and to prove to them that I had, indeed, arrived safely halfway to the other side of the world. Nikola also enjoyed seeing my family, and, like last year, he sang the birthday song to her in Serbian, to her great delight. I hope that she enjoyed a truly wonderful birthday.
After that, I reminded Nikola that I was still trying to recover from the jet lag, so he allowed that I should go to bed, it being already 11:30. I believe it is worth noting that this is the earliest I have gone to bed since arriving in Belgrade, and sincerely hope that this will not become a pattern for the remainder of the summer, but fear otherwise. For all of my world travels, I still remain me, and I am a firm believer in that old saying of Benjamin Franklin's: "Early to bed, early to rise, makes a man healthy, wealthy, and wise."
Sunday, May 30, 2010
"We're going the wrong direction, but that doesn't matter"
After waking up several times during the night (at 3, 6, 7, 8, and 9am Belgrade time), I decided that 9 was a reasonable time to get up, even for this poor jet-lagged American. Accordingly, I clambered down from the seven-foot loft and wandered out into the living room-dining room, where Mr. and Mrs. Stojanovic were awake and greeted me warmly. After about an hour of discussion with them about various subjects, mostly politics (Mrs. Stojanovic informed me that this is a favorite topic of conversation in Serbia), they thought it fit to rouse Nikola and have breakfast.
My first breakfast in Serbia began with sladkoe, (literally "sweet") a sort of jam that is traditionally served to visitors when they come for a meal to a Serbian home. It was, as the name suggests, so sweet as to be nearly bitter and is for that reason generally eaten in small quantities and followed by generous draughts of water. Next we had toasted ham sandwiches accompanied by kiselo mleko ("sour milk") which is basically equivalent to plain yogurt, and kaimak which is the cream skimmed from the top of boiling milk which then solidifies into a sort of very plain butter (it tastes very similar to homemade butter but without the salt). I tried everything and found it mostly to my taste.
After breakfast, Nikola and I walked to the market to buy some strawberries for Mrs. Stojanovic. The market is a very interesting place, sort of a combination farmer's market and flea market. You can find almost anything for sale there, from fresh fruit to clothing to various knick-knacks to live goldfish. Most of the stalls are run by older people, many of them who live in the surrounding villages and grow the food they sell from their own gardens in order to sell in the city. The aisles between the stalls are very narrow and the market has a distinct smell, though not unpleasant (I saw no raw meat for sale and that may have been part of the reason for the cleanliness). We bought 2 kilos of strawberries, then returned to Nikola's apartment and washed and ate some of the fruits. I am very glad that the tap water in Belgrade is potable, a luxury I will not have in St. Petersburg where all of my water will have to be bottled or boiled and I will need to be much more discerning in what I eat, especially from street vendors and markets like this one.
Once we returned home, we had a few hors to kill so Nikola showed me his photo albums from when he was young growing up between Cyprus and Belgrade. In this way we passed the time until 3pm, when we went to a Serbian Orthodox wedding ceremony, the marriage of the children of good friends of the Stojanovic's from Cyprus. The wedding took place at St. Markos' cathedral only about 2 blocks from Nikola's apartment and was quite a thing to see. The cathedral itself, I was infomed, was very empty by Serbian standards, lacking the traditional frescos and murals on the walls, although it did have opulent stained-glass windows. There were no pews or other seats in the sanctuary, a striking contrast from American cathedrals or churches of any sort. However, to the surprise of Nikola and myself (for he had never noticed before) this particular cathedral is the final resting-place of Tsar Stefan Dushan, possibly the most prominent figure in Serbia's history. The bride, groom and guests were dressed much as they would be for an American wedding, but the ceremony itself was full of rituals dating back hundreds of years. The priest, elegantly dressed in embroidered robes, carried a censer of incense which he swung back and forth, reminding me of the Levitical priests in Old Testament times. He chanted in Old Church Serbian (much more like to modern Serbian than Latin is to English, though performing the same function) and a hidden choir occasionally echoed him. He brought the happy couple, as well as a man who stood behind the groom, a woman behind the bride, and the young girl who held the bride's train, to an altar that stood in the center of the floor, where he took the two tall candles the bride and the groom were each holding and handed them to their respective attendants, bound their right hands together with a white cloth, placed a jeweled crown on each of their heads, gave them to drink from a silver chalice, and had them each kiss a silver cross, reciting all the while in a monotone that echoed from the marble pillars and 150-foot ceiling and created a somber atmosphere. He then led them around the altar twice before removing the crowns from their heads and the cloth from their hands and performind the final blessing, after which the bride and groom kissed as they do at the conclusion of Western marriage ceremonies. Afterwards the guests exited the chuch by a side door from which the happy couple appeared to the accompaniment of golden coins instead of rice (unfortunately I wasn't close enough to catch one). The traditional tossing of the bouquet followed - the mother of the bride strongly encouraged me to join the hopeful young ladies waiting to catch the charmed flowers but, since the ritual has the same meaning in Serbia as it does in America, I just as forcibly declined, shooting an exasperated glance at Nikola who laughed at my consternation.
There were several beggars who threaded their way through the wedding party after the ceremony, repeating daite me (give me). These people were all of short stature and dark skin, in contrast to the more Aryean-looking Serbs of the wedding party. I conjecture that they are of a particular ethnic minority in this country, perhaps immigrants or refugees from the Middle East, who tend to be poorer. I should ask Nikola about this some time. Following the wedding ceremony, Nikola and I got in a taxi with the bride's parents to go to a nearby "club" for the reception. Both the wedding and the reception were very formal affairs, and I was later informed that the bride and groom organized and paid for the entire proceeding themselves, which is quite unusual because of the cost. Usually the parents are the masterminds behind the weddings, as is also typical in America. At the reception, we spent the better part of an hour mingling and waiting for the arrival of all of the guests before the commencement of the meal. Waiters came around holding trays of drinks, mostly alcoholic, to which I replied Nishta, hvala (Nothing, thank you) until Nikola found me some orange juice to drink. The drinking age in Serbia is 18, but I feel no great desire to try alcohol at this point in my life (or perhaps ever). Nikola took one small glass of some hard liquor and offered it to Aca, who tried a small sip and then made such a grimace as to confirm all I had ever heard and read about the bitterness of alcohol. After slowly taking a few sips himself, Nikola put his glass down - even he couldn't take too much of the stuff. Finally around 5:00 we sat down and began eating, which was quite an ordeal in itself. There was a posted guest list at the entrance to the reception that gave everyone's table assignments and it made me smile to see on the list "Markovic... Markovic... Mills... Mixailovic..." Obviously the Stojanovics, well aware that I would be there that day, had marked me down as with them. Since the Stojanovics were so close to the parents of both bride and groom, we were sat down at the table for family, an honor I know I didn't deserve. I sat between Nikola and Aca and was silent for most of the meal, not wishing to draw attention to myself as a foreigner at what was evidently such an important cultural event. The reception was probably the thing most typical of Serbian culture - the food was very traditionally Serbian (and very good!) and in between each course there was a long space of music and dancing, presumably to let the food settle and the conversations flourish. Of course this second objective was lost on me, as my pathetic repetoir of Serbian phrases will take me little farther than introductory pleasantries. Most people that I met speak enough English to tell me their name and say "Nice to meet you," but little more. I was more interested in the dancing, which was something I better felt that I could do, but Nikola had little interest in it. However, when I asked Aca "Do you dance?" I met with much more enthusiasm and though we did not follow any particular steps, still that turned out to be one of the best parts of my evening.
However, the long wait between courses finally got to me at at 8:30 I convinced Nikola to go back to the apartment, though we had only gone through the appetizer, soups, and some mixed meat wrapped in seaweed (which tasted much better than it sounds :]). Unfortunately, though the entertainers played almost exclusively English songs between the first and second courses, after the third they began playing Serbian music which was much more to Nikola's taste and he ended up being much more reluctant to leave - I felt kind of bad for dragging him out of there but I've never been one for parties and formal events, even in America. We walked home through more squares and saw more of the city, and had one last adventure. In the area that we passed through there were several street vendors displaying various trinkets and toys, and a man dressed in traditional Serbian clothing playing a flute. But the most exciting thing that we saw was a man with a 10-foot yellow python who was collecting money for people to be photographed holding his snake. Unbeknownst to me until that point, Nikola is terrified of large snakes, but upon my insistance he graciously paid the man for a photograph and stood by (at a safe distance) as the man draped the giant reptile across my shoulders and took a picture. I am myself not at all afraid of snakes and thoroughly enjoyed watching him squirm as the giant snake slithered across my shoulders and down my arm. That picture may well become my favorite memento from Belgrade :D Nikola, emboldened by my fearlessness, even reached out and stroked the snake's smooth yellow skin, though he was shaking as he did it.
Once we finally arrived back at the apartment, I thought that my day was over, but for Nikola it was just beginning. He received an invitation from a close friend to go to the opening of a nearby club. I agreed to go with him for the cultural experience, although I did not expect to enjoy myself very much. We went around 11:15 but stayed less than an hour - the club wasn't very popular and the only people there were a few of Nikola's friends. As for myself, I could only speak to Nikola because none of his friends spoke enough English to carry on a conversation, neither did they seem eager to try, and there was no one dancing so all I could do was sit at a table and observe. However, that was not altogether unpleasant (I enjoy people-watching) but I can't say that I was sorry to leave. I finally fell into bed around 1am, glad to be done with my first full (in more ways than one) day in Belgrade.
My first breakfast in Serbia began with sladkoe, (literally "sweet") a sort of jam that is traditionally served to visitors when they come for a meal to a Serbian home. It was, as the name suggests, so sweet as to be nearly bitter and is for that reason generally eaten in small quantities and followed by generous draughts of water. Next we had toasted ham sandwiches accompanied by kiselo mleko ("sour milk") which is basically equivalent to plain yogurt, and kaimak which is the cream skimmed from the top of boiling milk which then solidifies into a sort of very plain butter (it tastes very similar to homemade butter but without the salt). I tried everything and found it mostly to my taste.
After breakfast, Nikola and I walked to the market to buy some strawberries for Mrs. Stojanovic. The market is a very interesting place, sort of a combination farmer's market and flea market. You can find almost anything for sale there, from fresh fruit to clothing to various knick-knacks to live goldfish. Most of the stalls are run by older people, many of them who live in the surrounding villages and grow the food they sell from their own gardens in order to sell in the city. The aisles between the stalls are very narrow and the market has a distinct smell, though not unpleasant (I saw no raw meat for sale and that may have been part of the reason for the cleanliness). We bought 2 kilos of strawberries, then returned to Nikola's apartment and washed and ate some of the fruits. I am very glad that the tap water in Belgrade is potable, a luxury I will not have in St. Petersburg where all of my water will have to be bottled or boiled and I will need to be much more discerning in what I eat, especially from street vendors and markets like this one.
Once we returned home, we had a few hors to kill so Nikola showed me his photo albums from when he was young growing up between Cyprus and Belgrade. In this way we passed the time until 3pm, when we went to a Serbian Orthodox wedding ceremony, the marriage of the children of good friends of the Stojanovic's from Cyprus. The wedding took place at St. Markos' cathedral only about 2 blocks from Nikola's apartment and was quite a thing to see. The cathedral itself, I was infomed, was very empty by Serbian standards, lacking the traditional frescos and murals on the walls, although it did have opulent stained-glass windows. There were no pews or other seats in the sanctuary, a striking contrast from American cathedrals or churches of any sort. However, to the surprise of Nikola and myself (for he had never noticed before) this particular cathedral is the final resting-place of Tsar Stefan Dushan, possibly the most prominent figure in Serbia's history. The bride, groom and guests were dressed much as they would be for an American wedding, but the ceremony itself was full of rituals dating back hundreds of years. The priest, elegantly dressed in embroidered robes, carried a censer of incense which he swung back and forth, reminding me of the Levitical priests in Old Testament times. He chanted in Old Church Serbian (much more like to modern Serbian than Latin is to English, though performing the same function) and a hidden choir occasionally echoed him. He brought the happy couple, as well as a man who stood behind the groom, a woman behind the bride, and the young girl who held the bride's train, to an altar that stood in the center of the floor, where he took the two tall candles the bride and the groom were each holding and handed them to their respective attendants, bound their right hands together with a white cloth, placed a jeweled crown on each of their heads, gave them to drink from a silver chalice, and had them each kiss a silver cross, reciting all the while in a monotone that echoed from the marble pillars and 150-foot ceiling and created a somber atmosphere. He then led them around the altar twice before removing the crowns from their heads and the cloth from their hands and performind the final blessing, after which the bride and groom kissed as they do at the conclusion of Western marriage ceremonies. Afterwards the guests exited the chuch by a side door from which the happy couple appeared to the accompaniment of golden coins instead of rice (unfortunately I wasn't close enough to catch one). The traditional tossing of the bouquet followed - the mother of the bride strongly encouraged me to join the hopeful young ladies waiting to catch the charmed flowers but, since the ritual has the same meaning in Serbia as it does in America, I just as forcibly declined, shooting an exasperated glance at Nikola who laughed at my consternation.
There were several beggars who threaded their way through the wedding party after the ceremony, repeating daite me (give me). These people were all of short stature and dark skin, in contrast to the more Aryean-looking Serbs of the wedding party. I conjecture that they are of a particular ethnic minority in this country, perhaps immigrants or refugees from the Middle East, who tend to be poorer. I should ask Nikola about this some time. Following the wedding ceremony, Nikola and I got in a taxi with the bride's parents to go to a nearby "club" for the reception. Both the wedding and the reception were very formal affairs, and I was later informed that the bride and groom organized and paid for the entire proceeding themselves, which is quite unusual because of the cost. Usually the parents are the masterminds behind the weddings, as is also typical in America. At the reception, we spent the better part of an hour mingling and waiting for the arrival of all of the guests before the commencement of the meal. Waiters came around holding trays of drinks, mostly alcoholic, to which I replied Nishta, hvala (Nothing, thank you) until Nikola found me some orange juice to drink. The drinking age in Serbia is 18, but I feel no great desire to try alcohol at this point in my life (or perhaps ever). Nikola took one small glass of some hard liquor and offered it to Aca, who tried a small sip and then made such a grimace as to confirm all I had ever heard and read about the bitterness of alcohol. After slowly taking a few sips himself, Nikola put his glass down - even he couldn't take too much of the stuff. Finally around 5:00 we sat down and began eating, which was quite an ordeal in itself. There was a posted guest list at the entrance to the reception that gave everyone's table assignments and it made me smile to see on the list "Markovic... Markovic... Mills... Mixailovic..." Obviously the Stojanovics, well aware that I would be there that day, had marked me down as with them. Since the Stojanovics were so close to the parents of both bride and groom, we were sat down at the table for family, an honor I know I didn't deserve. I sat between Nikola and Aca and was silent for most of the meal, not wishing to draw attention to myself as a foreigner at what was evidently such an important cultural event. The reception was probably the thing most typical of Serbian culture - the food was very traditionally Serbian (and very good!) and in between each course there was a long space of music and dancing, presumably to let the food settle and the conversations flourish. Of course this second objective was lost on me, as my pathetic repetoir of Serbian phrases will take me little farther than introductory pleasantries. Most people that I met speak enough English to tell me their name and say "Nice to meet you," but little more. I was more interested in the dancing, which was something I better felt that I could do, but Nikola had little interest in it. However, when I asked Aca "Do you dance?" I met with much more enthusiasm and though we did not follow any particular steps, still that turned out to be one of the best parts of my evening.
However, the long wait between courses finally got to me at at 8:30 I convinced Nikola to go back to the apartment, though we had only gone through the appetizer, soups, and some mixed meat wrapped in seaweed (which tasted much better than it sounds :]). Unfortunately, though the entertainers played almost exclusively English songs between the first and second courses, after the third they began playing Serbian music which was much more to Nikola's taste and he ended up being much more reluctant to leave - I felt kind of bad for dragging him out of there but I've never been one for parties and formal events, even in America. We walked home through more squares and saw more of the city, and had one last adventure. In the area that we passed through there were several street vendors displaying various trinkets and toys, and a man dressed in traditional Serbian clothing playing a flute. But the most exciting thing that we saw was a man with a 10-foot yellow python who was collecting money for people to be photographed holding his snake. Unbeknownst to me until that point, Nikola is terrified of large snakes, but upon my insistance he graciously paid the man for a photograph and stood by (at a safe distance) as the man draped the giant reptile across my shoulders and took a picture. I am myself not at all afraid of snakes and thoroughly enjoyed watching him squirm as the giant snake slithered across my shoulders and down my arm. That picture may well become my favorite memento from Belgrade :D Nikola, emboldened by my fearlessness, even reached out and stroked the snake's smooth yellow skin, though he was shaking as he did it.
Once we finally arrived back at the apartment, I thought that my day was over, but for Nikola it was just beginning. He received an invitation from a close friend to go to the opening of a nearby club. I agreed to go with him for the cultural experience, although I did not expect to enjoy myself very much. We went around 11:15 but stayed less than an hour - the club wasn't very popular and the only people there were a few of Nikola's friends. As for myself, I could only speak to Nikola because none of his friends spoke enough English to carry on a conversation, neither did they seem eager to try, and there was no one dancing so all I could do was sit at a table and observe. However, that was not altogether unpleasant (I enjoy people-watching) but I can't say that I was sorry to leave. I finally fell into bed around 1am, glad to be done with my first full (in more ways than one) day in Belgrade.
"I'm going to take you someplace you've been your entire life"
A good night's sleep, and now I am ready to tackle the remainder of my epic journey to Belgrade. Or at least the recounting of it.
The Zurich airport was much as I expected Switzerland to be. Very clean, quite formal, and extremely multilingual. Most things were in English with a significant amount of German mixed in, but I also heard quite a bit of French and !Russian as I wandered around. Saw a group of Russian teens looking at the departures board at one point and considered speaking to them but then decided that I would get plenty of practice with that in St. Petersburg. :D Since I had a four-hour layover, I decided to go out to the shopping area and wait there until it was closer to my flight time. I had to get my passport stamped in order to leave the gate area, which was not nearly as difficult as I feared it might be. Obviously I just haven't traveled enough. The stores in the shopping area revealed that the Swiss - or at least those of many nationalities who fly through the Zurich airport - are quite well-off. I tried my best to walk around with my eyes wider than my mouth, but I may not have completely succeeded in that regard ;] Most of the boutiques were filled with designer clothes and fine Swiss chocolates. I considered getting some Lindt truffles, but decided that they would probably taste the same as in America and cost a lot more :P I did, however, visit the souvenir shop, wide-eyed wanderer that I am. There were many chocolates again and T-shirts as well as less useful souvenirs like keychains and pens that tempted me greatly. Finally I decided against the $10 keychain, as diverting as it was, in favor of a $5 swiss army knife that could be attached to a keychain, reasoning that it would be the most useful way to spend my money. Fortunately the shop took American dollars, so that I didn't have to go through the hassle of exchanging currency into Swiss francs. The exchange rate is surprisingly good - something like 1.1 francs to the dollar. Of course, while I was deciding and purchasing my souvenir it failed to occur to me that I was, in fact, obtaining a weapon. Until the cashier asked me "Where are you flying to?" and I replied "Belgrade", at which she informed me that flying there I would be fine, but on the return journey I would have to make sure that the knife was in my checked luggage. At which point I wondered a few things: Why were they selling Swiss army knives in the airport, and why was it okay to fly to Belgrade with a knife in my carry-on? Self-defense? Are the Serbs not worried about a terrorist attack? Do they figure no one actually wants to attack Serbia anyway? I don't know. I'm just glad that I wasn't stopped and searched.
After obtaining my obligatory souvenir, I still had a couple of hours to wait, so I sat down on some chairs and determined to pass the time by reading. However, when I sat down I noticed a young woman sitting across from me and thought, "I should strike up a conversation with her. How sad will it be if I travel all the way to Belgrade and never talk to anyone until I get there?" After gathering my courage for a while, I moved over to the seat beside her and uttered a tentative "Hello." When I was answered in kind, I took heart and inquired, "Do you speak English?" Chuckling, she replied "Very poorly." Upon further questions I discovered that her name was Elvira and she was a young Russian, an operations engineer on her first international business trip, to Germany (her German was much better than her English, to my chagrin. I do believe that will turn out to be quite a useful language once I learn it.) Upon learning that I was studying Russian, she encouraged me to speak which I refused, insisting that her English must be better than my oral Russian. She maintained the opposite once I did dare to speak, remarking that my accent was good and that I spoke quickly and clearly for someone who had only been studying for one year. However, upon my insistence we carried on our conversation mostly in English - I do believe I am trying to put off the inevitable with communicating in a foreign language. It was my turn to be surprised when she informed me that she, too, had been studying English for only 9 months - and began speaking it only on this trip. Her accent was strong but not unintelligible and I could understand most of what she said. As it happened, her plane to Moscow left only a few minutes after mine from a gate very close by, so we went through security together (I got my passport stamped again :D) and sat together until it was time for me to board. We exchanged emails before parting ways and I hope to be able to keep in contact with her during the summer.
The journey had been up to this point rather uneventful, and it was too much to hope that my luck would hold out all the way to Belgrade. When I went up to the desk to check in for my flight, the German woman couldn't issue me my ticket because she couldn't find a return ticket for me in her system. There was a very simple explanation behind that - I had booked my ticket from Belgrade to St. Petersburg with Czech Airways and I was flying in on Swiss Airlines. However, it seems that without evidence that I would in fact be leaving the country within 90 days the airline was not allowed to let me into Serbia, as much as I assured them that I had no intentions of staying more than a week, much less three months :P. Finally I was cleared and made it onto the plane although not without some trepidation. The flight was once again uneventful and I tried napping again although it was less than 2 hours before we were touching down in Belgrade. The airport was small, bigger than the Portland Jetport but not as large as Newark or the Zurich airport, and it was relatively straightforward to find the Baggage Claim area. As I suspected, the signs were now primarily in Serbian (latin alphabet) although also in English. Despite all my fears that my luggage would have been lost in the several transfers, I spotted my suitcase almost immediately, although my party was less apparent. I went through the door marked "Nothing to declare" (and I hope that that was in fact true) and stepped out into the lobby where several dozen people were waiting for those who had just deplaned. I looked around in vain for a familiar face before a shorter, gray-haired man with a round, friendly face inquired, "Erin?" My eyes lit up and I uttered a hopeful "Yes?" though I cannot say that I recognized him. "Are you looking for someone?" he said with a grin and I decided that he must, indeed, be Mr. Stojanovic. My conjecture turned out to be correct and we promptly left the airport and began the drive into Belgrade Center, where the Stojanovic's apartment is located (the airport is about 10 km outside the city limits). The journey, however, gave me a good opportunity to see the greater part of Belgrade - the student apartments, hostels, embassies, and several crumbling and half-destroyed structures, bombed in 1999 when NATO overthrew the socialists in Belgrade, which were never repaired. It was a sad sight, destruction frozen in time, a constant reminder of the lost history and tumultuous past of this people. I didn't wonder that many Serbs, driving past these monuments every day, might harbor in their heart a hatred for the people who caused such destruction.
We at last arrived at the apartment and I was shown to my room - not the basement, as Nikola had asserted, but the bedroom of his little brother Aleksandar (Aca for short). Aca, 15, is a tan, smiling, willowy, unassuming youth of 15 whose dark brown eyes appear even larger behind his glasses. He insists that there is no problem with me sleeping in his room, but I still feel bad for displacing him. It must be hard for him to have a girl he doesn't even know invading his space on the first week of his summer vacation. He speaks English fairly well, though not quite as fluently as either of his parents, and he replies with a delighted "Aah!" and a broad grin to each exercise of my pitiful retinue of Serbian phrases. He tells Nikola, in Serbian, that he wants my laugh, which Nikola promptly translates with a roll of his eyes, eliciting another burst of giggles from me and a slight flush of pink on Aca's cheeks.
Around 15 minutes after my arrival, Nikola returned home. Apparently he had decided to visit the end-of-year party at his old high school instead of coming to the airport to meet me. Go figure. :P :D When he came in, he caught me up in a great bear hug and greeted me with the traditional Serbian kiss on the cheek. "I can't believe it's been almost a year," he said, smiling. Neither can I, I thought. It seems like only last week that I was staring through the glass at the Bangor International Airport watching him hand his boarding pass to the ticket agent before he walked through the doors to the jetway and I was almost convinced I had seen him for the last time. I suppose it adds truth to the saying that with our truest friends it is never goodbye, only "see you later."
While I was more than ready for a shower after almost 24 hours of traveling, Nikola had other ideas about my first acts in Serbia. After snacking on some ham and cheese pancakes (inspired by the maple syrup I had packed - with more than a little apprehension lest it should break open in transit) we set off on a walk around the city. The stated purpose of the walk was to accompany Nikola's friend and bass player Petar as he went to purchase a ticket to the Bob Dylan concert happening in Belgrade on Friday. (Nikola says "Look, you leave Belgrade and Bob Dylan comes, on the same day." Laughing, I tell him that Bob Dylan and I aren't exactly on the same plane [pun intended].) However, as with all things Nikola, it turned into more of an aimless ramble around the city as Nikola allowed me to experience his hometown firsthand. There are many small parks, playgrounds and green spaces in Belgrade - more than I remember encountering in New York City, the only city in my experience to which I feel I can compare Belgrade. The city is also mostly clean, the buildings are relatively short (most are 3-4 stories) and the streets are not as crowded as I expected them to be in a city of several million. Nikola also remarked on the lack of traffic, supposing that since it was a Friday afternoon and near the end of school many people had left the city for the weekend.
When we were once again returned to Nikola's apartment, he ordered spaghetti for supper (takeout spaghetti? :]) and I was at last allowed to take a shower. It felt so good to be clean and in fresh clothes, though Nikola insisted that I neither looked nor smelled as disgusting as I felt :D. After that it was nearly 9pm and Nikola allowed that I should go to bed, with which sentiment I was more than willing to agree. I climbed up into Aca's loft-bed, crawled underneath the blanket and so ended my first day in Belgrade.
The Zurich airport was much as I expected Switzerland to be. Very clean, quite formal, and extremely multilingual. Most things were in English with a significant amount of German mixed in, but I also heard quite a bit of French and !Russian as I wandered around. Saw a group of Russian teens looking at the departures board at one point and considered speaking to them but then decided that I would get plenty of practice with that in St. Petersburg. :D Since I had a four-hour layover, I decided to go out to the shopping area and wait there until it was closer to my flight time. I had to get my passport stamped in order to leave the gate area, which was not nearly as difficult as I feared it might be. Obviously I just haven't traveled enough. The stores in the shopping area revealed that the Swiss - or at least those of many nationalities who fly through the Zurich airport - are quite well-off. I tried my best to walk around with my eyes wider than my mouth, but I may not have completely succeeded in that regard ;] Most of the boutiques were filled with designer clothes and fine Swiss chocolates. I considered getting some Lindt truffles, but decided that they would probably taste the same as in America and cost a lot more :P I did, however, visit the souvenir shop, wide-eyed wanderer that I am. There were many chocolates again and T-shirts as well as less useful souvenirs like keychains and pens that tempted me greatly. Finally I decided against the $10 keychain, as diverting as it was, in favor of a $5 swiss army knife that could be attached to a keychain, reasoning that it would be the most useful way to spend my money. Fortunately the shop took American dollars, so that I didn't have to go through the hassle of exchanging currency into Swiss francs. The exchange rate is surprisingly good - something like 1.1 francs to the dollar. Of course, while I was deciding and purchasing my souvenir it failed to occur to me that I was, in fact, obtaining a weapon. Until the cashier asked me "Where are you flying to?" and I replied "Belgrade", at which she informed me that flying there I would be fine, but on the return journey I would have to make sure that the knife was in my checked luggage. At which point I wondered a few things: Why were they selling Swiss army knives in the airport, and why was it okay to fly to Belgrade with a knife in my carry-on? Self-defense? Are the Serbs not worried about a terrorist attack? Do they figure no one actually wants to attack Serbia anyway? I don't know. I'm just glad that I wasn't stopped and searched.
After obtaining my obligatory souvenir, I still had a couple of hours to wait, so I sat down on some chairs and determined to pass the time by reading. However, when I sat down I noticed a young woman sitting across from me and thought, "I should strike up a conversation with her. How sad will it be if I travel all the way to Belgrade and never talk to anyone until I get there?" After gathering my courage for a while, I moved over to the seat beside her and uttered a tentative "Hello." When I was answered in kind, I took heart and inquired, "Do you speak English?" Chuckling, she replied "Very poorly." Upon further questions I discovered that her name was Elvira and she was a young Russian, an operations engineer on her first international business trip, to Germany (her German was much better than her English, to my chagrin. I do believe that will turn out to be quite a useful language once I learn it.) Upon learning that I was studying Russian, she encouraged me to speak which I refused, insisting that her English must be better than my oral Russian. She maintained the opposite once I did dare to speak, remarking that my accent was good and that I spoke quickly and clearly for someone who had only been studying for one year. However, upon my insistence we carried on our conversation mostly in English - I do believe I am trying to put off the inevitable with communicating in a foreign language. It was my turn to be surprised when she informed me that she, too, had been studying English for only 9 months - and began speaking it only on this trip. Her accent was strong but not unintelligible and I could understand most of what she said. As it happened, her plane to Moscow left only a few minutes after mine from a gate very close by, so we went through security together (I got my passport stamped again :D) and sat together until it was time for me to board. We exchanged emails before parting ways and I hope to be able to keep in contact with her during the summer.
The journey had been up to this point rather uneventful, and it was too much to hope that my luck would hold out all the way to Belgrade. When I went up to the desk to check in for my flight, the German woman couldn't issue me my ticket because she couldn't find a return ticket for me in her system. There was a very simple explanation behind that - I had booked my ticket from Belgrade to St. Petersburg with Czech Airways and I was flying in on Swiss Airlines. However, it seems that without evidence that I would in fact be leaving the country within 90 days the airline was not allowed to let me into Serbia, as much as I assured them that I had no intentions of staying more than a week, much less three months :P. Finally I was cleared and made it onto the plane although not without some trepidation. The flight was once again uneventful and I tried napping again although it was less than 2 hours before we were touching down in Belgrade. The airport was small, bigger than the Portland Jetport but not as large as Newark or the Zurich airport, and it was relatively straightforward to find the Baggage Claim area. As I suspected, the signs were now primarily in Serbian (latin alphabet) although also in English. Despite all my fears that my luggage would have been lost in the several transfers, I spotted my suitcase almost immediately, although my party was less apparent. I went through the door marked "Nothing to declare" (and I hope that that was in fact true) and stepped out into the lobby where several dozen people were waiting for those who had just deplaned. I looked around in vain for a familiar face before a shorter, gray-haired man with a round, friendly face inquired, "Erin?" My eyes lit up and I uttered a hopeful "Yes?" though I cannot say that I recognized him. "Are you looking for someone?" he said with a grin and I decided that he must, indeed, be Mr. Stojanovic. My conjecture turned out to be correct and we promptly left the airport and began the drive into Belgrade Center, where the Stojanovic's apartment is located (the airport is about 10 km outside the city limits). The journey, however, gave me a good opportunity to see the greater part of Belgrade - the student apartments, hostels, embassies, and several crumbling and half-destroyed structures, bombed in 1999 when NATO overthrew the socialists in Belgrade, which were never repaired. It was a sad sight, destruction frozen in time, a constant reminder of the lost history and tumultuous past of this people. I didn't wonder that many Serbs, driving past these monuments every day, might harbor in their heart a hatred for the people who caused such destruction.
We at last arrived at the apartment and I was shown to my room - not the basement, as Nikola had asserted, but the bedroom of his little brother Aleksandar (Aca for short). Aca, 15, is a tan, smiling, willowy, unassuming youth of 15 whose dark brown eyes appear even larger behind his glasses. He insists that there is no problem with me sleeping in his room, but I still feel bad for displacing him. It must be hard for him to have a girl he doesn't even know invading his space on the first week of his summer vacation. He speaks English fairly well, though not quite as fluently as either of his parents, and he replies with a delighted "Aah!" and a broad grin to each exercise of my pitiful retinue of Serbian phrases. He tells Nikola, in Serbian, that he wants my laugh, which Nikola promptly translates with a roll of his eyes, eliciting another burst of giggles from me and a slight flush of pink on Aca's cheeks.
Around 15 minutes after my arrival, Nikola returned home. Apparently he had decided to visit the end-of-year party at his old high school instead of coming to the airport to meet me. Go figure. :P :D When he came in, he caught me up in a great bear hug and greeted me with the traditional Serbian kiss on the cheek. "I can't believe it's been almost a year," he said, smiling. Neither can I, I thought. It seems like only last week that I was staring through the glass at the Bangor International Airport watching him hand his boarding pass to the ticket agent before he walked through the doors to the jetway and I was almost convinced I had seen him for the last time. I suppose it adds truth to the saying that with our truest friends it is never goodbye, only "see you later."
While I was more than ready for a shower after almost 24 hours of traveling, Nikola had other ideas about my first acts in Serbia. After snacking on some ham and cheese pancakes (inspired by the maple syrup I had packed - with more than a little apprehension lest it should break open in transit) we set off on a walk around the city. The stated purpose of the walk was to accompany Nikola's friend and bass player Petar as he went to purchase a ticket to the Bob Dylan concert happening in Belgrade on Friday. (Nikola says "Look, you leave Belgrade and Bob Dylan comes, on the same day." Laughing, I tell him that Bob Dylan and I aren't exactly on the same plane [pun intended].) However, as with all things Nikola, it turned into more of an aimless ramble around the city as Nikola allowed me to experience his hometown firsthand. There are many small parks, playgrounds and green spaces in Belgrade - more than I remember encountering in New York City, the only city in my experience to which I feel I can compare Belgrade. The city is also mostly clean, the buildings are relatively short (most are 3-4 stories) and the streets are not as crowded as I expected them to be in a city of several million. Nikola also remarked on the lack of traffic, supposing that since it was a Friday afternoon and near the end of school many people had left the city for the weekend.
When we were once again returned to Nikola's apartment, he ordered spaghetti for supper (takeout spaghetti? :]) and I was at last allowed to take a shower. It felt so good to be clean and in fresh clothes, though Nikola insisted that I neither looked nor smelled as disgusting as I felt :D. After that it was nearly 9pm and Nikola allowed that I should go to bed, with which sentiment I was more than willing to agree. I climbed up into Aca's loft-bed, crawled underneath the blanket and so ended my first day in Belgrade.
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