Serbia

Well, we managed to spend a week in Serbia without writing a single word on this blog. Whoops.  This will be a catch-up post for the entire week, and then we should be able to go back to more frequent updates on our travels :).

On our last day before heading to Belgrade we ate lunch and drank a chai latte at Erica’s favorite café near her house, Dose. Then we took a metro over to Sacre Coeur and got a great view over the city. While we were standing there eating roasted chestnuts and admiring the view, a young man set up a drum kit made entirely from household objects. A large bucket formed his kick drum, and he had different sized pots for other drums.  He was quite good, and had many of us in the crowd of tourists nodding heads or tapping toes.  There was also a cute little boy who was full on dancing to the beat.

After Sacre Coeur, we wandered through the streets past a large outdoor art market, the Moulin Rouge, and many sex shops.

The next day, it was on to Serbia! We realized around 10 hours before our flight that the airport we were flying out of was not really in Paris… It turns out that Paris Beauvais Airport is about an hour and a half outside of Paris by car. There’s a shuttle that will take you there, but it takes 2.5 hours and costs 17€ per person. Yikes. Thank goodness for BlaBlaCar! We found someone leaving at just the right time to get us to the airport an hour before our flight (and only 7.50€ per person). We got in bed with time for just about 5 hours of sleep.  BVA the next morning was kind of a disaster. This airport has a score of 2/10 on the most popular airport rating website. The security line doesn’t really seem to move, but at random points a security guard will come out and call everyone on the next flight to come forward and skip the line. It seems to make more sense to show up just before your flight leaves than actually try to make it all the way through the line.

A 2.5 hour flight later we were in Serbia! We spent the week at a place called Saga Paradiso, a villa that Monisha’s Uncle Arvind generously rented out for the family. It was nice to be staying all together with so many of Monisha’s relatives.  We didn’t get a chance to see Alex or Mischa and her kids, Lucas and Lise, when we were in Holland, so it was great to be able to spend time with them in Serbia.  Breakfast was provided at the villa every morning although a couple late Serbian nights led to the two of us showing up after everyone else had finished eating.

The pool table at the villa ended up being a popular attraction for the week.  We started out with high hopes of improving our skills.  We were moderately successful at this, and are definitely better at pool than when we started.  Monisha’s cousins Thomas and David, as well as her cousin Mischa’s son, Lucas, are quite into football (soccer), so they bought a ball while we were there.  Though we both played for many years, it’s been a long time since we’ve touched a soccer ball.  Playing 2 v 2 with the boys was a lot of fun, though somewhat humbling.  To our delight, Thomas and David brought Spikeball along to Serbia.  As we’ve mentioned before, they’re both quite good after having played with their friends on the beach in France every day for two weeks or so.  We also taught Lucas, who is 11 (?) years old, how to play.  We’ve actually introduced Spikeball to a number of people, so were quite ready for him to be very much beginner level.  Within a couple of games, Lucas was a serious competitor!  We moved up to real serves (instead of gentlemen’s serves), and he ended up having some of the most killer serves of all of us.  We were very impressed, and his quick learning made the Spikeball competition quite a lot of fun.

Serbian food. WOW they eat a lot of meat. So much meat. Pretty much every meal that we ate out consisted of a starter salad with very yummy Serbian bread followed by plates and plates of pork, bacon wrapped pork, sausages, cheese filled chicken, beef, etc. We had a number of really yummy dishes and meals. And yes, Serbian food is a whole lot cheaper than anywhere we’ve been so far. We had a couple of meals of little meat pastries and such from local bakeries, and each of those meals cost us about $3.

Finally, on the last evening, we couldn’t deal with any more meat. We looked up vegetarian restaurant and found what turned out to be a literally hidden gem.  We ended up at the front door of the restaurant and had to squint in the dark hallways at the tiny letters spelling out the restaurant’s name.  Nolan was pretty sure we were standing at the back door, but it turned out to be the main entrance.  Anyway, inside was a nice, cozy restaurant with menus printed inside old books and wooden décor. We got a mezze appetizer and the veggies we had been missing earlier in the week.

WEDDING. We did it! We survived a Serbian wedding. What a wedding it was. Countless appetizer options and buffet dishes (yes, mostly meat!). Flower girl Lise walked around handing people little stretchy bracelets and black tie pins.  Unlimited drinks of all imaginable types: beers, wines, mixed drinks, and of course…rakija! Rakija is the Serbian specialty hard liquor, usually 40-50% or stronger if homemade. They actually have rakija bars all over Belgrade, and rakija is the alcohol of choice for many Serbians. We heard that parents seal a huge amount of homemade rakija when a child is born to save it for their wedding.  And our excellent waiter made absolutely sure that we never ran out of booze.  Even before our glass was half empty, a new bottle would show up in front of us.  Alex and Teodora showed up in a very fancy old car, complete with a driver dressed in coat, tails, and white gloves.  Photographers were capturing countless moments and bringing out photo prints that could be purchased.  As promised, the wedding party went late into the night.  After hours of feasting, dancing and drinking, it was 2:00am and we were ready to head back.  Fortunately / unfortunately, young Thomas convinced us that the three of us needed to finish one more carafe of rakija.  Looking back the next day, we couldn’t quite comprehend why we listened to Monisha’s 19 year old cousin’s drinking advice.  But alas, when in Serbia, do as the Serbians do?

Everyone looked quite dapper indeed! Shout out to Monisha’s relatives who dressed us appropriately for the occasion :)

   

  

  

Throughout the week, we also got a chance to visit several sites in Belgrade. Kalemegdan park / the Belgrade fortress has a beautiful view over the city and many cool corridors / walkways to explore.  The ‘Big Church’ was under construction so we didn’t go there, but we did go to a beautiful church.  Neither of us knew much at all about Josip Broz Tito, but we went to Tito’s House and learned a lot more about his life and supporters.  It was interesting to get one impression of him from the museum and exhibits, and then get quite a contrasting impression from reading his Wikipedia page.  We also went to the Nikola Tesla Museum on a day that happened to be one of two free days to go there. The tour, including several demonstrations of his original inventions, made it very worthwhile! We even got to see wireless energy in action. Tesla really was quite an amazing human being.

There is one last story we will include because we don’t want to forget it. During the week we spent a lot of time with Lise and Lucas. They don’t speak much English (though Lucas knows more than he lets on), but we really enjoyed playing with them and communicating with them as best as we could. The day after the wedding, Monisha was feeling fairly tired to put it mildly, and was a little less playful than usual. Nolan, Thomas, David, and Lucas were playing soccer, and Monisha was sitting on the turf recovering.  The turf is a full flight and a half below the ground level.  Lise, full of energy, but not quite skilled enough to join the soccer game, had just run up the stairs to the villa and returned carrying as many water bottles as her arms could hold. She opened up one of the bottles and started to splash Monisha. Monisha didn’t react, so she started pouring the whole bottle onto her head and face. Bottle empty in her hand, she looked at Monisha and giggled.  When she still didn’t get any reaction, her giggles became a little more hesitant, and then she backed up, turned around, and ran back up the stairs.  A few minutes later, she reappeared. With her she brought a towel, which she handed to Monisha so she could dry herself off.  It was a very cute sequence of events.