Midnight autobus to Sarajevo

The word of the day is: biriladj: def. panacea, something that cures all ills. Derived from Turkish. As in: Rakija je najbolje biriladj.

I got a lot of sleep on the night bus... except for the 12 smoke stops (where the driver had to turn on all the lights and jolt to a stop) and the border crossing, where all the stranac were marched off the bus to point out which bags belonged to us (zashto?!!!)

When we finally reached Sarajevo I got a warm and much appreciated welcome from Kojo and Miriana. We went home and I spent the day doing what I love best: eating lots of good food and trying to converse in Bosnian. (You know, Bosnian, that language I've been learning for the last month. )

Unfortunately Miriana's english has gotten really good, so my "total immersion" plans have been foiled. But we made a deal: this trip we speak Bosnian, and when they come to LA we'll speak English.

We went to visit Ana Klak and Mladen in town. They have a beautiful apartment.

Last day of school

***Note to anal retentive readers: the shift key on this keyboard doesn't work, so capitalization will be sporadic, as i have to stop and put caps lock on every time I want a freaking capital letter. spelling errors will of course be rampant, and I plan on writing with my usual "silly" style. ***

My language program ended Friday. (For info go to http://www.srpskijezik.edu.yu/). We had a little party the night before where we all got to drink pivo and dance together one last time, to immortal Serbian favorites like "American Woman". Margot and I made them put on "Kad Hodas^", a sappy but poetic song that we translated in class.

We also had to do a presentation about our country. We were going to sing "I'll fly away" (that song from O brother where art thou) but we had to include all the americans. so insead we baked what truly must be the WORST APPLE PIE EVER. Lots of people seemed to like it, though one serb guy refused to try it at all once he found out it was made of apples and not potatoes.

Reminds me of a story my grandma told me about when she learned to make pumpkin pie in home ec. This was back in Ohio in the '20s. None of the Yugoslavs would eat it because they said pumpkin was "pig food".

Yesterday Margot and I took a bus to Novi Sad. Saturday is wedding day in Serbia, so we got to see 6 happy couples and their entourages. One of them was just leaving the church and they had a brass band (woo hoo!)

Cave soldiers...

soldiers
Originally uploaded by mylittlepony3.

Finally posted this!

Spelunking

I went to visit the Petnica cave today with Margot and Mira, my host mom's niece. I think it might be my favorite adventure so far. It was a scorching hot day again, and the cave was at least 20 degrees cooler. There was a doorway carved out on one side with a stairway leading up; I stuck my head in and got a freezing rush of air from inside. Didn't have my flashlight or I would have explored more.

There's a river that runs through the cave and then out to the city. As we were sitting on the edge dangling out feet in the freezing water we noticed some figures carved in the wall. Not sure what they are as I haven't seen anything written about them; they look like soldiers.

I found out from one of the other students that there's another cave above the one we were in that has prehistoric drawings. Maybe I'll see that one next time :)

Serbs take to the streets over static cling

polyester, originally uploaded by anasophia.

I love graffitti. I don't know what "Polyester Shock" means, but it sure is plastered all over the buildings of Belgrade. Other favorites: "Alcatraz", "gangbangers", Kosovo (heart) Serbia, and of course: "Gotov je" (he is finished).

Adapting

I think the best way to find what you're looking for is to start out looking for something else, get lost, and run into what you needed in the first place.

Margot and I went out looking for the Serbian Orthodox church so she could buy a 5-cd set of orthodox chants. Instead, we stumbled on a mobil shop that had a serbian/american adapter. We stayed and talked to the owner, Boban, and his girlfriend about life, the Serbia and everything. He told us he's never wanted to go to America, but has visited Deuchland and Turkey... and his English came in handy there, interestingly enough.

We told them we'd been to the river and they gasped and warned us against swimming in cold water... because it would cause inflammation of the ovaries, apparently. Someone else warned me about the same problems occurring if I walked around barefoot or with wet hair. It's fascinating; I've never met a people so collectively and openly worried about feminine reproductive problems.

Anyway, now I can charge my mp3 player and start recording things again. Life is good.

monastery

monastery
Originally uploaded by mylittlepony3.

Cetinja

This summer I went swimming...

We went to the river Gradac yesterday to escape from the infernal heat. It's been 40C. We weren't quite sure where the "swimming hole" was (or even if it was any good,) so we just walked up the road following the river. There's a dam that makes a sort of lake area at one point; lots of kids jumping in and even a lifeguard. We walked up further and saw a path going about 10 feet through the brush to the bank, and climbed down to find some nice small rapids with a little pool after them. The water was really cold, it was muy odlicno.

I went again today with one of our professors, Predrag, and he took us to the "real" swimming hole, which has a small rocky beach and a beer/coke stand. They also have tomatoes. But no ice cream. Predrag says "tomato" with a high english accent, it's very amusing; especially because he tells us that people with croatian accents sound like they have sticks up their asses. We sat around and talked about life and the plight of Serbia and books and ecology and things.

Finding God's House

Today we went on a sort of pilgrimidge to three monasteries around Valjevo. It was about 9 km to the first one. We had the company of 5 or 6 stray dogs from Valjevo. Margot and I amused ourselves by naming them after mexican foods (taco, gordita, guacamole...)

The first monastery, Chelije, is the site of the grave of who has a good chance of being the fifth serbian saint in the Eastern Orthodox church (there have been only four since the twelfh century). We got to hear the last half of the service in the monastery (I love Orthodox services). The nuns were very sweet to us; inviting us all to coffee after the service. They were distinctly aware of our American-ness though-- one of the nuns remarked that "unfortunately, we know America only from bombs".

From there we walked to a restaurant right on the river. Getting to it required crossing a log bridge (Fear factor serbian style). (Margot would like to add that "bridge" is really an overstatement; it was really nothing more than a very thin and slippery log.)

The next monastery was a beautiful red brick creation called the Lelich Monastery. But our last stop, the Pustinja monastery, was really the best. It was built in the 14th century. The walls are covered with colorful and amazingly well preserved frescoes from the 17th century. The floor at the front is slightly different because it had to be replaced after raiding Turks dug it up looking for treasure (monasteries were popular places to hide valuables back in the day).

The frescoe of St. John the Baptist is protected by UNESCO, and thus the entire monastery is protected (in writing). Unfortunately, they're building an artificial lake in the valley that won't flood the monastery, but may affect the soil under the monastery (by raising the water table or something?)

Narodne Pjesme

We've been taking singing lessons from a local folk singing group. At first I was rather unimpressed by the songs-- no ornaments, no real harmonies to speak of (or it could be the singing style of our school group-- our enthusiasm makes every song sound like an ancient funeral dirge). Then I heard them singing a really kick-ass song during one of the breaks and I asked if I could record it. They said it was a really old song (stara pesma) that no one sings anymore, and that the songs they were teaching us are known among Serbian people now (Ajde Jano, Coban Tera Ovcice, and Durdgevdan-- that one from "Time of Gypsies"). I'm getting a copy of their recordings tomorrow. Which is better, because I can never tell when this recorder of mine is going to freak out and refuse to start recording.

Other malfunctioning hardware: my clarinet. It is vrlo los (translates to POS). My clarinet instructor (Ivan) was taking it apart yesterday and the plastic of the end piece actually BROKE off of the cork part-- it looks like a broken wine bottle. Ivan has very kindly found another one that I can borrow. Other than that, the lessons are going well-- he has optomistically scheduled me to play with the local orchestra at the end of the classes (three weeks, oi).

I listened to some of the recordings from Guca and they're really fun, especially with the background crowd chatter.

Another monastery

Kontext 018
Originally uploaded by mylittlepony3.

These are pics from a month ago; I'll change the date later (this computer is super slow).

Na Vrh Brda Vrba Mrda

I went to my first day of classes today, and we learned the tongue twister above. It's for practicing your "r"s, and means "the willow sways at the top of the mountain" or something. My classmates are from all europe; Ukraine, Italy, Germany, Holland, Spain and Russia. There are also two other Amerikanka here. It makes it interesting because there really is no common language except Serbian. Most of them know at least some English, but sometimes it's no better than our Serbian.

My host mom is really sweet, and, in true Serbian tradition, is obsessed with feeding us (me and Olga, my roommate from Ukraine). Last night we got home around 11:30 from watching the a rehearsal of the local professional folk dance troupe, and she was waiting for us with dinner. Every morning we have really good bread and Kaimak and honey. She has two sons, one of whom is a rock climber, so our room used to be covered with climbing holds-- too bad she took them down! It looks like she redecorated since then. She has a very artsy, bauhaus type of taste (artsy pictures of machinery have replaced the climbing holds) and beautiful Turkish rugs.

Guca photo...

Statue, originally uploaded by anasophia.

Hmm. I can only post one photo at a time. Here's one of my favorites.

Vanja and friends

This was taken at the concert right before the rain started pouring. Look at those clouds!

Vanja and friends, originally uploaded by anasophia.

Guca parade

Guca parade, originally uploaded by anasophia.

Shaq's opanke

Shaq's opanke, originally uploaded by anasophia.

Boban!!!

Wow, boban Markovic was such a great show! he went on last night with his son Marko and the place just exploded. If you're in Berkeley in September, definitely go see them at Ashkenaz.

Extra Action put on a good show as well. It's safe to say that they were the only band at the show with majorettes in hot pants. Unfortunately the majorettes (and female trumpet players) got harrassed by the crowd. These Serbian guys don't really know how to be subtle.

The party hasn't stopped since Boban's set. It feels like more people arrive every hour; it's difficult to move around in the streets now. I went to bed at around 3:30 last night and since my apartment is close by, I could barely sleep last night. Then at 7 this morning they shot off the cannons (of course, what is a festival without cannons?) I thought someone was "getting their war on" (this was actually on a shirt I saw the other day.) (Speaking of shirts, the other best-seller here at the fair is "Jebem the country without Guca".

There was a parade today with all the bands and I tried recording it, but the levels were too high and there's a lot of distortion. On the opposite end of recording hell, I was recording a klapa group from Cacak this morning and had the internal mic on, so they sound about 5 miles away. Hopefully I'll get this thing figured out before I leave Serbia.

I've decided that there are three dances in Serbia: one folk dance (you know, the one serbian one), the generic euro clubbing dance, and the "nationalistic dance". The nationalistic dance is done whenever a slow patriotic song comes on. All the young guys start singing at the top of their lungs, take off their shirts to show how manly and Serbian they are, and start waving something-- a serbian flag, or their shirt, or maybe a tree branch (photographic proof coming soon). It's also good if you can climb on something really tall, like the Guca Trumpet statue. Then you stand there and wave your arms around, right before your friends catch you and carry you off to puke in the bushes.

It's strange, the kids go crazy when Boban plays hava nagila. But then I've seen a few of them with nazi/hitler paraphanalia. My host brother has a sign in his room that says "punk is not dead/ kill the Albanians". I'm not sure how strongly the nationalistic sentiments are tied to nazi ideas. I hope not too strongly, given the large number of shirts/airfresheners/lighters, etc with Serbian generals on them.

Despite all that negative political stuff-- this definitely feels like a safe festival to me, as festivals go. I haven't seen any fights, I haven't been harrassed (then again, I'v e made it a point to not interact with the uber-drunk serbian guys much).

Guca!!!

Ok, so the times are all wrong because I didn't switch to Serbia time yet. It's 18:19 on Friday here.

So I went out last night and met some americans who are following around the extra action marching band (from SF). We went and had dinner and then ran around Guca listening to all the bands. There are so many bands! And carnival rides, and booths with random things being sold. Mostly festival related gear, but also a random bicycle part booth, and an electronics booth. It was sort of a light fixture specialty booth. I picked up some parts there to make an adapter for my mp3 player (wire and duct tape and a serbian plug). Worked great, hvala bog. Now I can actually record stuff-- it sounds pretty good, though I haven't gotten up close to any bands yet.

The bands played straight through the night, as far as I could hear from the apartment. Then this morning it started pouring rain and everyone went inside for a while. My host dad gave me that strange jam and mineral water thing this morning (what is that called again?) And then I went out and found the Americans. We hung out with the Extra Actions, who were playing with some Roma guys.

Tonight: 20:00: Extra action
22:00: Boban Markovic!!!

The trip

From LA to Heathrow to Belgrade; I survived it. Vanja picked me up at the airport and we went back to her apartment for dinner; then went walking around the city. Belgrade is absolutely beautiful. The streets are full of people walking around, having coffee, even in the middle of the night-- and this is vacation, when everyone is gone! On the side streets there are big wide sidewalks mostly taken up by outdoor seating for the cafes, so we walked in the little narrow streets, which are paved with tiny bricks that apparently date back to when the Turks were in Belgrade. There are several different parts of town, none of which I can remember the names of, except for "the fountain" area (by the big fountain) and "silika", where all the BMWs and Audis are parked. Apparently this is where all the gold digger girls go out looking for rich husbands, and they all have implants, hence the name "silika".

OK, so then today I bought a cell phone and caught a bus to Cacak. No windows. Stifling heat. I was reading Lance Armstrong's first book, all about winning the tour de france after cancer and all that, so I can't complain.

After getting off the bus I started talking to a Dutch couple (thank god they all speak english) and we decided to get a taxi together to Guca. I spoke more Serbian than them so I talked to the guy. I didn't do much negotiating, and I'm pretty sure 700 dinars was too much (I only paid 400 for the 3 hour bus ride from Belgrade) but I didn't care about a few dollars.

When I got to Guca I told the nice people at the Dom Kultura that I was Amerikanka. This one lady let me stay in her family's apartment. Rent is cheap; I think I just have to marry her son or something.

And then you find yourself...

bigbunny, originally uploaded by anasophia.

with a plane ticket to Belgrade. Almost as crazy as talking to a little rabbit. And everyone wants to give you advice, like: Bring a suit. Don't wear shorts. Stay away from drunk nationalist guys with shaved heads. Bring mace. Watch out for your bags. Don't go to nursing school; go to medical school in Belgrade. Bring Toilet Paper. Don't get married. Don't forget your passport. And have fun.