Le governement s'ecrase!

So Kostunica, the Prime Minister of Serbia, resigned yesterday and dissolved the Serbian government, citing irreconcilable differences within the administration over the issue of Kosovo as the reason.
I thought this sounded like pretty big news, but for the time being most Serbs I speak to seem to be rather non-plussed. For one, this is far from the first time they've dealt with a "transitional" or temporary administration, and for another, no one really has any idea what this means for the next election. It will be interesting to follow but it is impossible to make projections at this point, so everyone is simply in "stay tuned" mode.
The only thing people seem to think we will see in the near future is a rash of hasty big business purchases/dealings, privatisations, etc. Basically taking advantage of the nebulous legal limbo to move money around, purchase oil companies, sell off this old business, etc. I'm not so in tune with the business environment here so that will be hard to gauge, but that is probably where the biggest changes are going to occur in the nearest future, for now.
Otherwise, things putter along pretty much as normal in my work/social/nightlife lifestyle out here, so there's not much else to say...
A bientot.

La Semaine Suivante

Well it's the beginning of March now, and I guess the excitement has died down somewhat. After that crazy night and a tense following weekend things have pretty much reverted back to the usual routine. There were still groups of drunken asskickers running around during the weekend breaking stuff, but nothing as destructive as those riots, which now are commonly accepted as having been knowingly permitted and even encouraged by the Serbian government. I recommend checking out the Belgrade Blog for a great analysis about all that, and for any other type of Belgrade related topics.
I myself just missed by about a minute (luckily so, I should imagine) a large group of about 20 singing and shouting drunkards that went down my own quiet street kicking cars and signs and stuff two days after the protest, but that was about it as far as action goes.
People are still seething and a quite morose about it all, and the grey rainy weather of late isn't helping anything. The usual cafe/nighttime casual chats (or my own classes, which probably isn't so professional but hey, it gets people talking...) with people still slip easily into bitter rants about the whole situation, but otherwise everyone seems to just be sitting back and watching what will happen. No one knows...
I guess I got the pics up ok but I still can't figure out how to place them on the page, so it looks kinda sloppy, but you take what you can get...
Until there's more updates to give...
Pozdrav

Kosovo excitement

February 22, 2008

Well, having learned that blogging is really not my preferred mode of writing, I had basically let this page die with little intention of returning to it. However, it seems that recent events in my chosen city of living are now mandating that I write SOMETHING about it, and this is probably the simplest way to get it out there, sooooo… I’m back!
By now the entire world has seen the highly dramatic images of quasi-urban warfare coming out of Belgrade, black gendarmerie jeeps driving in formation through billowing clouds of teargas, angry crowds tearing through a burning US Embassy, all highly cinematic, almost like it was made for TV.
First things first, to answer the dozens of “are you ok?” emails in my inbox, yes, I’m doing just fine, albeit very tired from all the excitement and the slight strain of now very real daily paranoia. The warm welcome and hospitality I felt for a year and half has overnight switched to nasty resentment and blind anger. I have to watch out now because I am simply another dumbass American now in a place filled with a lot of people really, really pissed off at the US government. It’s not the first time and it will undoubtedly not be the last time, but it still is disappointing and frankly infuriating, for my part, that I simply cannot escape the consequences of myopic and totally pigfucked US foreign policy, even when I want nothing whatsoever to do with any of it.
But enough self-pity… I was in the midst of the protest last night for several hours, and I can comment on a few things. The first thing to point out is that, as mentioned before, the images on CNN and co. are indeed highly stylized and dramatic, but the reality of what happened was perhaps a bit less so. For once, the news got it more or less right, it was indeed just a few hundred hooligans, and not representative of the actions of the vast majority of 150,000+ protestors.
I had been moving with the main body of the protest from the National Parliament towards the downtown church that served as its final destination. At the intersection with Kneza Milosa, the large avenue that houses all the embassies and that was the scene of the action last night, I myself broke off from the main body and wandered down that way to check out the US Embassy; I was positive there would be some action there. We’ll return to this point in a bit, but almost as soon as I broke off from the main protest, I immediately noticed groups of hooligans everywhere on the edge gearing up for some trouble. They were finishing up their beer and warming up by breaking signs, stores, or whatever else would crunch and crack nicely, and they already had scarves/masks/hoods over their faces. Rule number 1 in dangerous places: if people are hiding their faces, get the hell out of there because they’re about to do something bad. A second later one of them started jeering at me for taking pics so I took the hint and just walked back into the main protest body, it already felt pretty volatile and dangerous, and I’m sure I would have been a delightful target for them to go after in the fray, a lone dumbass American in the wrong place at the wrong time. This was about 20 minutes before the embassy came under attack, and to me, it was already clear at that point that Kneza Milosa was going to be a hot zone, and boy was I right.
For the record, it should definitely be said that this was NOT the work of the majority of protestors. I was in the midst of the whole thing from beginning to almost the end and 95% of everyone was behaving completely civilly, it was definitely by and large a massive, peaceful protest… There were definitely pockets of hooligans here and there though, but even when smashing windows and looting stores, they kept to themselves and didn’t let the violence spill into the main group all that much. At least that’s what I saw…
The news has covered this in great detail by now and I don’t have anything particularly salient or profound to add except to put my own question mark on the Serbian government’s response as to why this happened. On the one hand, I do understand, to an extent, the validity of the argument that the protest was so massive that there simply weren’t enough police to dedicate to guarding the embassy. It really was THAT big of a protest, the ENTIRE city was filled with people, and from a security point of view I don’t doubt for a second that it was a formidable logistical undertaking.
BUT… That said, I find it almost unbelievable that they did not anticipate action at the US Embassy in particular. I was so sure of this lone fact that I took it for granted when I wandered over the Kneza Milosa to check things out, there wasn’t even any question in my mind that there would be SOMETHING there, and this was before I even saw the hooligans. I actually wondered if the whole protest march was supposed to go in front of the embassy to make a point… So, I’m quite dubious about the fact that the embassy was left totally unguarded at that moment, massive protest or not. SOMEBODY had to have known something was going to happen, and even if not, there was also ample time to see the trouble coming and mount a quick response. Maybe I’m missing something, but wasn’t that why there were vans shock full of riot cops in full gear ready for action just… waiting around, looking pissed off, EVERYWHERE? Why didn’t they get SOME kind of quick tip-off that people were moving on the embassies?
When I reached Slavija, a large traffic circle near the end destination and about a mile away from the embassy on foot, hooligans were already breaking away from the group and frantically running down towards Kneza Milosa. Even then, there was no question about what was going on, especially when one of them stopped for a second to take the scarf off his face and nicely ask a pretty girl what she thought was the fastest way to get to the US Embassy (I’m dead serious). So the question does need to be asked… Did the Serbian government LET this happen? It’s not my place to comment on that.
But that’s it for the speculations… Here are some of the better pics I took of the peaceful part of the protest, since I didn’t get close to the embassy. I have a lot of videos that turned out better that I will try to put up as soon as I figure out how.
Until next time… Pozdrav.

SQUISH

Yesterday was a real "only in Serbia" moment.
I was riding the bus down to the main busy street that runs by Ada Cigalnija (wikipedia it for an idea of what it is, although my spelling is almost certainly wrong) when I noticed a massive traffice snarl. It was clearly an accident, and it appeared to have happened at the intersection ahead. I expected a fender bender or at worst some idiots who got Tboned because of driving too aggressively through a red light or something.
The sight that finally greeted my eyes was far more, um, arresting. I can only make a best guess at what happened, and I may be off the mark, but the basic facts were pretty obvious. There was:

A) a large public bus stopped some 20 meters past the accident, with its side sporting some significant scratches, dents and marks, and a few of the windows smashed in.


B) a gypsy cart, badly mangled, although the passengers apparently did not suffer any injuries. As a sidenote, I should mention how original these gypsy vehicles are; they are almost always built completely from scratch from scavenged parts, the ultimate in do-it-yourself. They're powered by lawmower and tractor engines, run on anything from wooden wheels to bicycle wheels, usually have some sort of large space in the back for carrying cardboard boxes or people, and yes, they drive these hodgepodge creatures on all the main roads just like any other car. It's quite a sight to see one cough and sputter by right in the middle of the center of Belgrade, right among BMWs, Mercedes, and of course the ubiquitous Yugos.
This particular gypsy car, however, and perhaps this was the crucial factor in the accident, was not engine powered. It was propelled by...


C) one big ass horse, splattered all over the road in a humongous pool of its own blood which had been spread a good quarter mile down the road by the tires of passing cars.

That was it, no explanation, no crying or hysterical people, just two cops waving people along while a photographer documented various details. Everything had a very "business as usual" feel to it, adding to the already surreal feeling the scene created.

Squish.

Compte Rendu, s’il vous plait

So, where to begin on updating all the stuff that’s happened since I stopped regularly updating here? The lack of updates have been due to me being significantly busy, so there are almost limitless things I could talk about, making it quite difficult to focus on just one thing at a time.

I guess I’ll start with the event(s) of the week, which would likely be Exit festival. Exit is a huuuuuuuge music festival/gonzo spring-break style party that takes place in Novi Sad, a city about an hour and a half north of Belgrade, and has been going on for about 6 years consecutively. It has always been, and remains, a resounding success, and is by far the biggest single yearly event that takes place in Serbia that’s not a holiday or something. I did not go this year, a result of poor planning, budgeting, and just general organization, but it’s definitely something worth checking out. On the bill this year were Prodigy, Beastie Boys, Snoop Dog, Wu Tang clan, and many, many others, all top-notch A-list artists. Sunday night was the last night of Exit. I actually don’t know *that* many people that went this year, as most of the Serbs I know have been there enough times in previous years that that itch has been scratched for them, but it’s definitely a goal of mine now to make it next year.

Completely separate from Exit, Belgrade also hosted on Saturday night what will undoubtedly be the biggest band to come here for many, many years: The Rolling Stones. By all accounts, the concert was a huge success. Initially slated to play in the Belgrade hippodrome (horse racing track), which would have made it the largest venue on their European tour with a capacity of 100,000+ people, it was later moved to a different location due to… horses.

The organizers of the club, realizing that the insane decibels of the Stones concert would almost certainly cause the horses all around the area significant stress, decided to deal with that problem in a delicate manner: by ordering several dozen tons of horse tranquilizers and knocking the animals flat on their asses for the concert. Well, I suppose that it woulda worked… However, the Stones, along with, I’m sure, animal rights activists everywhere, upon hearing of this dastardly plan, felt sorry for the horses, and thus the venue was changed.

The concert was such a big affair that the Serbian government went into a state of alert to deal with it. There were cops and security *everywhere*. I had flashbacks of Presidential speeches next to my office in DC with all the security, except this was for Mick Jagger and Company. I did not go see that concert either, but it must have been quite impressive since Serbs tend to be quite demanding of foreign bands that come playing here…

Last month the Red Hot Chili Peppers came to play in a town somewhere, uh, in the middle of nowhere in Serbia (Indjija), a similarly gigantic and ambitious event. After making tens of thousands of people wait for hours in the rain before coming on stage, they played a lackluster 90 minute set (13 songs) before dashing off. Even worse, the concert promoters/organizers/whatever, in a totally amateurish lack of planning, made absolutely no provisions for what to do *after* the concert, so it was a total free for all between about 70,000 people to squeeze out of *one* parking lot. Basically, anyone who went to that concert ended up coming back to Belgrade, one way or another, the next day at 7 or 8 in the morning. The incredibly hyped experience left a great many with a bitter taste in their mouth.

Similarly harsh criticism has been leveled at many other big acts that have made it to Belgrade this year, such as Busta Rhymes, 50 Cent, and others… So, I suppose the Stones must have done something right, since rave reviews from Serbia are definitely not just handed out freely.

I suppose the whole point of this illustrates the fact that Belgrade is now firmly and definitely back on the “mainstream music” scene, speaking globally. The New York Times article from 2005 about Belgrade mentioned how the place is an “up and coming touring location for major bands” (something like that, not a direct quote). I would correct that by taking out the “up and coming”. Belgrade is now firmly back on the list of major cities to visit for the world’s biggest bands, right alongside Paris, London, Rome, etc, and I would estimate it is quite likely that this trend will continue to move in this direction quickly in the next few years here.

As yet more evidence of this, my own personal FAVORITEBANDOFALLTIMETILLETERNITY (yes, that’s the official title, don’t forget the caps), Tool, is coming here in September. I must admit that is nice to have a clear date and event that you can pinpoint in your life and say that once it has passed and you've lived to see it, you *can* die and at least will have accomplished one thing that mattered. I never thought I would even get to see the extremely reclusive and rarely-emerging Tool even in the U.S. of A., and figured I had pretty much missed my chance forever to see them live when I left. I *never* for a second dared to hope they would come to Belgrade… Maybe Budapest or somewhere else nearby in the area or something, but not BG… and yet it’s going to happen. And I will be there. I still am kind of scared to believe in it. Basically, if anything or anyone keeps me from going to that concert on September 5, 2007, it/they will die a gruesome and most certainly painful death, no exceptions and no mercy.

That happy note concludes this update. J

A bientot!

Appuyez sur le bouton “Restart” s’il vous plait

No, the blog is not dead; it was simply stalled for a while. With apologies to any readers, I’ve decided to try to revive in with a more focused approach. I started writing here in an aimless and hesitant fashion, relatively unsure of what to do with this type of platform.

Instead of being keeping the focus on my own personal developments like if this was some personal diary, I’ve decided to switch to a slightly different approach and try to come up with shorter, relatively unrelated anecdotes about life in Serbia. Hopefully this will give me more flexibility and ideas for more frequent updates.

Time permitting, I will also try to figure out how to get pictures online and onto the blog more often as well, although I make no solid promises there.

So, more to come on stuff that’s actually ABOUT Serbia and living here very soon…

Springtime updates

I have already hit the 6 month mark here in Serbia. Just one year ago today I was sitting in my quiet office job in DC counting down the days till I left and got to start the whole adventure. It’s satisfying to look back on it all now and to see how well everything has turned out. Sort of, I guess. I’m currently out of a job and soon out of an apartment, and yet life overall is still so great here that those don’t even seem like big problems.

My job at the import-export place basically just ran its course. I had no illusions when I started there of it being a long-term affair, and that’s exactly how it turned out. There simply wasn’t much work there for me to do beyond the initial first 3 months, so that’s that and it’s time to go out and find something new, which I’m fully confident will happen.

The apartment situation is less pleasant, but also not that big of a deal. Basically the landlord tried to pull a fast one on us and we called him on it and that’s that. After coming by for a pleasant visit to the apartment last week, we (my roommate and myself) informed him that we wanted to extend the lease another 6 months, which he seemed pleased with, and he was to draw up the new documents for us to sign a few days later. In a phone call the day before we were supposed to sign, among the discussion of various trivial details, he casually dropped the fact that he was also, “by the way, increasing the rent another 100 euros a month”. It was all quite sleazy and cheap, as if he really thought we were stupid enough to just fall for that or not notice it or something, like it would just quietly slide under the carpet. We immediately told him that was completely unacceptable (this place is already an outrageous rip-off as is, but it was easier to keep than going out to find some new place, an ambitious endeavor in Belgrade) and things fell apart from there, so we now have until mid-May to find someplace new.

I look at it as a blessing in disguise, kind of like the job in a way. This will force us to get off our lazy asses and get out there to find something better to live in. I was never particularly thrilled with this rip-off apartment at all, nor did I at any point like, trust or appreciate the landlord with his constant whining excuses, thinly-veiled deceptions, and just general loser weaseling, so I’m actually quite happy we will be done with his worthless ass and have him out of our lives. There still remains the issue of regaining the security deposit, which he is desperately and blatantly doing everything within his power to keep, but that will sort itself out one way or another and then we’ll be finished with him for good.

Same goes for the job, albeit without the leftover bad taste in my mouth; while it was nice, cushy and not stressful, it also wasn’t even remotely challenging or particularly interesting. I had gotten very lazy in general with it, what with the ability to make my own schedule and work at my own pace, so I view it as a good kick in the butt to have that cut off and to be forced to go out and pursue many of the different things I’ve been intending to for months.

Other than that, life is great, fun, chaotic, random, surprising, and unpredictable. I literally never now how any given day is going to end, and that’s a great thing. That’s pretty much the whole update for now…

It continues

More shameless self-promotion... I had another item published online, so now I'm 2 for 2. Not bad... This one was a personal story for a relatively dorky website called common ties, a true incident that happened when I was 11 in the Congo. It's a bit strange for me since this is a pretty private, true story that I really have told very few people about, and to go from that habitual privacy to putting it up there for thousands to read on the internet (with dork-tastic pictures of myself to boot) is, well, a bit uncomfortable for me. But whatever, I got paid for this one and it only took me 2 hours of work, so I really can't complain... The story is here.
In other news, spring has arrived in Belgrade and it's stunning outside. Yesterday I went on an overnight trip to Banja Luka, a city within Republika Srpska, the Serbian enclave in Bosnia. Although the bus rides each way were noticeably longer than advertized (7 long hours) it was a cool trip. The scenery all along the way ranged from interesting to stunning, and Banja Luka itself was a perfectly pleasant town to visit.
The whole point of the short trip (which I took with my roomate and a mutual friend who alternates between living in Belgrade and Banja Luka, he rode over with us) was for us to basically make a border run and get our 3 month tourist visas renewed, so we could renew our police registration cards also. Well... So my roomate could renew his. As you can see from one of my previous blog entries, my attempts at playing by the police's rules didn't go so smoothly. Luckily everything went pretty much according to plan/hopes for this trip. We didn't have any particular troubles at any border (although got more fuss trying to LEAVE Serbia than come back in, go figure). We got our passports stamped correctly and both went to the police station this morning, where, despite much grumbling and foot-dragging, we were able to register as we should. So that problem is solved and I got a nice quick visit out of the whole process.
That's pretty much my update. In the more general sense life is great, never been better. Good weather, good people, good food, good times, and few problems. There is a *slight* possibility that I will start writing for B-92, the biggest and most well known media station in Serbia; after a productive january month, my motivation and inspiration to write sharply dropped, but now I'm trying to get back into it again and keep my momentum going. So, hopefully, there will be more good updates soon...
A bientot

Shameless Self-Promotion

My first article was published today. It is for an Italian online newspaper called Peacereporter that deals with international issues and topics. My article is about the Chinese people in Belgrade and their Chinatown. For now only the Italian version is up, but whatever, it's still cool to see my work in print. The photos were mine also.
Here's the link:
Peacereportner.net

Danger lurks in the most inconspicuous places

The one absolute truth we have in life is that we all have to die, somehow. Traveling around the world, one can become familiar with many different things that can end your life, from third world buses to drug dealers to war-related stuff to all sorts of fun diseases. Part of becoming a real world traveler involves becoming familiar with recognizing bad situations and knowing how to avoid them.

Serbs are a tough, tough people, the product of having survived a great many hardships over their turbulent history. Even today, you gotta be tough to make it in Belgrade. Serbs have had to be strong to deal with wild traffic, NATO bombings, depleted uranium, the wars in the 1990s, Milosevic and his thuggish regime, etc.

Of all the dangerous things in Serbia though, there is one that clearly towers above all else, the simple mention of which will send most Serbs into a cold sweat. The number one killer of Serbs is something so insinuous and devious that it had never even occurred to me to be aware of it before coming here. The most dangerous thing in Serbia is called promaja.

Mention just this word to Serbs and you will be sat down for a serious, serious talk. It is NOT a laughing matter. Promaja, I have been sternly informed on many occasions, can cause any number of horrendous ailments, from obliterating your ovaries (really worrisome for me) to causing crippling neck cricks to freezing your face in absolutely horrible disfigurement (stop laughing, that shit is for real!) to arthritis and blindness/deafness, along with quite a few other serious conditions (like the common cold). This comes from highly reliable scientific sources, I am repeatedly informed by wide-eyed locals. The Russians proved it.

The most tragic thing about promaja is that is occurs because of simple human negligence. You see, Serbs die when anyone is careless enough to leave open a window AS WELL as a door in a given room. The ensuing PROMAJA- possibly known as a draft in other parts of the world- will mercilessly melt the faces of any and all occupants inside. This is a rare occurrence here since people are educated about promaja, so much so that, thankfully, no one has ever actually SEEN a promaja victim, but trust, they’re out there and their plight is atrocious. You can be sure they wish they had paid closer attention to that draft…

I’m not sure if my life can ever be the same now that I’ve been properly trained in counter-promaja tactics. I’ll never be able to relax next to windows, car rides will become a paranoid window-watching exercise, I will have to constantly watch the doors in a room to make sure no air is flowing… I miss the days of blissful ignorance I enjoyed before coming to Serbia. Sometimes what you don’t know really can’t hurt you.

The only thing I can do now is write up this dire warning in the hope of saving my loyal readers from a horrible fate. Now ya know. Also, going outside with wet hair is playing Russian roulette with your life. You can all thank me for this life saving advice next time we meet (checks are also accepted).

A bientot

The Wonders of Post-Communist Bureaucracy

This has been a slow, relatively dull week. I guess this is the quiet post-holiday hangover time for Belgrade. The weather this week has been uniformly gray and dull, the mood seems flat and tired, and pretty much everyone and their mother is sick with something. Everyone is busy preparing for welcome-back-to-school exams, returning to work after holiday vacations, or just resting from the new year and Xmas revelry (both rounds of it).

This week started off on the wrong foot for me, as I got to, once again, experience the joys and wonders of Serbian bureaucracy. All foreigners staying in the country for substantial amounts of time are supposed to register at the nearest police station within 3 days of arrival, according to the law. That’s all fine and dandy, I have no problem with that. If you check into a hotel or are here for work, usually these things are taken care of by the host institution. If you’re living here, your landlord needs to accompany you and vouch for you at the station, which is where my situation becomes complicated. My landlord, being located in Denmark, had to jump through some hoops and fill out paperwork at the Serbian embassy in Denmark, then have it sent here. Naturally, this was done with all due haste; I mean, three and a half months is a perfectly reasonable amount of time for these things.

Now with the paperwork in said landlord’s local cousin’s possession, you’d think things would be ok. After about our third fruitless visit to the police station it was revealed to us (my roommate and I) that it would probably just be simpler to make some sort of border run to get a new entrance visa and come back to register “within the rules” of the 3 day time limit. Since both of us were on the eve of holiday travels, we both thought this was reasonable, and my roommate was actually able to get registered with no hassles upon his return.

When I returned from Prague, however, I was informed that the monolingual local landlord 's cousin (say that three times real fast) could not meet with me and go to the station within 3 days of my arrival; I’d have to wait until Monday, 5 days after my arrival, but I was assured that this would be “no problem”, which I thought was reasonable. I have talked to about a dozen other foreigners here, the majority of which were able to register with no fuss after 3 days, so it would appear that the 3 day rule is not extremely rigid.

I guess that makes me unlucky or something, because I wasted yet ANOTHER goddamn* morning at the stupid ass police station being yelled at in Serbian by surly hung-over cops and being moved around from desk to desk to yet another desk, to another wing of the station, another desk, another office, another desk, downstairs to another office, another desk, another desk, another desk, back upstairs, another official, another desk, all ending up BACK AT THE SAME FUCKING DESK I STARTED AT. All this, just to be told to basically fuck off, I was too late.

Now I’m not sure exactly what they expect me to do. Besides being pissed at my landlord for putting me in this situation by his utter laziness (this is just one gripe among many others I have with him), I do have to express some considerable admiration for the sheer dedication to utter fucking incompetence the Serbian police apparently show in this matter. At the risk of offending any Serbian readers of this blog, I’m gonna make a big statement here. All I need is a simple piece of paper; it simply has my name, address, date of arrival, any police officer’s signature and a stamp. That’s IT. There is NO GODDAMN EXCUSE why this should be so complicated to get, 3 days or not. To my great consternation, I realized as I was leaving the station for the 4^th futile time that SHITTY LITTLE AFRICAN COUNTRIES CAN DO THIS BULLSHIT BETTER THAN SERBIANS. There, I said it. There is just no excuse for people as smart and sophisticated as Serbs to be so goddamn stupid about such a simple ass matter.

Anyways, that’s pretty much the end of the rant. At this point I guess I have no recourse left but to call the US Embassy and see if they can help me where my worthless landlord cannot. In the meantime now, I apparently can’t leave from the main Belgrade airport now; if I want to fly anywhere, I have to book a ticket now from fucking Budapest or something. Not only that but I’m fairly sure this puts me in a somewhat precarious situation legally speaking in Serbia. I’ve made it for three months without being registered ok, but now it’s going to start interfering with my work and stuff. I’ve been commissioned to write a story about the Chinese people in Belgrade, and I want to interview some Serbian immigration or whatever officials. In this part of the world though, people pretty much automatically assume that any foreigner walking around asking questions is a spy. Guess what the first thing they will ask me for is, if I ever schedule an interview with any Serbian govt. official? Yep, police registration. I'm sure it'll be fiiiiiiiiine to walk into Serbian government buildings as a completely illegal foreigner asking questions, that's not suspicious at all or anything.

With such stunningly efficient bureaucracy I’m actually quite shocked that Serbs aren’t the ones who coined the term “going postal”.

*(sorry for the swearing, Grandma)

Amsterdam Impressions

This is what I wrote within hours of my extraction from Amsterdam:

After approximately 42 hours stuck on a crowded bus driving across Europe with a bunch of Serbs, I finally arrived into Amsterdam with the crowd and we checked into the hostel.

Eight days later now I have finally managed to crawl out of the cesspit of Amsterdam, in a style completely appropriate for that length of stay in that city. I’m sitting hungover, sleepless, broke, unshowered and wearing the same clothes for the third day in a row, unshaved, and sick as a dog in the airport in Milan slowly getting re-acquainted with my sanity.

Amsterdam was overwhelming, incredible, utterly bizarre, decadent and depraved, stylish, neat, rich, endlessly fascinating in some ways and utterly dull in others, rational and yet illogical at the same time. I guess the simplest way to describe is as the sum of its parts. To me, it seemed like an extremely nice, lovely and old European city that was rented out for a huge sleazy frat party, 27/7, 365. That was basically it. It was all quite confusing, really; I’ve never seen so many different people from literally around the world in one place, and with everyone getting along so harmoniously and in such an environment. Yet everything in Amsterdam is so seemingly problem free, and the international-ism and tolerance stuff taken so far and so seriously, that in the end it all feels only skin deep and rather shallow. Basically Amsterdam is nothing more than a neat old European city with great architecture where people from around the world go to get completely, utterly and totally fucked up. It’s Disneyworld for adults, or perhaps the international version of Las Vegas. Amazing and yet also quite overrated at the same contradictory time.

Now I’m on my way to Prague, finally, and fittingly leaving Amsterdam like a cat who spent a few too many rough nights in the gutter.

Apres l'aventure Europeene

Once again my procrastinating has left this blog neglected for too long. With great apologies to my many fans :P I’m happy to report that I’m back from almost a month of traveling adventures (or misadventures, depending on your perspective I suppose) through Europe, which makes for a whole lot of updating that I will do in a few parts.

So in more or less chronological order, here’s the summarized update since my last post...

After a short but enjoyable Christmas visit from my dad to Belgrade, I packed my bags and hopped onto a bus to Amsterdam to spend New Year’s there. The trip was organized by a hip young (as in, run by a bunch of young peeps) Serbian travel company, and accordingly the whole trip was fun, chaotic, messy, crazy, enthusiastic, and just generally one heck of an experience. Traveling with Serbs in general was an interesting endeavor that I will write more about later.

The bus ride up was great fun, albeit excruciatingly long, about 42 hours total. We left Belgrade with two double-decker buses on the afternoon of the 28^th of January, and drove through the night. Crossing the border into Hungary ate up a good 5 or 6 hours, and there was some sort of chaotic stop in the middle of the night because of some mess involving lost passports... The original plan called for an 8 hour stop in Munich so the bus drivers could rest, but once in Austria the second bus broke down (didn’t see THAT one coming, didja!), so we ended up in nearby Salzburg, Austria instead. Despite the complications and the change of destination the stop in Salzburg was a terrific little break, providing a chance for a very nice scenic afternoon walk around the city, a great dinner with fantastic German beer, some drunken ice skating and in general just a nice release from the stifling confines of the bus.

The second leg of the trip, from Salzburg to Amsterdam, was considerably rougher. We drove through the night again and this time I just couldn’t get comfortable, my ipod was out of batteries, people were smelly, cranky and tired and arguing, and the hours just dragged on interminably. By the time we finally arrived in Amsterdam the next day, early in the afternoon, it felt like being on some African refugee bus or something.

Nevertheless the trip was quickly forgotten upon arrival in the Dam. I wrote up another blog of my impressions there shortly after I left the place, so I will upload that later and leave this short in the interest of space. After 7 completely crazy fear and loathing-themed days in Amsterdam, I left the place barely intact and hopped onto a plane to Prague, to take a 10 day journalism course there.

I have never arrived in any city in the world so utterly unprepared or uninformed as I did in Prague, but I just didn’t have time to brush up on the place while I was in Amsterdam. I arrived without a clue about what even the currency was, didn’t know a single thing about the place, what to do out of the airport, where to go, nothing. To my great pleasure I was able to just wing it like a pro upon arrival, and was able to get my baggage, find my way downtown on the public transportation and check into my well-hidden hotel without a hitch, which was a nice little confidence builder.

The journalism course and the next 10 days in Prague were utterly fantastic. The course was excellent, with outstanding experienced instructors giving us great advice, the networking was great and tons of great contacts were made, the whole group of students taking the course was terrific, we all got along great and had an utter blast exploring Prague, yadda yadda yadda. Basically 10 totally splendid days, and I was very sorry to reach the conclusion of the course. It was a great way to kickstart 2007.Nonetheless, it was time to head back home to BG...

That was 3 days ago. Now I’m back in good ol’ Serbia, right on the eve of the elections here, and the mood is electric. It is very good to be back, despite having had a great trip.

That’s the short update... I will write more about my impressions of Amsterdam, the journalism course/Prague, and my dad’s visit as soon as I have time, so all my faithful readers will have their patience rewarded soon :)

Apparently they have high speed trains in Montenegro.

So I went and saw the new James Bond movie this week, the night after it opened here in Serbia. It was in a huge room and the place was packed.
The movie was quite excellent overall, although still no match for the Bourne series if you ask me... And in fact there were quite a number of quasi-blatant ripoffs from the Matt Damon movies that my sharp eye caught, but that's not really the point... Daniel Craig is pimp, I've liked him since Layer Cake, but then again I thought that everything he did in this movie could have been done just as well if not better by Clive Owen. Owen was my personal choice to be the next Bond, but they didn't pick him allegedly because he would be "too rough" and rugged as the next Bond... And yet now we have the new movie and all Bond does is be rugged and kick ass. I digress, however...
Although the movie was fun in and of itself, watching it with an audience of Serbs made things a little more educational. The scene where Bond arrives in Montenegro in particular was the highlight... He arrives, in true Bond fasion, into Montenegro on a luxury high speed train, or TGV as they call it in France. Needless to say, this scene was met with some loud, um, appreciation from the audience. And by appreciation I mean uncontrollable howls of laughter. Fun times. It is now my goal in life to find this mythical high speed train in Montenegro and ride it like Bond.
The Bond movie was filled with other little-known factoids about Montenegro. The streets are spotlessly clean, clear, the weather is stunning, and the architecture is all in pristine condition. Czech Republic ain't got SHIT on Montenegro, yo. The Policija zip around in glistening Mercedes and Audis that are of course spotlessly clean and unscathed (and even have the same set of all four tires on each one.... Take THAT, Belgrade!). Said cops themselves all have immaculate uniforms worthy of a Marine Corps parade. I don't think hardass Belgrade cops can compete with that shit.
At least they got the cyrillic signs everywhere correct, as far as I can tell. They threw in a few "kafanas" into some scenes and exits doors are correctly labeled "Izlaz" instead of plain old EXIT, so I guess that's at least a little bit of detail they could have just as easily skipped without your average dumb American audience-goer knowing any difference.

Later in the week I was taken to a bar with some friends. The place was called KST, which is the acronym for some university faculty section or something related that I can't recall right at this moment. It was deep in the bowels of the basement of the academic building it's named after, which was prety cool in and of itself. Hey, I woulda gone to class more often in the US if I'd known there were bitching clubs hidden away just a few floors down. Actually, no I wouldn't have, who am I kidding...
Anyways, the place itself wasn't anything to write home about, basically your standard dive bar formula. Loud music, cheap drinks, cramped dirty quarters, mix and shake and voila. That was upon first impression...
What made the experience a tad more unique was the music and the crowd there. It was apparently oldies night at this place. They played one classic after another of American rock music from the 50s, 60s, and 70s. Led Zeppelin, the Beatles, the Stones, the Doors, Prestley, the Beach Boys, Creedence, Crosby Stills Nash Young, Jefferson Airplane, Hendrix, Janis Joplin, Fleetwood Mac, etc etc etc etc etc etc. Absolutely great music selection, as far as I was concerned...
However where it got a little funky with me was seeing pretty much every young Serb person in the place LOSE THEIR SHIT over the music. They were busting moves like there was no tomorow... I enjoy classic rock and oldies more than most, but it has never even OCCURRED to me to try to dance to any of it. Not knocking it or anything, it's just honestly an idea that's never entered my mind. I mean how do you dance to Hendrix?!
Imagine, if you will, a prom night video from the 1950s, with all the kiddies bee-bopping and doing the twist and all that other silly shit (sorry Baby Boomers, but it was just silly.). Now put them crazy dancing kids in a smoky night club, dress them all up in the latest Euro-sexy-bitch look with tight pants, halter tops and high heel boots and some aviator glasses just for good measure(if you've seen pics of Belgrade girls you know the style I'm talking about)... Or even better, bearded/grungy, rough-looking Serb guys in leather outfits who look like they just came back from a Metallica or Slayer concert. Of course, ubiquitous cigarettes everywhere. ALL OF THEM doing "the twist" and other crazy shit that I didn't even really believe my parents ACTUALLY did back in the day. Set that to the Beach Boys "Surfing USA" , take a picture and put in next to "incongruous" in the dictionary.
Who needs drugs when reality can be this nuts, eh?

Gourmandise incontrollable

If my memory serves correctly, doesn't conventional wisdom hold that you should not eat anything bigger than your head?
What about bigger than, say, the whole circumference of my torso? Does the same rule apply?
In an ambitious, drunken, foolhardy and almost certainly poor decision in the longterm (we'll worry about it tomorow, or as Serbs would say... JEBIGA, not gonna translate that one), I took on the challenge tonight of eating a "maxi gurmanska pljeskavica". Literally this translates to (I think) "maximum-sized gourmet (meaning that pork, ham, cheese, fat Serbian chef love, deliciousness, grease and various other healthy ingredients are mixed into the beef patty) hamburger". That's the literal translation... I think that, however, a more accurate translation would be "two lost years of your life expectancy".
It was utterly worth it. I think. I hope. I'm not sure actually. I don't really remember too much, I guess it was kind of like childbirth. I actually blacked out during some parts of the epic battle with the beast. Look at the size of the chair your ass is sitting on, and you'll get a vague idea of how monstrously huge (and totally frigging cowabunga awesome) this thing was. It was from a streetside stand down in Skardalija called Loki, which is reputed- no, well known actually- as by far the best place to eat pljieskavica and other slaughtered animal meat products. Hey, humans didn't fight their way to the top of the food chain for nothing. Like I said before, if you're vegetarian, Serbia is NOT the place for you.
Anyways the pljieskavica basically molested me like a [CENSORED FOR GRANDMA], but it was absolutely worth it. My Serbian co-horts were thoroughly impressed by my performance. I'm not a huge eater in general but tonight I guess I lived up to everyone's stereotypes of what an American apetite is. That's actually kind of embarrassing, really, but hey, who am I to back down from a meat-eating challenge?
So I'm off to bed now with the knowledge that I've paid with two years of my life tonight, and I'm not even sorry. We all gotta die sometime...
Adieu

Belgrade is littered with small convenience stands located on just about every corner. They sell everything from cigarettes to drinks to snacks to cellphone minutes. They're called "shtampas" (not correct spelling).
So the one just 10 feet from our door sells condoms. They sell *exactly* and *exclusively* two kinds of condoms:
- EXTRA SAFE
- ULTRA THIN
Tough choice, eh? Seriously, think about that one for a bit.

Yes, I'm still alive, quit your bitching

So clearly I was a little slow about working the blog since my arrival in Belgrade. Meh well, better late than never I suppose… Perhaps it’s better this way, as first impressions have been tempered by time and I have had a chance to experience the place a little more in depth.

After my basically uneventful and hassle-free arrival (no lost luggage, met up with my roommate at the airport just fine, etc…) I moved into my small but adequate apartment and got to work adjusting to the city. Over the past three weeks I have made tons of new friends, explored many of the exciting things in Belgrade, had a chance to get out of the centre itself into various suburbs, and I’m still just getting started.

Belgrade itself is fascinating and (at least to me) really cool. It is bigger than I expected, and yet far more compact and concentrated than I initially thought. Living in the center, this is a boon; it literally never takes more than 15-20 minutes of walking to get almost anywhere I want to go here. It also makes for a really interesting place to explore. It’s easy to keep one’s bearings since landmarks are never really far from each other, and there are countless small alleys, underground passages, and various other paths to get to wherever you’re going.

What I like most about the place is how packed with detail everything is, because of this relative compactness. People complain about the city looking run-down, but I would describe it as lived-in instead. Every street is packed with tons of small shops of every type, the sidewalks are almost always bustling with people going about their daily business (or just wandering…) at all hours of the day or night, parked cars swarm all over the sidewalk in other places, countless buses, trams and trolleys race around frenetically everywhere while suicidal drivers in tiny Yugos and Opals drive like their lives depend on their getting somewhere RIGHT NOW GODDAMMIT (although that sounds different in Srpski)… Elsewhere, graffiti, posters, signs and random artwork fill almost every free space on every wall, stray cats and dogs laze around looking for some trouble to get into (the plus side of stray critters? I have not seen a single rat so far in Belgrade)… People often describe Belgrade as “dynamic”, but that’s a rather vague and empty descriptor. A few hours spent strolling the streets here, however, makes it clear what is meant by this; every inch of this city seems to teem with life of some sort, there is always something interesting going on, and oftentimes something may be happening right around the corner and you’d have no clue if you didn’t look into it.

This is in fact my second favorite thing about the city, the fact that it is packed with secrets. Well, at least they seem like secrets to my foreign ass; all the locals seem to know the place inside and out. Nonetheless, I’ve lost count of the number of places I’ve been taken to (key word) that I would absolutely never have been able to find unless someone took me there. Secret bars, clubs, parties, even stores… They hide away in dark alleyways that just scream “enter here for rape, sucka”, on rooftops just a few floors above your head, in little courtyards that seemed empty and quiet from the street… Discovering these little secrets is always a treat. I recall waiting with a friend to meet up with some people who would take us to a party… That turned out to be on the rooftop right above our head, thunderously loud and drunken, and yet I didn’t have the slightest clue it was there just minutes beforehand while sitting in the street…
Other times I’ve been to a small party deep within an actual dark, dungeon-like wine cellar (complete with a crazy old drunk Serb winemaker living it up with the young’ins), a club built within what appeared to be a natural cave (think the bat-cave with Madonna, on ecstacy…), or even a snazzy New York-style art exhibition straight out of Sex and the City or something. Serbs are party animals and they definitely know how to pick cool locations for their rabble-rousing…

The food has also been *extremely* to my liking, another great surprise. It’s definitely not for everybody, but I feel like I’ve found meat-eating nirvana… Serbian burger (pljeskavica) is pretty much the greatest thing I’ve ever had and the addiction shows no signs of slowing down. I also can’t describe how good the Giros are without using too many expletives, so I’ll just refrain all around. Death by clogged arteries, how very… American, I guess. Go figure, huh? I go halfway across the world to die of the same shit most Americans will.

If not that, then it’ll be the smoke here… I knew it was going to be bad, I had braced myself mentally, and I thought my upbringing around the French would have provided all the necessary training in this field, but HOLY BATSHIT HELL are Serbs hardcore about their smoking… Last weekend was a humbling experience, as my eyes actually started to burn just like with tear gas in one particularly stifling, smoked-out underground dungeon… The pollution in the city is also a good bit worse than I expected. On many evenings you can easily see a sort of thick haze lying over the city, and sometimes even taste it… I thought these things wouldn’t bother my iron lungs and yet I sit here with a hacking cough writing this. Comes with the territory, I guess.

By far the greatest thing about Belgrade, though, is the people. Although Serbs tend to be just a *tad* bit grouchy in their day-to-day life (and who can blame them, they’ve been through rough times and life isn’t always easy in this city), every single person I have gotten to know on a personal has been nothing but exceptionally friendly with me. I can largely generalize and say that I find Serbs to be particularly clever and “switched-on” people. I won’t even get started on the women in this city, because I know I will just get carried away and that’s a whole other blog right there, and their reputation probably precedes them anyway, so I’ll just confirm the rumors and leave it at that. Yes, the women of Belgrade are unbelievable. It’s got to be something in the water…
I guess that’s it for now… Hopefully I’ll be updating this more often now so that the entries aren’t so massive.
Adieu

Voila, Voila, je suis arrive...

So at long last, after almost a year of daydreaming and planning and saving and preparing and learning and working and okyougetheidea, I am FINALLY in Belgrade. It was a long time coming…

The actual traveling portion of it all went off without a hitch, thankfully. My flights were more or less on time and my luggage didn’t get lost. The 1h20minflight from Zurich to Belgrade was when things started to get interesting. I knew I was finally getting close to my destination, and so was more alert to the people around me and what was going on. After battling my way through the, um, “line” to get onto the plane (and I use that term *very* loosely), I boarded and found my seat, strapped myself in, and noted that the entire plane, people, clothes, seats, bags… everything smelled like smoke. Shoulda seen that one coming… I had a window seat and a nice, gentle-looking old man sat down in the isle seat next to me. After settling in, the nice old man then proceeded to pull out a big’ol porno mag that he then read with great attention and focus for the rest of the flight. Mmmmmmkay then.

The landing in Belgrade took us over fields as far as the eye can see, with just a small glimpse of Belgrade in the distance, hazy and grey and bright looking. The Swiss pilots executed what was easily the softest, cleanest landing I have ever experienced in a passenger plane… Followed immediately by the fastest STOOOOP I have ever seen a passenger plane make. Seriously, we went from like 160 to 0 in about 2 seconds flat. I had no idea passenger planes could even do that. Then they actually turned the plane around completely, right there on the runway, and taxied back to the head of the strip. I then realized this peculiar landing was a necessity born of “special” airport design. Oh well…

After working my way through the arrival gauntlet (including walking past a small airport café where I actually had to *squint* through a cloud of smoke to spot the diners inside… I thought clouds of smoke like that only existed in the movies), I grabbed my luggage with no hassles and made my way out to the arrival hall, where my new roommate and I found each other with no problems, called a cab and hopped in to head to the city.

The drive into the city was nothing special, although it was a gorgeous day to be arriving in the city. This was a stark contrast to the day I left DC, easily one of the grimmest and grayest afternoons I had experienced there in a long time. Fitting, I suppose. We got to the apartment, settled in for a bit, and then went walking all around the city.

I’ll write about my impressions when I’ve had time to absorb things a bit more.
Adieu
(This was written the day after I arrived in Belgrade, although for practical purposes I’ve only been able to update it into the blog now, hence the goofy entry dates)

Well, I'm in Austin now. There isn't a whole lot to write about... All my flights on the way over were on time and I got here without a hitch, which is always nice. The weather here is ideal. Did some shopping yesterday, got a huge-ass new suitcasefor thetrip. Other than that... All that's left to do now is count the days.

Assis dans un apartement vide.

So here we are at last, with my very own blog...
I suppose in the long run this will be Serbia-related, but who knows. At the very least, it's certainly a useful way to keep family and friends updated on my life.
At the moment I'm sitting in an almost completely emtpied apartment. My mother was here this past week helping me figure out storage and pack up and all that sorta fun stuff. Man was it fun, there's nothing as exciting as putting stuff in boxes all day long, then lifting those boxes and hauling them all around town, then rinsing and repeating! Yeah... Fun like the dentist's office. But we got it done, somewhat to my astonishment.
I'm still not used to walking into the place and not having *any* of the stuff I've had around for the better part of two years lying about, the usual mess, etc. It really drives the point home that I'm just about done with Washington, DC. Weirdly enough, I think I like this whole Spartan-Bushido-Dojo (it sounds better than "I got no stuff") style of apartment decor. My girlfriend strongly disagrees.
In a few days I'll be heading to Austin, TX, to housesit for my mom for about 10 days, and then I'm back here again for just a handful of days to really wrap up the last few things, close up the storage for good, hand off the keys to the apartment, and then *finally*... I'm off to Serbia, on October 17. It's about damn time.
It was easy to daydream about going to someplace different and new everyday when I was stuck in my dreary office. The reality of packing up everything and moving to a place where I don't know the language, a single person, or anything else for that matter, is a little more, um, complicated, both logistically and emotionally. I knew, of course, that it would be, and I'm glad that as I get closer to D-Day here I'm not finding myself doubting my decision.
Why Serbia? I really don't know. I can't give specific reasons, a list, measured and logical facts or anything like that; it just feels right. I'm not sure it will even really matter when I get there. What matters more is that I know leaving DC is the right thing to do. I've been here, more or less directly, for 6 years now. That's, uhhhh (smell the burning calories as I try to do math) probably twice as long as I've lived in any other single place. You could say it was my first attempt at "taking roots" in a given place, trying to stick out friendsihps and relationships and jobs and yadda yadda yadda. Before that, it was always time to pick up and leave every 2-3 years, a lifestyle you get used to (or addicted to? Jury's still out on that one).
Looking back, I can't say DC treated me particularly well. In the interest of looking foward vs. backwards, I'm not going to waste time on it all, but suffice to say I'm not really sad to be leaving at all. I worried (or hoped?) for awhile that getting closer to leaving would sort of drive home some kind or realization or epiphany, that hey, life ain't so bad here, and that I'd somehow get sucked into staying here longer. I'm glad to see that is not the case, but in fact quite the opposite.
At this point, I cannot *wait* to get to Belgrade. I've been planning all of this for a long time now, and I've been slower to act on it than I initially imagined, but now that it's almost here I can practically taste all the beer and meat I plan to consume there. Through a lucky and utterly serendipidous turn of fate, I have managed to find another guy just about my age, from the US, *also* going to Belgrade, for reasons as fuzzy and vague as mine. Very fortunate, and very bizarre, I mean really, what are the odds? Either way I must say I'm quite glad to have been put in touch with him. He, however, just arrived in Belgrade about a week ago and has been very busy updating his own blog with pictures and overall reports of how fricking awesome everything seems. Naturally, this makes being stuck here in an empty apartment, counting the days, that much more difficult. I guess I should be using this time to practice my Serbian more... Yeaaaaah... Homework was never my forte.
On that note, I'm seeing that this (only second!) entry is absurdly long, so I'm gonna stop there.
Adieu.

Hello? ... Is this thing on?
Ok good. I guess this is the first post in the blog... Kinda underwhelming.
I don't have much to write right at this moment, still setting this up, so until next time...
Adieu.