Sweet memories

Meaghan's school made her do a "technology orientation requirement" that involved a bunch of simple tests in computer and internet literacy. The final piece was to write a simple web page in html, including two web links, one photo, and a link to a .pdf version of a 3-slide powerpoint.

The choice of topic was free, so Meaghan decided to post this love letter to Srce, one of our favorite KG hangouts.

Enjoy!

Nedostajete mi

As time passes since my months in Serbia, I miss different things. Well, some of the same things, and some different things. For instance:

• Juice is still a big one. I was in the supermarket yesterday and the only reasonably priced juices are like 25% actual juice. The rest is water, corn syrup, dyes, and fillers. To get good juice, you pay something in the $3.50-4.00 range. I had to walk right by the tempting bottles of blueberry and pomegranate and settle for cranberry, as usual.
• I wrote to one Serbian friend about this: recently, I was walking by a restaurant on a beautiful day, and there were no tables outside. Something about this just seemed wrong to me. The next week, Meaghan and I were out to dinner and she was getting nostalgic for Serbia, although it hadn't come up in any way. When she thought about it, she realized that this was because we were sitting outside.
• When Meaghan and I go out with our friends here, there's always a process of planning that happens first. There's a lag time, somewhere between a day and a week, to make sure they're free, we're free, when we're meeting, what we're doing, and so on. In Serbia, when I wanted to go out (at 10 PM, whatever) I would call someone up and we'd go out.

While I'm on the subject, I should mention this: on my current temp assignment, I work for a guy who makes coffee in the office a couple of times a day. Whenever he makes coffee, there's a pause of ten minutes or so before any work gets done. I wouldn't say this is Serbian style - he would need to take at least a half hour, and he doesn't smoke - but at least it's a step in the right direction.

Who knew?

For really intense moments of nostalgia ...

It turns out you can buy kajmak online.

ps. Some of you might not know what kajmak is. I heard from many people that it's only available in Serbia, and from one person that it's only available in Serbia and Iran, but Wikipedia says different.

Serbian habits (možeš da veruješ??)

Here are some things I've caught myself doing recently, showing the clear influence of my time in Serbia:

• As many of you know, ethnic foods are one of the things we missed the most during our stay in Serbia. Naturally, when my mother-in-law, Evelyn, picked us up at the airport (in her Pontiac Bonneville, which has a passenger area big enough to fit a Fića inside), she drove us straight to a Mexican restaurant. The seating hostess came out to greet us, and I started formulating Serbian sentences in my head. I had a moment of shock when she said, "Hi."
• I got a photocopy made at a local copy shop. Copies are something like ten cents each, so my total bill was about thirty cents. I took my receipt with me to throw it away later, because in Serbia, you have to take your receipt for everything so the tax authorities can audit official receipts. I guess all those months of official signs reminding me to УЗМИТЕ РАЧУН!!! got into my subconscious.
• The selection of items available in stores surprises me. I was in a video rental club, which like most stores here has immensely high ceilings and shelves crammed with merchandise. (Students from my second-year classes will remember the Best Buy photos.) Browsing the new releases, 2-for-$30 DVDs, and 3-for-$15 pre-viewed VHS tapes, I wondered how many of these films were available on DivX.
• Making breakfast for Meaghan and Evelyn this morning, I realized that the eggs here have thinner shells and the bacon has more fat. Also, as I expected, the juice is clearly inferior. We've been drinking Cranberry-Grape, which has a rather generic fruity-sugary taste, and missing our cherry nectar. At least we have our domaća šljivovica (homemade plum brandy) for moments of nostalgia.