Vojvodina Ethnic Festival of Food and Music

This Saturday we went to the Vojvodina Cultural Festival of Food and Music here in Novi Sad. There are about 40 different ethnic groups living peacefully together in Vojvodina. The festival was held down at the Strand beach on the Danube River. The Strand beach is very popular with the locals for swimming, sunning and hanging out.

This event had booths set up for people to sell wine, pivo, rakija, kobasica,kolač and other foods from this area. Others sold handcrafted items like embroidered table cloths and painted items. People walked around in swimsuits, shorts, capri pants...all kinds of summer clothes and everyone had a good time.

We walked around, tasting and sampling the food and had a pivo sitting at a table in the shade with a couple who were kind enough to share their table with us. While we were looking at everything, we met the president of the Executive Council of the Autonomous Province of Vojvodina (President of the Vojvodina Government), Bojan Pajtič and he was kind enough to have his picture made with me.



There was a large stage where live music was performed by many ethnic groups. There were also dancers in colorful costumes:



It was a very hot day, but with the shady areas scattered throughout the festival site and the location of the beach just steps away, it turned out to be very comfortable.

One of the things I love about this place is these wonderful festivals that occur almost every couple of weeks!

Birthday Celebration Details

As I mentioned in my last post, my love recently celebrated his birthday. Birthdays in Novi Sad are an affair for family and friends just as they were in my home state of Louisiana. The difference? Here birthdays are also for adults.

Back in Louisiana, birthdays were mainly for kids. We take them to McDonald's, or the skating rink, or whatever business caters to kids birthdays with a bunch of their friends. Or, we'd have a party at home with their friends and cake and ice cream. When the kids were small grandparents would come, too.

For adults, usually the husband and wife go out to dinner at a nice restaurant and maybe a movie. If you are dating someone, same thing. If you are a young adult, usually you do have a party with friends.

Here in Novi Sad, my love invited his closest friends and his daughter and her family over and we ate, drank, talked, joked and listened to music. He tends to like the traditional music of Vojvodina and US music from the 50's and 60's. We also listened to some of my CD's. I like all kinds of music, so for his guests we listened to some Trisha Yearwood, Lionel Ritchie, Fleetwood Mac...easy listening. They like their music a little louder than I do, but they speak loudly so they can still hear each other over it!

I have posted before about how when people here are speaking they can get rather loud. If you didn't know better, you would think they were mad at each other. My love told me a story of one time one of his neighbors visited with a mutual friend and after several rakija's they got pretty loud. His son-in-law (who lives in the building) came to the door concerned that they were fighting! He said they all laughed and invited him in to join them.

To me, this is just another example of the zest for life that these people have. It's like everything they do, they do with vigor. It can be overwhelming sometimes, but it is also endearing.

The guests seemed to like my music. I know they are familiar with American music. The whole world is. There are many radio stations here in Novi Sad and I can always find several playing American music, but I like the traditional music as well.

The little roasted pig was a hit. They eat everything here. Nothing is wasted. The pig's tail, ears, etc. were all consumed. The meat was very good, roasted perfectly.

The one major disappointment was my camera. It has been acting up lately and did not cooperate for me to take pictures. I think I had some bad batteries, because it is working now that I have replaced them.

Srećan Rođendan! (Happy Birthday!)

This is a busy weekend for us.

Tonight we celebrate my love's birthday. We have invited friends over to our apartment and we have a half of a roasted pig cooking at the corner pekara to eat with them.
Must run now and go buy mineral water and pivo which we will serve in addition to beli vino.

Tomorrow we go to Čelarevo to visit family and celebrate the 15th anniversary of my love's brother and his girlfriend. This will be another big party with lots of food and laughter.

I will have pictures of these events and tell about how they celebrate birthdays (birzdays..haha) in my next post.

The Cows Come Home to Novi Sad

Last year in the town center, Novi Sad had an exhibition of painted horses. They were very beautiful. This year, the town is featuring painted cows. The cows are all the same, but the painting is done by different artists. The people here seem to love them as much as I do. People have their pictures made near them and children seem drawn to them.

I have uploaded pictures of them to my Flickr account. Here is the link: http://www.flickr.com/photos/novisadnewbie/

You can also see pictures of some of last year's horses there.

As I walked through the town the other day, the weather was comfortable and people were out, sitting in the little cafes spread throughout the center of town. My love says that many people are on vacation at this time of the year and if they cannot go to the sea (Greece, Montenegro or Macedonia) they will enjoy the cafes of Novi Sad.
We stopped and had an icy cold beer at JOE'S, which is close to where my love works.
Živali!