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.