The bottom floor of most of these houses has a large kitchen with a table for eating indoors and a bathroom. There is a large front porch where they usually have another table so they can eat outside, which is what they do during the nice weather.
There are stairs leading up to the second floor where there is a nice sleeping area, with a television and in some cases, another bathroom. They also have terraces up on this floor.
Here's a picture of his brother's house on the River:
In the kitchens of most of these homes is a wood burning stove like this one:
I am amazed and impressed at what they are able to cook on these stoves. They also do a lot of cooking outside. Some have grills, others use the tripod with a cooking pot method. When we were there, his brother-in-law made fish soup (regional specialty) outside on a tripod cooker.
When lunch was served, we had 2 courses. The first was the soup served with egg noodles. You put the noodles in your bowl and pour the rich fish stock over them. You add some Pavlaka if you like and stir it up. (Pavlaka is like sour cream...yummy, but fattening of course!) When you have your fill of that, you put some of the fish in your bowl and eat it with your fingers. The fish is basically the whole gutted fish sans the head. So, you pull off the fins and stuff and try not to eat any bones! His sister also made some delicious paprika on the side. And no meal is complete without bread - hleb.
Here is that course:
After I was stuffed with that, they brought out the fried fish. They fry with fat. They are quick to tell you that oil is "not natural" and gums up your blood. Fat, they say is "natural" and flows right on through. Anyway, I just ate a little. It was delicious. Here's the fried fish:
Before eating, we all had a little "Stomaklija"..a rakija (brandy) with herbs that is supposed to be good for your stomach. This is another example of the cultural-medical wisdom here. Very interesting. The drink was good and it stimulated the appetite not a problem for me, unfortunately :^( Here's a picture of the bottle...note the obligatory ashtray.
During the meal, though we did not have any drink. It's one of those things here. Most of the time, no drink is served at a meal, not even water. After you eat, beer, vino, rakija, everything is offered to you. My love says this is common.
The water on the river was up, but it crested on Sunday and will begin to go down. I took some pictures of a beautiful pair of swans that swam right up to where we were...very comfortable with the people. My love's sister says she gives them some bread and they like that. Here they are:
