Just have a few short comments and observations to make. Things are really hoppin' around here with preparations for the wedding and other things that I will talk about soon.
1. Slackbastard has commentary on the Novi Sad Nazi/Antifascist rally held recently. He took the words right out of my mouth.
2. My home state of Louisiana has made history! A reformer with an actual history of reform has won the governor's election. This is exciting news for a state that always ranks at the bottom of every list of rankings for jobs, education, income, etc. Looks like all the talk about throwing the bums out after Katrina may actually happen.
3. I made my first batch of sarma all by myself yesterday. This dish is my favorite of everything I have tasted since being here. With the weather being cold and rainy, it is a perfect time for sarma.
4. I've been deep cleaning the apartment the past couple of weeks. One thing I have noticed is how watery the cleaners are here. When I squirt some cleaner onto my sponge, I have to make sure I am holding it level or it will drip off. Jeeze.
5. We went to this huge store on Friday night. It's called Mega Market and it really is mega. It has the same type of goods as our Super WalMarts back home...household, electronics, food, bakery, etc. We were able to find this tea that we love and have looked for everywhere. It's called "Red African Bush Tea" by Fructus and it is really good when you have an upset stomach. The box has a picture of a woman who is not wearing a top - I suppose she is supposed to be African, but she looks European with a nice tan. We call it the "Tea with the Big Boobies", ala "Allo, Allo" one of our favorite TV series.
Monday, October 22, 2007
Tuesday, October 16, 2007
A Ring and A Date
Our wedding is set for Oct. 28, 2007 - the day before my birthday. It's funny. Where I am from, people don't get married on Sunday. Here, it seems to be the busiest day.
We went last night and looked at rings. There is a street here in Novi Sad with jewelry stores one after another. Rings are priced together...the woman's and the man's.
We just walked down the street, going into each store in turn. We were looking for simple wedding bands and settled on one that is brushed with thin polished edges. I really like the ring and it's not too expensive. Some of the rings we looked at were over 300 Euro, which is quite out of our league - for that kind of money, I think there should be a diamond involved...haha.
We went to Novi Sad city hall after we got back from the American Consulate to turn in our papers to be married. The lady in the office there was very kind and efficient and got our papers in order and said that since this is an "international" marriage, I will receive a marriage certificate in English and in Serbian. I also must have someone there who is official to translate the ceremony for me. That's fine with me, I want to know what is said! This marriage will be legal in America.
She will perform the wedding. In Serbia, only civil marriages are recognized and they must be done in the city halls. The service takes 10 minutes, she said. There is a special room that the services are held in.
While we were in the city hall office, young couples came and went, scheduling their own weddings. When we were looking at rings, there were two other young couples doing the same thing. We kept running into them in the stores.
After the wedding, we will either come to our apartment for drinks, food and celebration or we may be able to rent a place in our building to hold this celebration. Depends on how much that will cost. There will be 12 of us altogether. In the meantime, I am doing some deep cleaning of our little place to be prepared.
Lots of people here have a church wedding after the civil ceremony. Since my love and I are both Catholics and this is the second marriage for each of us, we can't marry in the church. I don't want to get into all of that, but suffice it to say we are doing the best that we can with what we have. I feel blessed.
I spoke to my parents and both of my kids to let them know. It was very nice when I spoke to my daughter. I thought she would just hang up on me, but she didn't. We spoke for a few minutes. My love even said at one point, I laughed. I was so nervous and excited I don't remember much of what was said. It was very nice and again, I am grateful for answered prayers. There is still a long way to go, but at least there is a crack in the ice.
We went last night and looked at rings. There is a street here in Novi Sad with jewelry stores one after another. Rings are priced together...the woman's and the man's.
We just walked down the street, going into each store in turn. We were looking for simple wedding bands and settled on one that is brushed with thin polished edges. I really like the ring and it's not too expensive. Some of the rings we looked at were over 300 Euro, which is quite out of our league - for that kind of money, I think there should be a diamond involved...haha.
We went to Novi Sad city hall after we got back from the American Consulate to turn in our papers to be married. The lady in the office there was very kind and efficient and got our papers in order and said that since this is an "international" marriage, I will receive a marriage certificate in English and in Serbian. I also must have someone there who is official to translate the ceremony for me. That's fine with me, I want to know what is said! This marriage will be legal in America.
She will perform the wedding. In Serbia, only civil marriages are recognized and they must be done in the city halls. The service takes 10 minutes, she said. There is a special room that the services are held in.
While we were in the city hall office, young couples came and went, scheduling their own weddings. When we were looking at rings, there were two other young couples doing the same thing. We kept running into them in the stores.
After the wedding, we will either come to our apartment for drinks, food and celebration or we may be able to rent a place in our building to hold this celebration. Depends on how much that will cost. There will be 12 of us altogether. In the meantime, I am doing some deep cleaning of our little place to be prepared.
Lots of people here have a church wedding after the civil ceremony. Since my love and I are both Catholics and this is the second marriage for each of us, we can't marry in the church. I don't want to get into all of that, but suffice it to say we are doing the best that we can with what we have. I feel blessed.
I spoke to my parents and both of my kids to let them know. It was very nice when I spoke to my daughter. I thought she would just hang up on me, but she didn't. We spoke for a few minutes. My love even said at one point, I laughed. I was so nervous and excited I don't remember much of what was said. It was very nice and again, I am grateful for answered prayers. There is still a long way to go, but at least there is a crack in the ice.
Sunday, October 7, 2007
Quiet Sunday at Home
I'm staying home today....Nazis are marching in Novi Sad. Wow....what can I say?
I can't be smug. Back where I am from, the KKK used to march on occasion - all 10 to 20 of them. Most of us would drive by honking and give them the universal signal for a**holes. They were a joke, no power, just a holdover from a dismal past.
Nazis, on the other hand, are scary.
I DO know that a counter-demonstration is planned. Hopefully everything will stay peaceful.
I can't be smug. Back where I am from, the KKK used to march on occasion - all 10 to 20 of them. Most of us would drive by honking and give them the universal signal for a**holes. They were a joke, no power, just a holdover from a dismal past.
Nazis, on the other hand, are scary.
I DO know that a counter-demonstration is planned. Hopefully everything will stay peaceful.
Saturday, October 6, 2007
1 Hour in America, 4 Hours in Belgrade
Our trip to Belgrade was fun. We left by train from Novi Sad at 8 and got in to Belgrade at a little after 9:30. Added on to the price of our train fare was 50 dinars for a little sticker affixed to our tickets for "Celebration of Children" week/month??? I don't know. No, it was not voluntary like that little box on the 1040 US tax form that you check to donate money for political parties. I figure some government official has a wife who dabbles in causes.
Anywho... We got to Belgrade and it was buzzing with activity. Lots of people walking and driving and heading everywhere fast. The part of Belgrade that I saw is like a mini-San Francisco. You walk uphill, you walk downhill. (My legs are still sore!) There were even functional trolley cars on the streets.
We had to head directly to the US Consulate. I had read that this place is considered US soil, so I was happy to be in the US for that hour.
I'm not a "my country - right or wrong" person, but I have to say that since I have been away from the US, I appreciate it so much more than I did. And, I have always loved my country. I miss it.
When we got to the Embassy, my fiancé was very hesitant about opening the door, he felt like we had to wait for someone to open it for us from the inside. I was like, let's go in! but, I deferred to him and soon someone came and opened the door to see what we wanted. As soon as I told him I was an American citizen and had an appointment he took my camera and my love's phone and got us through security quickly.
We sat in the waiting area of American Citizen's services with a couple of Americans, but mostly with people who were waiting to find out if they were going to get a Non-Immigrant visa to the US, for various reasons. I was a little irritated at the procedure that they used for these people. They call them by number to a little booth (like at a bank teller counter) and the consulate person is inside an enclosure and speaks to them through a microphone...forget privacy! The person who is requesting the visa doesn't have a microphone, thank God, but since some of the people spoke English, I could understand everything that was said. And for those that spoke only Serbian, the people in the waiting room could understand everything. I don't see why the microphone is needed.
When they called me, by name incidentally, there was no use of a microphone. The officer just spoke to me through the glass.
Now, why wouldn't that work for everyone???
Anyway, we got our business taken care of there, only had to wait about 45 min. and I got to read some old Newsweek magazines while I waited and had access to a clean bathroom with toilet paper and paper towels to dry my hands with. (You will not understand how much this meant to me unless you come here for a visit!)
As we left the Consulate, I stopped to take a picture of the outside, since it was the first time I had ever been to a Consulate or Embassy. As I snapped away, my fiancé was conversing with the guards out front. As we walked away, he told me that taking these pictures is forbidden, but when he told them I was a US Citizen, they said OK. OMG!
Afterwards, we had to go to the Ministry for Foreign Affairs (hmmm....how appropriate) to get our documents stamped and pay our tax (fee) and I had to sign a big book. Everyone was friendly and wished us the best.
Finally, we had finished all of the work we had to do. I had no clue where the mysterious Commissary was, so we just decided to walk around and see what we could see in the time we had left before our train left. About a block away was one of those buildings you read about when you read about Belgrade being bombed. I had never seen a picture, so here goes:
It was very disturbing to see those images, but I also realized clearly that it was meant to be a surgical strike. This building was a military headquarters. There were all sorts of civilian targets nearby (it is a busy main street after all), so if killing civilians was the idea, it could have been done on a massive scale. Again, I'm not political, I'm just saying it obviously was a target, not just a place to drop a bomb. And yes, it upset me and made me ashamed...OK?
We walked on down the street and found a gorgeous park with beautiful flowers all around and as our walk continued we found a lovely area with a fountain and a reflecting pool. Here's the park:
We made a large circle and came to a really impressive building set up on a hill. My fiancé called it Capital Hill, because this building is the setting for important government meetings and such. Here's me on the steps of this huge building:
And here's a shot of the building itself:
It was a warm and sunny day so the walk was nice. We stopped by a pekara (bakery) on the way back to the train station and got a yummy, flaky bread with cheese inside and walked down the street grazing on it.
I slept most of the way back on the train and we got home to Novi Sad at 3:30. We'll go to the City Hall in Novi Sad early next week and turn all of this paperwork in so we can get married.
UPDATE: I posted the photos from the trip to my Flickr account.
Anywho... We got to Belgrade and it was buzzing with activity. Lots of people walking and driving and heading everywhere fast. The part of Belgrade that I saw is like a mini-San Francisco. You walk uphill, you walk downhill. (My legs are still sore!) There were even functional trolley cars on the streets.
We had to head directly to the US Consulate. I had read that this place is considered US soil, so I was happy to be in the US for that hour.
I'm not a "my country - right or wrong" person, but I have to say that since I have been away from the US, I appreciate it so much more than I did. And, I have always loved my country. I miss it.
When we got to the Embassy, my fiancé was very hesitant about opening the door, he felt like we had to wait for someone to open it for us from the inside. I was like, let's go in! but, I deferred to him and soon someone came and opened the door to see what we wanted. As soon as I told him I was an American citizen and had an appointment he took my camera and my love's phone and got us through security quickly.
We sat in the waiting area of American Citizen's services with a couple of Americans, but mostly with people who were waiting to find out if they were going to get a Non-Immigrant visa to the US, for various reasons. I was a little irritated at the procedure that they used for these people. They call them by number to a little booth (like at a bank teller counter) and the consulate person is inside an enclosure and speaks to them through a microphone...forget privacy! The person who is requesting the visa doesn't have a microphone, thank God, but since some of the people spoke English, I could understand everything that was said. And for those that spoke only Serbian, the people in the waiting room could understand everything. I don't see why the microphone is needed.
When they called me, by name incidentally, there was no use of a microphone. The officer just spoke to me through the glass.
Now, why wouldn't that work for everyone???
Anyway, we got our business taken care of there, only had to wait about 45 min. and I got to read some old Newsweek magazines while I waited and had access to a clean bathroom with toilet paper and paper towels to dry my hands with. (You will not understand how much this meant to me unless you come here for a visit!)
As we left the Consulate, I stopped to take a picture of the outside, since it was the first time I had ever been to a Consulate or Embassy. As I snapped away, my fiancé was conversing with the guards out front. As we walked away, he told me that taking these pictures is forbidden, but when he told them I was a US Citizen, they said OK. OMG!
Afterwards, we had to go to the Ministry for Foreign Affairs (hmmm....how appropriate) to get our documents stamped and pay our tax (fee) and I had to sign a big book. Everyone was friendly and wished us the best.
Finally, we had finished all of the work we had to do. I had no clue where the mysterious Commissary was, so we just decided to walk around and see what we could see in the time we had left before our train left. About a block away was one of those buildings you read about when you read about Belgrade being bombed. I had never seen a picture, so here goes:
It was very disturbing to see those images, but I also realized clearly that it was meant to be a surgical strike. This building was a military headquarters. There were all sorts of civilian targets nearby (it is a busy main street after all), so if killing civilians was the idea, it could have been done on a massive scale. Again, I'm not political, I'm just saying it obviously was a target, not just a place to drop a bomb. And yes, it upset me and made me ashamed...OK?
We walked on down the street and found a gorgeous park with beautiful flowers all around and as our walk continued we found a lovely area with a fountain and a reflecting pool. Here's the park:
We made a large circle and came to a really impressive building set up on a hill. My fiancé called it Capital Hill, because this building is the setting for important government meetings and such. Here's me on the steps of this huge building:
And here's a shot of the building itself:
It was a warm and sunny day so the walk was nice. We stopped by a pekara (bakery) on the way back to the train station and got a yummy, flaky bread with cheese inside and walked down the street grazing on it.
I slept most of the way back on the train and we got home to Novi Sad at 3:30. We'll go to the City Hall in Novi Sad early next week and turn all of this paperwork in so we can get married.
UPDATE: I posted the photos from the trip to my Flickr account.
Wednesday, October 3, 2007
To Belgrade on Friday
We have our appointment at the American consulate in Belgrade for this Friday morning. We will take the train in.
I read somewhere, on someone's blog (can't find it now, of course!) that there was some kind of commissary at or near the American consulate in Belgrade where one can purchase American groceries like Dr. Pepper, etc. Do any of you reading this know what I am talking about? Could you please leave me a comment with any info you have, like WHERE IS IT? I would love to visit this place while I am there.
I read somewhere, on someone's blog (can't find it now, of course!) that there was some kind of commissary at or near the American consulate in Belgrade where one can purchase American groceries like Dr. Pepper, etc. Do any of you reading this know what I am talking about? Could you please leave me a comment with any info you have, like WHERE IS IT? I would love to visit this place while I am there.
Tuesday, October 2, 2007
Kum's Chosen!
Well, our Kum's (best men) are chosen and our wedding will happen shortly. The next few weeks will be very busy for us.
First, we have to go to the Consulate in Belgrade to get some documents notarized so I will satisfy Serbian legal requirements in order to marry my love and have this be a legal marriage that will be recognized by the US as well.
Then we take those documents to City Hall in Novi Sad. A couple of days later, we will be free to set the date and marry.
This is all very exciting. It will be the first time I will go to Belgrade other than at the crack of dawn to catch a plane, or arriving at the airport at the end of an 18 hour plane ride. All I've seen of it so far is the airport and the highway!
The concept of Kum is very interesting. It's a little like what we in America call a best man, but it is so much more. This is what I have been told and gathered from the locals: The best man is someone who is there for you forever. Not just the day of the wedding. The best man can be a man or a woman and the bride has hers and the groom has his. (I found my Kum almost as soon as I got here, but my fiancé just decided on his this past week.) In the most ideal situations, your Kum is a friend you can depend on for life.
I have had people tell me stories of their Kum coming to the rescue in health emergencies and helping them celebrate their children's births and marriages. I haven't seen my Kuma (maid of honor) in probably 25 years and have only recently re-established contact by email with her. In America, people move around so much. My Kuma lives in Arizona now.
Please send us your good thoughts, OK?
Grape Picking in Karlovci
On Saturday, we went to the "Grape Picking in Karlovci" festival held in Sremski Karlovci. This annual event is also the first festival I went to when I first came to Serbia in 2006. As a matter of fact, Saturday was the one year anniversary of my arrival!
As is the normal practice at these festivals, booths were set up for wine & rakija tasting, and for selling food, T-shirts, souvenirs, etc. There was also an area set aside for a carnival with rides for kids. I found these leather Serbian-style shoes particularly interesting:
Dancers representing the many ethnic groups in the area were present and performed on a large stage with live music. I had my picture taken with many of them. These young people are very talented and represent their country very well. Here's a couple of the pictures:
These are Serbian costumes:
These are Hungarian costumes:
Here's a group of Macedonian dancers getting ready to go onstage:
This is a group of Serbian dancers onstage:
But, this was my favorite costume and this is my favorite picture from the event. I call him "The Herder". I don't know where the costume comes from or what it means. If any of you out there know, please leave a comment! My fiancé was born and raised in Novi Sad, but doesn't always know the answers to my unending questions.
Several of the food booths were selling fresh roasted suckling pig. I just had to share this image with all of you. (PS - I wasn't the only one taking a picture of this!)
I'll post more pictures on my Flickr site later today. You can go there by clicking HERE It may take me a couple of days to get all of the labels on the pictures because I will have to get with my fiancé to identify some of the costumes and things.
As is the normal practice at these festivals, booths were set up for wine & rakija tasting, and for selling food, T-shirts, souvenirs, etc. There was also an area set aside for a carnival with rides for kids. I found these leather Serbian-style shoes particularly interesting:
Dancers representing the many ethnic groups in the area were present and performed on a large stage with live music. I had my picture taken with many of them. These young people are very talented and represent their country very well. Here's a couple of the pictures:
These are Serbian costumes:
These are Hungarian costumes:
Here's a group of Macedonian dancers getting ready to go onstage:
This is a group of Serbian dancers onstage:
But, this was my favorite costume and this is my favorite picture from the event. I call him "The Herder". I don't know where the costume comes from or what it means. If any of you out there know, please leave a comment! My fiancé was born and raised in Novi Sad, but doesn't always know the answers to my unending questions.
Several of the food booths were selling fresh roasted suckling pig. I just had to share this image with all of you. (PS - I wasn't the only one taking a picture of this!)
I'll post more pictures on my Flickr site later today. You can go there by clicking HERE It may take me a couple of days to get all of the labels on the pictures because I will have to get with my fiancé to identify some of the costumes and things.
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