This Summer...

I apologise to all the friends whose birthdays I forgot or missed during June and July. I almost even forgot my own sister's birthday. Forgive me, I'll make it up, but this summer jumbled me up with good and bad (mostly good) and I held on tight like it was a real roller coaster.

1) We started off by finally buying a decent, big suitcase. You can't be a serious traveller without a real suitcase, right? It became a symbol of this summer, we overpacked it and underpacked it, and presently it's staring at me from the corner of the room asking to be taken out again.

2) Then we bought tickets for the Robbie Williams concert except it felt like this AAAAA ROBBIIIIIE AAAAA WE ARE GOING TO THE CONCERT!!!!

3) Then little Kosta was born, my boyfriend's nephew, and now we are aunt and uncle and we are goood! We can sing and bounce and shshshsh and laugh and goo and ga and gau, we are pro and we don't even have to change the diapers, WIN!

4) And the day after Kosta was born we celebrated in style at the Robbie Williams concert. I thought my nice boyfriend had the umbrella and he thought I did. It started raining with the first beats of Let Me Entertain You and ended as soon as the show ended. We walked home, wet, happy and hungry. Over the bridge and through the sleepy Belgrade and we were COMPLETELY ENTERTAINED.

5) A few days later, after we finally met Kosta and presented our gifts like Cinderella fairy Godmothers, we set off to Greece for our official 10 days of summer holiday. A 12-hour bus ride seemed easy as we got the 4 front seats on the upper deck with the big window in front of us. Just as we got comfortable, about 2 hours into the trip, the bus broke and was replaced by a tiny matchstick box. Just my luck.

But I had the next 10 days to recover from the shock. On the beach, watching sunsets, on the balcony, watching the pool. Eating a lot of chocolate cake and peach compote for breakfast. Running from the beach to devour tones of watermelon in the afternoon. And after that I comforted myself a bit more in the evening with some beer and Pringles or wine and chocolate. 

6) Then we got back to Belgrade, but Belgrade seemed angry that we had fun somewhere else and tried to fry us at 40 degrees Celsius so we had to run away.

We went to a tiny town and a mineral spa Vrnjacka banja and we learned what it means to live in a town that is one big park; what it means to wake up and look out of the window and to see only green, to wake up without the sound and smell of city buses and traffic; what's the optimum time spent sitting in the garden/balcony/backyard before and after every meal, before and after swimming, and before bed at night and after you wake up in the morning. We also learned that we like having at least 2 different cakes in the fridge at all times and that we all like Cuba Libre. And the most important thing we learned is to take all these habits back home!

And in the end there is still a nice chunk of summer left and this is not all. My new sewing machine is coming and also some plane tickets, so the excitement is still rising and I intend to stretch out this feeling at least until the winter. 

:)

Serbian

Postcard No.2

I know, I was scared too that the rest of the Greece posts won't even happen, you know how it's like when work gets in the way of life. But here it is another infusion of sea water just for you.

Places, People and Languages

Just like last year we spent most of the time contemplating ways to simply stay there, in Pefchokori, Greece. I suppose the same thought was in the minds of many hundred thousands of other Balkan people who were there at the same time. But we, we're different, oh yes! I found a little language school  (I'm pretty sure it's not working though) tucked away in a back street and his work depends only on the internet connection any way. What do you say, Pefchokori? We are the people for you. We got to know you from the top of the hill to the bottom of the sea. We speak English and Serbian, but your mother tongue and ours mix in the most wonderful ways on your streets. There's nothing we couldn't say to each other with a bit of hand waving and big smiles.
 
Another thing I realised, English is not very useful in this part of Greece. Former Yugoslav languages, on the other hand, are very much so. How do I mean that? Well, on the very first day of our vacation in this same place last year I got into a store to buy a bathing suit. 'How much is this one?', I asked in English. The lady said: ''15 Euro.'' What I didn't realise is that she said it in perfect Serbian, so I continued: 'Do you have it in other sizes?' in English. But she was stubborn, she probably heard us speaking Serbian going into the store: 'Do you need it in bigger or smaller size?' 'Bigger', I thought in Serbian, and 'Bigger' I said in Serbian finally, and blushed. She was Serbian and this thing happened many times over, so we ended up getting in stores saying 'Dobar dan', and just watched the things unravel in this or that direction.

Food

This was the only food that stayed on the table long  enough to be photographed and that for the sole purpose of making the recipients (my sister) extremely jealous. We got into that little bakery Lemoni, that we were warned was expensive, but who cares, we'd just try one thing. And although I'm usually more attracted to the desserts with a lot of fruit and cream this time I was strangely drawn to this chocolate miracle that seductively stared at me from the fridge - the Profiterole (second picture). I was hooked but I mustered enough of my brain power to spot at least three other things we had to try (and our wallets cried, but we didn't care). And we did try them all in those 10 days. Profiteroles were the best, I had three and I still suffer I didn't take one more on the last day. The second was Karamelito with caramel and chocolate and cream (second in the first picture). Tried it once and it would be the best one if it weren't for the queens Profiteroles (yes, still crying). Cherry panna cotta got the third place, it was very good and as I said I usually go for the desserts with fruit, but this time they lost to chocolate and caramel. The last one was strawberry panna cotta which was a total disappointment (first on the first picture). Although strawberry is one of my favourite fruits and I was even surprised at myself that I didn't choose it on the first day, lucky that I didn't, it was really bad and I'm still sad I didn't took the Profiterole instead.

And yes, it's not right to speak about Greece and food and not mention giros... No, I can't do it, I'm still thinking of, you know... I'll tell you what, you just go find that place in that little street of the main walk with the old plaid tablecloths, where they watch soccer on the TV from the seventies. They have the best giros not the big ones on the main street, don't trust what anyone else tells you.

Cat

You were worried I left the country where the cat is the national animal without a picture of a cat? Impossible! Well, last year I only started learning about the Greek cats, this year I had a personal teacher. So, the first very important thing we learned from this guy was that in Greece they grow cats in flower pots. And don't try to make any contact while they are sleeping like that, they'l just snore a bit louder. Second, if you have a cat meowing under your balcony in the morning don't try to give it food as your neighbours will also try and many pieces of meat and bread will start flying past you. The cat will just smell it and leave it because it's not food time, it's petting time, so come down for a session, and only after that they'll eat your food. Although on the day seven you might be tempted to throw a sausage at the said cat and say: 'Shut up and eat cat I'll come down later if your not gone sleeping in your pot!', not my proudest moment.

There will also be more Greek cats in another post until then relax from my Profiteroles and cat talk with a few more pictures.

;)

*Serbian

A Postcard

I know, I know, you've had it with me and all the Greece talk but allow me just this one (two) post(s) because I've been good otherwise. I'm already working on the list of books to buy on the Belgrade Book Fair in October and I've dug out a few sweaters from the wintery depths of my closet and I've almost completely stopped wearing sandals (but I'm not putting them away yet, so back off). I need just a bit more time to admit it's fall...

Creature of water

I must have been a duck in some of my previous lives because although I'm a lousy swimmer put me in the water (shallow) and my head goes in and my tail goes up immediately, a duck I tell you. As long as I have the mask and the snorkel on you'll watch my flowery bikini bottom on the surface of the sea for hours. And if I also have an underwater digital camera maybe you won't see me for the whole day but you'll have to watch about 900 photos of fish, waves, us under water, then one of an octopus hiding under a rock, and a lot of shells and sand, and a lot of other things, but under water.

On Hair and Make Up
Yes, seriously, on my vacation. What?! Well, my hair was fluffy and curly, but good fluffy, seaside fluffy. I gave up on shampoo for 10 days and only used masks when I washed my hair, the ones that were in orange and yellow packaging and with the sun on them, sounds like weird criteria for choosing any product but it worked and my hair was happy (and fluffy). And the make up... it happened just one day when my nose was particularly red because of the snorkeling mask and the sun, I had to comfort myself with a bit of eyeliner and a cat eye that evening. That's all that happened, the rest of the beauty routine was led by the philosophy titled I smell like coconut/wear SPF 40/nail polish, nail polish and another nail polish.

The Art of Dressing and Changing Often

When on summer vacation my clothes suddenly gets a few inches shorter, all of it, dresses, skirts, shorts, tops, everything. The length I don't wear in the city. I also need a big hat, sunglasses and a lot of ice cream. Two bikinis: one floral, one black, never worn as a set, always the black top and floral bottoms or black bottoms and floral top. And finally sandals and flip flops on rotation (also a new pair of handmade Greek leather sandals bought that deserve their own story, pic.3).

And it's still not the end, will be continued...

;)

*Serbian