Two-for-one on this last day of August. These two trucks were in front of us on our way back from Pirot the other week. No sooner had we passed the hay truck, which resembled a large hedgehog ambling along, than we found ourselve behind a log truck. Don't you just love how they hope to keep the logs from falling off? That log poised just above the log brace on the left worried me...it was inching its way off ... Then we passed the truck and were gone!
Went to a wedding a couple of weeks ago where our son was best man. This little girl, a member of the wedding party, is selling boutonnieres (the orange ones in the basket) to the men who attend, and lacey wrist bands to the ladies. It used to be the custom that a little girl like her would sell sprigs of rosemary, an herb reputed to bring luck and health, but now this custom has changed. A while back, the money she collected used to go to the new couple, but now it is hers to keep. There's no fixed "donation," and you can see what she's received so far. 100 dinars is roughly $2.00. (I don't know what the little candle is for!)
This terrace is hardly big enough for two to stand on, but it looked so beautiful with its bright pink petunias against the sky and clouds, I couldn't help but photograph it.
"Underwear is everywhere but mostly underneath..." or so sings Barry Louis Polisar in his kids' (or kid-like adult like me) song, "Underwear." This underwear isn't underneath, but rather above. Maybe these are Captain Underpants' (by Dav Pilkey) underpants. (If you want to howl with brainless laughter, read Pilkey's Perilous Plot of Professor Poopypants.) These are nice and clean and white anyway, and definitely a couple of sizes larger than the undies seen on my August 23rd post...
These terra cotta tootsies, standing on Belgrade's pedestrian street, were created along with other unusual clay works of art in honor of BELEF (Beogradski Letnji Festival) or Belgrade's Summer Festival, a tribute to theater productions, visual arts, and music. It looks like someone "walked off" with a foot from the first row.... Actually, they sort of give me the creeps....
On August 23rd my loving husband of 31+ years, Ivan, passed away after a brain stroke he suffered a week before. My children and I are devastated, and there is only a big void all around us that we must try to fill with memories of a man who was full of energy, love, and optimism. He was honest, fair, and principled. Above his desk he had this quote, which is attributed to Ralph Waldo Emerson:If this is indeed a measure of success, then he was indeed successful. We, along with numerous friends, will miss him and continue to carry him in our hearts as long as we live.
They say "Home is where the heart is," and indeed this fellow looks like his heart is content. Click and see where he's sleeping. Took this photo the other week in Pirot, in Eastern Serbia.
I'm just curious. Are thongs:
Any input welcomed!
No, this is not a scene from the end of Albert Lamorisse's 1956 classic The Red Balloon, but rather a recent sighting in the Belgrade sky. Just happened to look up and there they were, floating free, off to who knows where.
This isn't your run-of-the-mill traffic jam. It was caused by a trolley car whose electrical cable had become unhooked. Usually this isn't a major problem, since the driver just leaps out, grabs a long pole from the rear of the trolley, and tries to hook the cable back on to the overhead street wires. For some reason, it appeared that the trolley's cable couldn't reach the overhead wires. Serbian drivers are not patient, and leaned on their horns. A motorcycle policeman came along with another one to direct traffic. Then a rescue truck. Finally a small bulldozer came to lift one end of the trolley just a bit so the cable could be rehooked. This whole adventure lasted "only" twenty minutes, but in the meantime, automobile drivers were having fits, and even the bus you see in the photo grew impatient.
These trampoline parks are now popular here. When I was in junior high in the US light-years ago, friends and I used to spend hours bouncing on trampolines. Later I learned their demise was due to overly-exuberant bouncers who bounced right off onto the hard ground. At least now there's a mesh fence and padding around.
Just the other day I was wondering if I should color my hair again, but decided I'd stay with its current mature color. But while walking downtown on the pedestrian street, I glimpsed this lady, who made me wonder if I should reconsider... Then I got to wondering if it is really her hair---perhaps she has a series of wigs to match various colors in her wardrobe. (I'll try to find her again...)
We've all had the occasion to be in the right place at the right time for a photo. I had another such occasion last Friday when I happened by this member of a band who was climbing into a fountain downtown. He happily tooted away for a few minutes on his tuba, and when he'd finished, he "smiled" at all of us who were clicking away on cameras or cell phones, climbed out, and joined his still-dry band to play some more tunes to practice for Nišville (NEESH-vil), a jazz festival take-off on Nashville to be held in the town of Niš, a couple of hours' drive from Belgrade. Last Friday temperatures rose to 37 degrees Celsius here, which is 100.4 degrees Fahrenheit. All onlookers were envying his dip in the fountain.
Yesterday at the Market Blue you may have noticed the Chipsy (potato chip) banner. This fellow apparently enjoyed a couple of packs of chips, and then put the wrappers to good use. Saves on sunscreen...but what about those legs....? Sorry for the slight fuzziness--you can imagine this was a pretty quick shot. Just turned around and there he was.
Nothing like a cold beer with a friend, and if it's too hot to run down to your local cafe or pub, just pull up a crate at the Market Blue.
This was a quick shot off my porch. Occasionally, due to temperature and haze (dare I say smog) factors, the Belgrade sky often takes on unusual colors, and this is a case in point. A minute later, this color was gone.
Corn season is in full swing, and Serbs enjoy corn in many shapes and forms, from corn bread and corn mush to corn-on-the-cob. Sometimes the latter is boiled and sometimes it's roasted, as you see here in the photo. No butter used though; just salt or plain. A type of sweet corn is grown here, but it's not the same as the US kind, which has smaller, softer kernels and is a bit sweeter. This seller was actually one of five, all very close together, on Belgrade's pedestrian street, Knez Mihailova. Behind him you can see an entrance to Kalemegdan Park, and a street sign that indicates other nearby attractions.
...and that's one big dragonfly, sitting on top of a water fountain in the Eastern Serbian town of Pirot we visited not long ago. The big bug's all metal, including its mesh wings, but I couldn't find any other info about it. People I asked didn't know who designed it or why, and there was no plaque. Behind the dragonfly to the right is "Beograd," one of a now defunct (another d!) socialist chain of department stores around Serbia and the former Yugoslavia. They've been bought out (privatized) by I believe some Greek store chain, so we'll see what they do with them.
Mihailo (Michael) Obrenović III (1823-1868) was prince of Serbia from 1839-1842 and again from 1860-1868. His first reign ended when he was deposed, and his second when he was assassinated. I'd read somewhere that if a statue's figure is riding a horse with one leg raised, it means that he died of causes other than from a battle, which would be the case here. The more I looked around about this, it seems that it's an urban legend...who knows? In any case, Belgrade's main pedestrian street is named after him. The National Museum behind him was founded in 1844 and houses over 400,000 objects including many foreign masterpieces. The French Art Collection consists of more than 250 paintings, from the 16th to early 20th century including paintings by many major French impressionists such as Renoir and Degas, and several post-impressionists including Gauguin and van Gogh.
The latest "scoop" for Serbian readers is that instead of paying 25-60 dinars a scoop for ice cream (sladoled=SLA-doe-led) here in Belgrade, if you drive three hours down to the town of Pirot (PEER-rut) near the Bulgarian border, you can get a cone for only 5 dinars a scoop! Currently, there are around 50 dinars to $1.00, so you can see what a deal this is. People of Pirot, or Piroćanci (PEER-row-chahn=tsee) are known for their thriftiness, much as the Scots are, and don't like to spend money when they don't have to. That's my husband's hand modestly accepting just one scoop (kugla=KOO-gla) of strawberry ice cream. Note that Serbs wear their wedding bands on their right hands, according to Serbian Orthodox practice.
Walking down Belgrade's crowded pedestrian street one cooler evening last week, I noticed that not everyone was outside. These young people were quietly absorbed in checking out the latest in laptops at this computer store, oblivious to the crowd outside.
This fellow literally has a cool hairstyle: shaved all around, with dreadlocks to require minimal upkeep during a hot Belgrade summer. This post is dedicated to Jilly of Menton Daily Photo, who published some Creole dreadlocks here: http://menton-daily-photo.blogspot.com/2008/08/summertime-in-menton-dreadlocks.html
This little boat, docked near the confluence of the Sava and Danube rivers, is no longer in use, but what a shame. It was once a very, very popular fish and chips restaurant where hungry customers formed long lines along the quay awaiting their turn. The story goes that the cook left, and since then it's been closed. Any good unemployed cooks living nearby reading this?
I think that most of my friends in the US usually just buy another watch when theirs stops working. Here it's still possible to find all kinds of watch batteries and bands, and to get your watch repaired at a reasonable price. I've been taking my same watch to this little shop for years. The other day when I went in to have the band replaced, I found Emran instead of the usual older gentleman. Emran is his apprentice, and has now "graduated" to working alone. This shop is about as wide as a man's armspread, and just barely deeper. The left wall, which I couldn't get in the photo, is covered with all kinds of watch bands and spare part drawers. Emran was able to insert the little fasteners in my band without the use of the eyepiece over one eye that his boss uses. If you enlarge the photo, you can see it under the green lamp.
While I was walking downtown the other day, I came across this worker reading the newspaper during his morning break. He happily agreed to let me take his photo of him "curled up chillin' inside a coil." I forgot to ask him, but I think the coils are for electrical insulation. Anybody know for sure?
It's been so hot here. People cool off at some of the beaches on several of Belgrade's river islands, and then perhaps enjoy an evening stroll along the river banks. In New Belgrade there's an area where there are several rides and activities children can enjoy in the cool of the evening. Here's a colorful shot of a couple of them for you---that's a bouncing castle in the background.
It's plum season on the outdoor markets here now. I photographed these beauties yesterday when we took a little excursion outside of town. (Yes, I picked some.....) In Serbian plums are called šlive (SCHLEE-vay) and in addition to eating them fresh, city women make plum jam, plum dumplings, and plum pies out of them. Village women make the same, while their husbands make something they prefer: šlivovica (SCHLEE-vo-veet-sa), a brandy whose alcohol content varies between 25 and 70%. It's interesting that the Serbian word for 'plum' is related to the Latin līvidus, or “bluish, bruise-colored,” from which we get livid, a word synonomous with our black-and-blue when used to describe the discoloration caused by a bruise. Pretty color anyway!
We all left Corfu early one morning to arrive by sunset in Kalambaka, a small town on the plain of Thessaly. This area is known as Meteora, or "suspended rocks," for here on top of sandstone pinnacles, some of which rise 1800 feet (550 meters), are the remaining six Greek Orthodox monasteries, built from the 11th to 14th centuries. At the end of the 12th century, an asetic community of monks flocked to Meteora, and at the end of the 14th century, the Byzantine Empire's 800-year reign over northern Greece was being increasingly threatened by Turkish raiders who wanted control over the fertile plain of Thessaly. Building the monasteries required great skill to say the least, for the stones had to be hoisted up the steep walls by rope baskets...in fact, that's the way the monks were pulled up, too. I can only wonder who the first brave monk was, since he had no one to pull him up... For more info, please refer to: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Meteora 
Early the next morning before starting back to Serbia, we took Radovan's photo in front of some of the pinnacles. By the way, five of the remaining monasteries are inhabited by monks, and the other by nuns.
Finally we made it back to Serbia, and here is Radovan with his daughter and son-in-law in their village in Šumadija. Radovan had many tales to tell.... (By the way, the background here as well as the one where Radovan was photographed on his first day with us are from a collection of Serbian naive paintings that my husband and I have. "Naive" artists are those who have had no formal schooling.) Check out this site for photos of some Serbian naive paintings: http://homepage.mac.com/melissaenderle/Serbia/Kovacia/kovacia.html
From a small town just above Kalami where we stayed in Corfu, Radovan looks across the Ionian Sea at Albania. You can see it is very close. Bibi's cell phone actually functioned through an Albanian provider. Radovan regrets that his trip is drawing to an end, but he's anxious to get back to Serbia.
One evening we came across this shop that sold all kinds of copper articles, from coffee grinders to incense burners. I jacked up the ISO on my camera, but still had barely enough light to shoot (Where was my tripod....?)
