OUT MY WINDOW AT 6 a.m.

 The only good thing about awakening early is catching the moon where you wouldn't necessarily see it otherwise....

IN THE TRAIN

Ah, youth!  It's fun for me to watch young people do thiings I used to do. These girls were in my wagon on the Belgrade-Subotica train two days ago. Giggle, laugh, make eyes at the boys you can't see here....and before arrival, the one in the middle, who had been dressed in jeans like her friends, rushed off into the bathroom and returned wearing this dress! The dress recalled a style with cherries that had also been popular when I was a kid. Long ago and far away in another galaxy. They asked me to take their photo and I obliged, of course, and sent them a copy.
 

NOT BELGRADE

 Today's photo was not taken in Belgrade, but by my daughter from her balcony that overlooks her magnificent magnolia tree with branches sreading gloriously over half the yard. Photos cannot do it justice. 

TWO LADIES AND A CAT IN THE RAIN

 From my window on a rainy Friday.

ANOTHER SERENDIPITOUS FIND

 I found this snakeplant (SANSEVIERIA) mug the other day while browsing in a little shop I like that sells all kinds of fun things. The shop didn't disappoint. Snake plant is also known as 'mother-in-law's tongue,' undoubtedly because of its sharp, pointed leaves. Aww....I don't think I am that kind of mother-in-law.

ANOTHER TEXTER

 It has been so cold and I am lacking photos. Warm days coming very soon, so they say. But for the moment, I'm not out and about much and seem to prefer the bus to walking in the cold and rain. No rain in this photo, but it was cold. I think the girl would have a hard time finding gloves to cover her long nails. Still textng though.

YORKIE IN THE WINDOW

This little fellow belongs to the lady who owns this dress shop. Sweet pup, but I think he envied my dog walking outside with me.

12!

My Belgrade grandson is 12 today. We had a family celebration last Sunday. His mother made this scrumptious 12-inch cheesecake with strawberry glaze. In the background you can see poppyseed cake slices, too.

ALMOST SERENDIPITOUS

As did the chair beside the dumpster I showed you three days ago, this mirror almost came hime with me, but no place for it. and you can see it's still raining.

WILD GARLIC

Wild garlic is popular here, but its season doesn't last long.  Allium ursinum, known as wild garlic, ramsons,cows's leek, cowleek, buckrams, broad-leaved garlic, wood garlic, bear leek, Eurasian wild garlic, onion grass, or bear's garlic is on the market here now in abundance. I make soup with it or toss some of the leaves into the pot I make pasta with.  Here in Serbia it is know as sremuš (SREH-moosh).

JUST PRETTY

 It was cold and rainy yesterday and today will be the same. I would have stayed in, but gotta walk the pup. You can thank her for leading me to these yet budding irises 

WHAT A FIND! (Please read the text!)

I must have gypsy blood. I do NOT mean that as any kind of ethnic slur, for gypsies, or Roma, do so much good here in Serbia by recycling paper, metal, glass and so on. When I have clothing I do not wish to throw away, I fill a bag and carry it with me. When I come across a Roma, I give it to him/her and they're always happy. If it is a big bag, I put it down by the dumpster and it disappears very quickly. Yesterday I had a role reversal. While walking my dog, I came upon this very dusty, but totally in good shape, chair that someone had placed by the dumpster. It followed me home. I have washed and scrubbed it and it is currently drying on my terrace. After it dries, I will shellac it and buy a cushion and it will be an  indoor chair in the location that you see it above. I'll post a photo!

ANGRY PASTRY

 I didn't buy this angey pastry, opting for a healthier choice, and I am sure it wasn't happy about that. 

NOT NERVOUS

 I took this photo from my window the other evening. I wasn't nervous and intentionally didn't use a tripod. I was inspired by a group on Facebook called Intentional Camera Movement. Very cool photos in that group; look it up!

READERS AND WALKERS

 Each enjoys the park in his own way.

PIGEON MAN

Just a man and his pigeons.

 

COLORS OF SPRING

The other day I saw several people wearing yellow. Here's one!
 

THE CAT WOMAN

 There seems to be at least one woman in each neighborhood who takes care of stray cats. Always a woman, never a man. Our neighborhood has two, and this is one of them. 

SPRING IN WINTER COLOR

 This puffy white bush's flowers reminded me of a large snowball. Just a few more days now until Spring. 

MAN, MONEY, AND A CIGARETTE

 Another market shot. Money, man, and a cigarette.

GOTTA LOVE THOSE HEELS

Her heels remind me of the type I wore to the senior prom as did all my other girl friends. You'd buy them white and the shop would match the to your dress!  I never held on to mine, but I guess I could have kept them for a dress-up car wash.

BACON, SAUSAGE, AND A MAN

 At a local market yesterday.

DOWN AND OUT AND UNDERGROUND

The musician in the background is often playing his guitar and I imagine he earns something in tips. The sleeping person is only one of a number of people who claim this mattress as home in an underground passage.

SALVADOR AND FRIDA

 Frida Kahlo and Surrealist Salvador Dali only met once in the 1930s, when Surrealism was reshaping the art world. Frida rejected the movement, but Andre Breton, the French writer and poet and co-founder of Surrealism, described her as a 'natural surrealist.' In any case, both are featured in the window of a bookstore downtown.

SKYWATCH--the crow

 I haven't participated in SKYWATCH in quite a while, so here's a sky photo for you.

LOST

If you've ever lost a favorite toy when you were a child, you know how this little bear's owner must feel. I hope he has found its way home. 

LOOKING UP CONTINUED...

 Yesterday I showed you a photo of a flower delivery man looking up. 

Here's what he was looking at:  BELGRADE'S WESTERN GATE or GENEX TOWER.

LOOKING UP

 A delivery man was waiting for his customer to pick up the bouquet of tulips he's holding on International Women's Day on March 8th. 

Tomorrow I'll show you what he was looking up at.

URBAN STILL LIFE

 I have taken lots of photos of 'things' on the street that don't always fall into a particular category, and so I call all of them 'urban still lifes'. Here's another!

WHERE'D CLIVE GO?

 Anyone remember the Clive the Talking Leopard commercials for Schweppes circa 1998?  Clive is gone, but his tail remains.

HAPPILY RETIRED

 My dog's tennis ball is really happy it's retired. 

TIME TO BE FIXED

Here is our brand-new, 9.5 meter high, 7.5 ton clock, installed right smack in the middle of two main streets that drivers had no trouble navigating. Now drivers must drive around the clock to get to the same place.  

And, ha, it was installed just over 10 days ago and is now not functioning. Here is what Danas, a reliable newspaper, has to say:  The new symbol of Belgrade on  Republic Square has lost its purpose after only ten days. The Belgrade Clock, which cost 10 million dinars (of which about five million dinars were spent on the "most modern mechanism"), not only does not show accurate time, but it no longer even has a hand. The City Administration is silent for now, and Danas' interlocutors believe that the situation with the clock is a reflection of the city government's decision to pay too much for something that will not work, and they emphasize that citizens have the right to know who is responsible for the shortcomings, which are financed from their own pockets."  Ten million dinars is nearly $100,000.

HAPPY IN THE BUS

 This photo brings a smile to my face. The woman is oviously happy, but the pup looks unsure, as if he fears someone will ask him to get off the seat!

LIPSTICK ON HER SKIRT

 LIPSTICK ON YOUR COLLAR by Connie Francis was one of the first teeny-bopper songs I liked.  This girl has lipstick on her skirt!

TEXTING ABOVE THE 'TURKISH' MARKET

A young woman sits texting above what ex-pats here call 'the Turkish' market, though I haven't a clue why. If you're interested in reading about the history of this section of Belgrade, CLICK RIGHT HERE. I learned a lot.

MARCH 2026 THEME DAY--WHITE

 What is white about vanilla? Yes, there is vanilla ice cream, but vanilla extract is not white, although the vanilla flower is. The yellow packet contains about a tablespoon of vanlla sugar, which some cooks prefer instead of the liquid. I'm stretching the theme once again to present to you one more person of color I had NEVER heard of. His name was Edmond Albius, born in Reunion in 1829.  PLEASE click THIS LINK to read about him. He took the last name 'Albius' (white) from the color of the vanilla flower.

Check other interpretations of WHITE RIGHT HERE.

SHOEFITI

 While walking last night, I came upon this dramatic view of pairs of shoes thrown over a power line.  All of us have seen this somewhere in the world. I looked up the significance of shoe-throwing and it varies from the innocent (if you can call 'playing' with power lines innocent) to the more aggressive, i.e. from creating SHOEFITI to asserting a gang's presence in a certain area.

BLONDE JOGGER

We've had some good weather recently, clear and crisp. This isn't a terribly original shot, but I took it with my 50mm lens at a distance and cropped it down. Still sharp.

PAW PRINTS ON RED

A photo from a bicycle path. You can see what appear to  be skid marks or at least tire marks from bicycles and paw prints from a large dog that have darkened over time.
 

HAIR ACCESSORIES

I love to browse the stalls at local markets. You can find just about anything there--clothing, shoes, socks, undies, jewelry, and hair accessories like these that I photographed from the other side of the canvas panel where they were displayed.

COMPOSITION IN RED, WHITE, AND BLUE

 The chair on the left now looks more orange....oh, well. I like the combination of thse colors along with the yellow wall.

TEAPOTS

We visited my favorite Serbian restaurant yesterday, and I took a shot of their one window (actually there are two like this) that faces one street. Someone either donated their entire collection of teapots, cups and saucers, sugar bowls, and creamers to the restaurant. They are all beautiful. This is just a close-up of one window.
 

MY FAVORITE SERBIAN RESTAURANT

This restaurant, RESTORAN VUK (pronounced 'vooook),') is my favorite Serbian restaurant. The link is only in Serbian, but you can check out its interior in color and drool over some of its cuisine. Classic, and I hope for many more years, an excellent old-world dining experience. 
 

PRETTY IN THE BUS

 Up to my old tricks again with my 16-50mm lens, usually set at 16mm. This young woman was lost in thought and totally unaware of me sneaking a shot, my hands gently folded over the shutter button. Thank you, Nikon, for a completely noiseless shutter.....

A TOUCH OF SPRING

As I sat in the bus at its beginning stop downtown waiting for the driver to hop  back in and roll on (he'd been on a break), I noticed these tulips in the window of Hotel Amsterdam. The hotel itself is very unappealing from the outside, but I've just checked ITS WEBSITE, and the rooms are top-notch. Not bad tulips either.

TWO SHAVED HEADS

I was attracted first by the hairdo on the woman in the foreground, but when I looked more closely after taking the shot, there's another shaved head person walking away. Click and view this photo. She' got tattoos and lots of rings, too.

ON THE PHONE

 On the phone....and who isn't these days?  This elegant gentleman is engrossed in a conversation, but at least seems to watch where he's going. The lady in the background is checking her phone, too. I am guilty from time to time, but never walk while on the phone.

DARN GROUNDHOG

There is no custom here of a groundhog seeing its shadow on February 2, most likely because the groundhog is a North American animal. Be that as it may, in Pennsylvania Punxutawney Phil, the town's resident groundhog did indeed see his shadow. Seems like he's working internationally now for yesterday we got more snow.

LAST EVENING'S SUNSET

 I guess I should call this 'Essence of Sunset, ' since the sun itself is out of view. Its lovely colors filtered through my curtains. 

YORKIE DRESSED TO THE NINES

This little fellow was dressed for a photo shoot, haha, and he had his hair done, too. I looked up the expression 'dressed to the nines,' and couldn't find its exact origin, though most sites point to Scotland.