Couldn't resist posting these two photos today, both taken about two months ago. Colorful, to say the least! The young girl has her hair attached with what at first looked like long stringbeans, while the lady, who appears to belong to one of Belgrade's many minority groups, fascinated me with her varigated patterns.
Often when walking Bibi we get barked at by dogs on the other side of fences, behind gates, and even from terraces. This little guy was very quiet, and had Bibi not stopped to sniff his nose, I wouldn't have noticed him....or her.
In an earlier post here http://yankee-in-belgrade.blogspot.com/2008/04/truncated-trees.html , I had shown how the city annually chops off its sycamore trees along some major boulevards, since their branches often interfere with trolley lines. This photo was taken about two weeks ago, and you can see the new little branches are coming right back! They grow very fast, and this same tree is sporting new tufts in addition to these.
This kiosk stands on Belgrade's walking street, Knez Mihailova, and as you see, is a source of information for concerts and other cultural activities. Its midriff expands over weeks and months (sound familiar for some of us?) and every now and then it undergoes tummy reduction "surgery" to restore its waistline. You'd be surprised how many layers are removed!
Most people in Belgrade live in apartments that they usually own. However, although they fix up their own terraces, the common property areas around the apartment buildings are not regularly kept up. Those who really have a green thumb that's itching for more garden space take it upon themselves to take care of the grassy plots around their building, as someone has done here. His or her skills are limited to gardening, and it looks like a carpenter might be needed to repair this bench. In the meantime, don't sit on the flowers!
Wouldn't you love a cone this big? I had a slightly smaller one last night, and it was delicious. Couldn't resist taking the photo of this big cone over the store's window display of their yummy ice cream. Little blurry; hand-held by me in one hand, with my cone in the other.
A bit stormy part of the day yesterday, and when it cleared for a moment, we here in my part of town were greeted by a double rainbow. The dome you see is Belgrade's new sports arena, where the Eurovision Song Contest was recently held.
This is actually, I think, three trees that have fused together. Their trunks (like all these t's?) have merged together and make for a quite impressive tree-in-one. On the left of these trees about 50 meters away and several meters below is the Sava River. The embankment where the passer-by is walking is a sort of dyke to prevent flooding of residences behind it. However, a couple of years ago after major rains, the Sava (and Danube too, of course) overflowed, and here the water reached half-way up the embankment.
According to Wikipedia, the phrase Dog Days or "the dog days of summer," refers to the hottest, most sultry days of summer. They are a phenomenon of the northern hemisphere that usually falls between July and early September, but the actual dates vary greatly from region to region, depending on latitude and climate. Dog Days can also define a time period or event that is very hot or stagnant. Well, it's been hot and stagnant here pretty regularly, and this dog has picked an odd spot to rest, right in the sun. But I've noticed street dogs do that to warm their bones, poor things.
Last Saturday, Chuck in Seattle at http://almostoneaday.blogspot.com/ posted a photo of a truckload of anchors secured with cables, but there were no sides on the truck to prevent either their possible fall (okay, unlikely, but possible!) or someone's purposely gouging himself on an anchor's hook to make an insurance claim. I know in the US we're always watchful for this kind of thing, and we've all read signs that warn you of "dangers" that could be avoided by common sense. Here you're expected to use common sense, and too bad for you if you don't, since at least so far people aren't litigation-happy. But this sign in Kalemegdan Park surprised me. You can read what it says, but I guess that means, "Go ahead and walk here if you want, but watch out." I'm dedicating this post to Chuck, and to Strangetastes in Saint Louis at http://saintlouismodailyphoto.blogspot.com/ , since he's a lawyer! And thank you to my friend Melissa for letting me borrow her photo from her site; not sure if you can enlarge this one.
Meet Voja (VOY-yah), who owns the little newspaper stand where I go every morning to buy my newspapers. Here I also sometimes buy bus tickets, Milka chocolate, and other treats, and Voja always seems to be around. You can probably surmise that smoking is big here from the packs of cigarettes jammed behind his window. (Serbia was third in Europe after Greece and Turkey for the number of smokers.) I had never seen Voja standing until I asked him for this photo, since he's usually seated inside the little window you can glimpse on the left. Voja was very pleased when I presented him with a copy of this photo!
Went through the old municipality of Zemun, which was once part of the Austro-Hungarian Empire. Lots of beautiful architecture.
