Who's got a sweet tooth?

Yesterday it was bread, today it's cookies and little cakes. Some may look familiar to you, and rightly so, since half of these aren't typical Serbian fare. The reason? They're made by a Serbian man and his "Serbian-but-born-and-raised-in-the-US" wife, who brought her favorite American recipes along with her. In addition to the tiny cream puffs, known as 'princes krofne' (PRIN-cess KROF-nay) here, some chestnut cream cookies, and fig cookies stuffed with walnuts, you'll find an assortment of doughnuts, muffins, and chocolate chip cookies to tide US expats through a bout of culinary nostalgia.

ABC Wednesday "X" is for "bread!"

Yes, honest, "X" is for "bread," because here in Serbia, the word for bread is written in the Cyrillic alphabet as "ХЛЕБ," prounounced "hleb." Here are two kinds of bread I buy regularly, a really good, moist, fresh-daily wheat one, and a lighter wheat flour (but not actually white) one. Yum. It's easy to get spoiled with such bread here.

Do not enter--danger of poisoning!!!

This is the entrance to the underground garage of a large office building, right next to a pharmacy. What the heck are they doing in there that's poisonous, even if it's only from time to time??

Two-for-one Trashed Trash Cans

A few years ago the city replaced its metal trash cans (the ones on posts) with plastic ones. You can probably guess that the front of these is missing from the first photo, and some careless person has tossed most likely a cigarette butt into the second one, resulting in a melted mess. Interesting though, how people have stuck their trash in the frame of the first receptacle!

The smoke before the storm.

Snapped this photo the other night of a seemingly very bored cook who's having a puff on the deck of one of Belgrade's river boat-restaurants. It was early evening around 7:30, before the onslaught of patrons wanting to dine al fresco.

Quality time

Another scene along the Sava in New Belgrade. You don't see too many lady fishermen, but here is one who I imagine is with her husband enjoying some quality time and perhaps will enjoy some of their catch later on. In the background you can see some of the little houseboats people use as a summer/fair weather get-away, and the little yellow boat is on its way back from a river island to shuttle some more passengers across.

A view from my terrace

Normally on a pleasant summer evening there are people around downstairs in the garden, on the plaza, or even in the apartment windows (not that I am a peeping Tom...) But this wasn't the case in this photo; nary a soul to be seen. Something good on tv?

Workers in the sky

Caught these fellows the other day with my 300mm lens---they were waaaaay up there, assembling the new Xerox logo, since Xerox has changed its logo to a red sphere with a white X with three grey stripes to reflect less on the photo copying duties Xerox has carried out and to refocus on document management and solutions. For years, Xerox has carried on a campaign to ban "xerox" or "xeroxed" as a verb and adjective, but although they may not like this use of their name, language changes, and Xerox isn't just a noun anymore.

"I'd like the non-waste section, please!" (ABC Wednesday)

I was debating whether to even post this photo, since Belgrade has so many beautiful floating restaurants, or splavovi, and this one in particular, even without the Waste isn't one of the more appealing. Unfortunately though, many splavovi are surrounded with waste, discarded by careless people. Too bad; I hate to see this. But I do wonder why this couple choose to sit right above the mess? I guess, thanks to the flowers, they can't see it.

Urban landscape

Snapped this photo out of the bus the other day, since the composition of lines, grays, and reds struck me as pleasing. The towers in the background are on Belgrade's heating plant. The roof is of a temporary building used to house some workers doing construction nearby.

No wasting bread, please!

Serbs are bread-worshipers. If the French say "A day without wine is a day without sunshine," the Serbian equivalent would be "A day without bread is a day I've not been fed." (Like that? My creation!) In any case, it is a major no-no to throw bread out in the trash. Old bread is placed in a bag and put somewhere where those who need it can easily find it, usually on a dumpster such as this. My guess is that depending on the bread's condition, it's either then used for human consumption or fed to animals.