Layers of past and present

This bulletin board hangs on a wall on a street downtown. I love the collage that was unintentionally created here. There are advertisements, some old, some new, for a ballet school for little girls, jazz ballet, schoolbooks, and a vocational school to become a waiter/waitress, locksmith, carpenter, and other trades.

The Orient Express Passed Through Belgrade!

Cynthia, over at MuseSwings , is inviting everyone today on a trip on the Orient Express!

The original route of this luxury train began its first run on October 4, 1883, from Paris to Giurgiu in Romania via Munich and Vienna, then passengers were ferried across the Danube to continue their trip to Istanbul.

In 1885, another route began operations, this time reaching Istanbul via rail from Vienna to Belgrade and Niš, carriage to Plovdiv, and rail again to Istanbul. By 1962, the Orient Express had stopped running, and was replaced by a slower service called the Direct Orient Express, which ran daily cars from Paris to Belgrade, and twice weekly services from Paris to Istanbul and Athens.

The locomotive above didn't belong to the Orient Express, but to a retired steam engine train that now serves as a cafe in the town of Pančevo, 15 kilometers northeast of Belgrade. The windmill behind is a restaurant, where I photographed this soup last November 23rd.

International Women's Day

International (Working) Woman's Day (IWD) is marked on March 8 every year. It's a global celebration for the economic, political and social achievements of women, though honestly I'd never heard of it before I came here. It began as a political event, but soon became simply an occasion for men to express their love to the women around them in a way somewhat similar to Mother's Day and St Valentine's Day mixed together. All over Belgrade and in other towns in Serbia, men and children will be buying flowers, chocolates, or chintzy trinkets for the ladies in their lives.

Most women I know don't care for this holiday, but hey, it's nice to get flowers.

The women in my photo have a hard life---not a tractor, not to mention a man, in sight.

P.S. See the railroad tracks? Stop by tomorrow and see where they take you.

Looking for spring

A young couple looks out over the Danube toward Great War island. The winter barrenness will soon disappear, and Mother Nature will dress herself in shades of green.

Moskva, Mimosa, and Mailbox!

I posted something about Hotel Moskva here , and just recently mentioned it here. I took this photo through a window of a department store across the street a few days ago. Belgrade still looks pretty gray, but you can see a mimosa seller on the lower left of this photo, right next to another mailbox I found!

About the hotel: Hotel Moskva is a four star hotel and the only hotel in Belgrade that has no room or apartment number 13. It has had over 36 million visitors in the past 100 years, including celebrities like Alfred Hitchcock, Orson Welles, Yves Montand, Robert de Niro, Jean-Paul Sartre, Miloš Forman, Yasser Arafat, Ray Charles, Richard Nixon, and Rebecca West, to name a few.

Check it out on Youtube ! And check out Marie's and many other Postcard Friday postings by clicking here .

Through the rear window

When being driven somewhere and finding myself in the back seat of a car alone with my camera, I do what most people (read 'City Daily Photo Bloggers) do: I take photos out the window. I forgot that I had my camera on manual when I snapped this, but I like it anyway. In the window on the right you can see one of Belgrade's pink buses...they're not all pink; sometimes it depends where they come from, since some were received through donations from nearby countries. Adds a touch of color anyway!

ABC Wednesday "G" is for "gloves"

A street cleaner was undoubtedly taking a break and left his gloves on his dustbin cart. This photo reminds me of my grandfather, who used to do the same with his garden gloves. After mowing the lawn, he'd leave them on the mower's handles. I remember too that when he fell asleep while reading in his armchair in the living room, my grandmother would gently remove the book, and his hands would stay in the 'holding a book' position until he woke up, sometimes because I'd be giggling so hard.

Join ABC Wednesday by clicking here .

A caramel Bibi

Last Sunday a friend and I paid another visit to Katja , the lady with nearly 300 dogs at last count. Katja has been working with a French friend of mine to help her home these dogs in Europe, and has had some success so far. Approximately 10 of her dogs leave each month for new homes in primarily France, Belgium, and Germany, and the nicest part is, these are very often dogs with some sort of handicap. The plan is for Katja not to accept any more dogs, and to home the ones she has. Unfortunately, Katja often wakes up to new dogs that have been thrown over her fence, tied to her front gate, or abandoned as puppies in a box.

Bibi came from this place, and I couldn't help but notice a resemblance between caramel-colored "Nena" in the upper photo and Bibi.

I've posted more photos of the dogs on Flickr and I hope you can connect to the link. If not, contact me through my email under my profile. If you're interested in helping Katja, write me there as well, and I will put you in contact with my friend (French, English, and Serbian-speaking.)

A bagel by any other name...

...is not a bagel, it is probably a djevrek (JEV-rek), at least here in Belgrade. Here in the photo you can see a plain bagel (Yes, there is a real New York bagel shop here now, run by a Serb who lived in the Big Apple!), a sesame seed covered djevrek, and a thinner 'cocktail' djevrek'. Like the bagel, the two djevrek (actually 'djevreci' in the plural) shown here are boiled, but there exists another thicker kind that is baked like a bread and has a bread-like consistency. Djevreci

are eaten for a snack or for breakfast with yogurt. They don't keep well, and any leftover ones you can use for ring toss!

This photo is for Anci, who wrote to say she misses them...

March Theme Day "Glass" Živeli! (Cheers!)

Serbs love their rakija (RAH-kee-yuh) or brandy, which is usually made from plums, although it can be made from other fruit, such as quince or pears. I photographed a pear here, for it's not the season for plums, and so I couldn't find any for my photo. Here you can see an assortment of rakija glasses and a carafe. The two tall glasses on the left in front of the pear are

the most classic ones. Živeli! (ZHEE-veh-lee!) or Cheers!

P.S. I took this photo with my macro lens, my latest piece of 'glass'.

Click here to view thumbnails for all participants

And now, by special request...

This isn't a photo that will probably attract a lot of attention from most of you in Bloggerland, but I received a request from a Serbian gentleman in the U.S. for a " view from center of sidewalk in front of Albania building toward London intersection - sort of a wide angle view of both sides of the street," so here it is. Terazije is Belgrade's designated center, and derives its name from when the Turks had water brought in from the springs from a nearby community. A water tower was erected on the location of the present fountain at Terazije and the square was named after the Turkish word for water tower, terazi (literally, water scales). On this photo you can just make out the green-tiled pointed spires of Hotel Moskva.

I hope you like the photo....