Skywatch Friday--Serbia from the Heart

Not your typical Skywatch for sure, but there are two skies in this photograph. One is idyllic, with a beautiful Serbian girl and bucolic scene proclaiming "Serbia from the Heart".

The scene below, with a hazy sky, depicts what I call 'the fringe factor' of New Belgrade's flea market. The actual flea market is behind the blue fence and back a bit. It is not a flea market in the true sense, but rather sells new goods, some real, some fake. If you wish to sell there, you need to rent a stand.

However, just outside its gate, stretch along the boulevard and under the railroad overpass, you will find masses of people, trying to make a few dinars selling what you would find on a true flea market, but not nearly as valuable. You can literally find the proverbial kitchen sink here.

(Did I say I took this from the car again while stopped at a red light...?)

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What do you do in the bus?

Or perhaps you don't take the bus? Sometimes I do, and sometimes I take my car, like I did when I snapped this photo at a red light....I do this a lot.

The gentleman is reading a newspaper while another passenger reads over his shoulder. The lady in front is pick...uh, scratching her nose, another lady appears lost in her thoughts, and I can't make out what the silhouetted mystery figure is doing.

Perhaps she is watching me.

ABC Wednesday --"P" is for "Popcorn"

I just love popcorn, all warm and salty, no butter, thank you. This stand, one of many in of a chain of them called "Pećina" (PEH-cheen-ya--another 'P'!) or 'cave,' stands across from the Cervantes Institute on Knez Mihailova, Belgrade's pedestrian street. A small bag (just enough for a quick tummy-filler) costs 30 dinars, or just under 50 cents, and you can see the prices go up from there. You can also buy a about a pound (500 grams) of unpopped kernels to take home. I love Pećina's because it is popped in a metal spinner that has just the right amount of oil so that it's not too greasy and not too dry. And I really like how they chain the little salt shaker to the stand.... (In the cup are little pieces of paper with contact info.)

Which reminds me: Once at school I was telling my class how I had made popcorn the night before and had had just enough oil for the pot to make the popcorn I had left. I got blank stares, puzzled looks..."What pot?" they asked. "Oil?"

These are kids who only know microwaved popcorn or who use an air popper.... I explained how I waited for the burner to be hot, then put in just enough oil to cover the bottom of the pot, next a layer of popcorn to cover that, slapped on the lid, and shook the pot back and forth over the burner.

You could have heard a pin drop. "Can we make it like that sometime?" And so we did.

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Puzzling....

Yesterday's post involved a word/puzzle game, and today we have a jigsaw puzzle wall. The pieces are heavy nylon, and enclose a children's play area in a nearby suburb. Snapped from the car again while at a red light!

Hey, dude, where are my vowels?

Do you play Scrabble? I do, and sometimes I cart my Scrabble game over to an English friend's house to play. Like many other players, we sometimes draw impossible combinations in English, and I think I will suggest to her next time that we can also use Serbian words, since that's a pretty good way to use those letters that never seem to go together, at least without an a,e,i, o, or u. In Serbian, r's often serve as vowels along with the standard ones, being trilled on the tip of the tongue, not in your throat like the French ones. I've used my American set here, but since letters are given values for their frequency, the values on a Serbian set wouldn't necessarily be the same as the ones you can see here (some have accents on, but of course not here), lying on Morton-Benson's Dictionary.

Here's what they mean:

• trg--a square, open place
• krv--blood
• trk--race, gallop
• grb--a crest, like a family one
• prst--finger
• smrt--death
• cvrst--strong
• srz--marrow
• cilj--a goal
• rdja--rust
• grm--a shrub
• hleb--bread

If you read Serbian, you can read about Mattel's plans for Serbian Scrabble right here, since right now I've only seen 'Skrebl' in what must be a pirated edition.

Theme Day--Doorways--All aboard!

Not a fantastically beautiful doorway, but it caught my eye the other day while passing by. This is the side entrance to Belgrade's main train station, which I had shown you the other day, or at least part of it, right here!


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Happy Halloween...

Since Halloween isn't really celebrated here, I was hard-pressed to find a fitting image for today's post, until I came across this dilapidated building downtown. As if the building itself wasn't creepy enough, someone stencilled huge cockroaches on it....ewwwww.

Coffee at a friend's place

It's the day before Halloween. Here in Serbia like in many places in Europe, Halloween is not typically celebrated, except by some Canadian or American embassy personnel or ex-pats. In this photo, you can see some baked pumpkin cut in small chunks and usually served cold. My husband used to love to eat it this way, but I never got into it. For me, if it's going to be eaten other than in a pie, it has to be hot. (I don't like pumpkin soup!)

To be a kid again....

When's the last time you had so much fun that you lost yourself in the moment? This little boy was having a great time chasing away the pigeons that were being fed old bread by an elderly couple just off to the right.

He chased the pigeons madly for a few moments, then all of a sudden reached down, took a piece of their bread, and popped it in his mouth, much to the horror of his grandparents who, up until then, were enjoying the entire spectacle!

ABC Wednesday :"O" is for "Overdue"

I have admired this building, which was the Belgrade Insurance Association, for years and years. It's absolutely monumental, and is an architectural pearl, not just for Belgrade, but for all of Europe. It's been long overdue for a renovation, the last one having been in 1907, and there were speculations whether or not this would actually happen.

Sometime next year (Belgrade time...could be later...) the building is finally supposed to get a facelift, which will cost about 1 million euros. This will include restauration of the facade, a new roof (presumably in the same style), renovation of exterior carpentry and metalworks, as well as reinforcement of the structure. The statues too will be restored, as will the terraces. Two domes, destroyed during the Second World War, will be reconstructed.


Not foreseen is restauration of its interior. I found some photos on Google, and have written to the Tourist Agency here to see if it can be visited, for the photos of the interior I saw showed tourists, and the interior looks very, very well-preserved. If I get in, you'll see!

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Girl devours bird in bus!

Nothing like that title to get your attention. I snapped this photo on the sly the other day while returning from the doctor's in the bus. Nothing like a little white dove for a snack....okay, I confess. I have been fiddling with Photoshop again. If you look at the photo below, you will see that she's actually eating a "palačinka" or crêpe, wrapped in a napkin. (I showed you some yummy "palačinke" right here. ) In Photoshop, I just added a dot for the bird's eye, and then borrowed some yellow from her blouse and cloned to the napkin's "beak."

Check out the original photo below!