The other day I had the opportunity to chaperone two kindergarten classes from our school on a trip to the Ethnographic Museum. The 25 or so kids were much better behaved than some of the older classes I'd helped before...and so, so interested in everything in the museum and out.
It's not an obvious R here, but 'na dobrom glasu' means 'a good reputation,' and is also a play on words for this billboard advertising Fitosept, a throat lozenge. 'Dobrom glasu' can also mean 'a good voice,' which is what you will allegedly get back if you suck on Fitosept.
I photographed these opanci (OH-pahn-tsee) that I showed you once before here at the Ethnographic Museum downtown. Please click on that link, for there are some wonderful photographs of the exhibits inside. A museum not to miss should you come to Belgrade.
Vasa Čarapić (VA-sah CHAR-ah-peech) was a famous general born in 1770 on Avala mountain, which overlooks Belgrade. He died in 1806 in the struggle for the liberation of Belgrade from the Turks. His last name comes from the word čarapa, which means 'sock,' and the story goes that one of his ancestors accidentally killed a Turk's dog, and in compensation, the Turk demanded a large sum of money. The money was collected and sent to him not in a sack, but in a sock.
"All the news that's fit to print" is the motto of the New York Times. Not sure if the text on this bra and panties was taken from the NYT, and I wonder if anyone will take the time to read it.
Days are getting shorter and shorter... Recently from inside a restaurant I snapped this photo of the trails two airplanes had left on the violet sky.
...or should that be "Cars go better with Coke?" I had to pull over at a distance from this parked car last weekend to take this photo. The gas and motor oil on the roof reminded me so much of how gasoline was sold during the sanctions imposed on then Yugoslavia, and the subsequent bombing of Serbia. Gasoline was more than scarce, and was smuggled in from neighboring countries. It was possible to buy it as you see it here, by the Coke bottle, but more often such bottles were advertisements that more of the brew was available in larger quantities. Gasoline 'merchants' even provided home delivery, and people kept large canisters on their porches. This made me very uneasy, since Serbs smoke big time, and often flick cigarette butts off their balconies...
Actually, the 'querent' is not in this photo. The querent took it, since the word means, 'one who asks a question' (another 'q'). I asked the lady selling this enormous pumpkin how much the entire one weighed. "About 25 kilos," she answered, which is about 55 pounds.
Today's photo fulfills a request from Katarina in Canada, who wrote the following to me:
Like many other cities in Europe aside from Berlin, 'Berlin Walls' were constructed to be torn down today, November 9th, on the 20th anniversary of the real wall's fall. In cooperation with the Goethe Institute here, German artist Frank Betler constructed a heavy cardboard 'brick' wall on Republic Square over two days' time. It was 40 meters long and three meters high. On this link you can see the artist at work, on a bright sunny day. Unfortunately, Mother Nature had other plans for the wall, and right here you can see the result of strong winds and snow that hit the city on November 3rd. At that point, the wall was not completely damaged, and would have stood until the 9th when the rest would have been knocked down, but (and this is unofficial, but reasonably reliable), there were reports of late-night hooliganism that involved leaping over the wall and knocking it down.Hmmm....This is one of those photos I thought would turn out better. Was desperate for a photo!
