To say that the contrast in prices were ‘shocking’ would be an understatement (a bottle of the Karlovačko beer I drank costs about $1 in Croatia: in New York, it costs $7) but the food (Sarma, Čevapi, and Burek) was the same great things that I had lived on. It was a fine evening with great food. I look forward to returning there sometime in the future with other people. (As a side note, a prominent New York magazine ranked another Bosnian store, selling the giant burger-like Pleškavica, as having one of the top hamburgers avalible in New York)

The next day I met a man who had recently returned from Iraq doing ‘contracting’ of a vague nature. My sister brought up the visit to the Bosnian place the night before, which in turn led the discussion to my period of study in Serbia. The man, recently returned from Baghdad, commented that going to Serbia ‘must have been pretty intense’ and asked if I was frightened while I was there. I dont think he was making a joke about Serbian drivers. He was rather reacting to the only news he has ever heard comming out of Serbia; the war. Sadly I have to say that his reaction was not exceptional; nearly everyone I talk to thinks I’ve come back from a war zone. Its just one case of how many Americans dont understand other countries, how we fixate on one bad event from the past. I hope in some little way this page helped change this, but with a regular readership of about 6 people, I don’t think the news got far.

Thanks for reading (or stopping by),

John

“jogrt22″ @ gmail.com (delete the spaces and “s)

Last night was the American Corner goodbye party. It was fun, and there was food. I got some nice little Novi Sad gifts from people. I’ll miss those folks. We talked about Serbian movies last night, and I have a big list of things I need to look for when I return home.

I’m also surprised that no-one asked for details on the giant spider thing. Do you all think now that there are giant spiders roaming the streets here eating illegally parked Yugo hatchbacks? I mean, if it could happen anywhere, it would happen in Serbia.

Well, this is it for our regularly scheduled transmissions. Ill do some ‘home and summary’ post, and put up more photos eventually, but this is the end of the Serbian writings. This marks my 67th post. In the last 4 months this page was viewed over 3,200 times, and received 177 comments. Thank you all for reading, I hope you have enjoyed this.

-John

Almost as (comically) sad is that I learned, on my last days here, that the book store I walk past almost every day has a live-in cat. The ‘pet me and I dont have rabbies’ kind of cat. Information which would have been useful 3 months ago to work in the abatment of one of my greatest problems here, the ‘I miss my cat’ syndrome. It wont be a problem in about 4 days, when I will have the ‘dont wake me up at 7am with a hangover’ problem with my cat again.

I learned such knowledge during my quest for gifts to bring home. This quest in Serbia is much harder than other places, since there is NO winter tourism here in Novi Sad. With a lack of tourism, there is also a lack of t-shirts or other paraphanalia to buy for people back home. I am, however, prowling the mean streets of Serbian bookstores and other places, like the very sketchy open air market, looking for things. Snežana was nice enough to get me a football team scarf as a gift, which I can add to my collection of football related shirt and even football related beer lables that I have picked up in my time here. It also keeps me warmer, now that things are really cold here (and by really cold, I mean just at freezing point).

But yes, packing of things is starting. Hopefully I wont be overweight with my bag this time, since I have jettisoned some clothes and, more importantly, will be wearing my jacket and not carrying my heavy boots (I will, but they will be on my feet). There will probably be one more entry before I leave, but thats about that from the writing from Serbia. When I get home I won’t have internet too much, so a comprehensive photo list may be a while comming. Keep checking back for a few weeks and there might be a few last posts. If you still need your fill of student adventure writing, Eliot is going to be off working on a cruise ship next semester, and he could probably hook you up with some good stories from aboard.

Well, thats that for this entry. I need to go get some food and get to one of my last classes. The American Corner is playing christmas carrols right now and its making me think of home an awful lot.

Zitište is a mostly unremarkable town in the Banat region of Vojvodina. It is east of Novi Sad, a few kilometers from the border with Romania. It has just over 3,000 residents; the population size hasn’t changed significantly since the end of World War Two. Its a collection of farmers and shop owners in a typical Balkan town of low brick houses. In recent years the town has fallen on hard luck suffering from several floods and “a landslide” (how it could possibly have suffered a landslide is a great mystery to me, because Zitište is as flat as a pancake). One the surface, its hardly the sort of place that would normally warrant a visit on my last Saturday in Serbia.

But Zitište isn’t a normal place. If anyone ever asked me to prove my theory that there exists a sort of ‘alternative reality’ in the Balkans, I think Zitište would be involved in my rebuttal. The reason is that, when confronted with the terrible events of recent years, the good people of Zitište terribly needed a hero, and turned to the only place a logical man could turn in their situation…

Which was…

..

.

Rocky.

In what is probably the most bizarre story to come out of the Balkans in recent years, the town chose, through completely legitimate and public means involving the city council, to erect a giant statue of Sylvester Stallone in his role as Rocky Balboa. It was declared that Rocky was the greatest symbol of defiance over the opposition the villagers faced that could be found. I first read of the story almost a year ago online, when if this Serbia experience would even happen was still a very uncertain thing, and rather disbelieved the story to be possibly true. Just search on google for “Rocky, Serbia” or something and you will find stories. At some point I thought ‘maybe Ill have to go see for myself’ because a Rocky Statue in Serbia is about as bizarre as it gets.

Verbal confirmation of the existence of the mysterious Rocky came soon after I arrived in Novi Sad, during one of my first American Corner meetings. Over the months I saw cell phone photos that had been taken of it, and talked to people who had seen it. Never being one to turn down a good adventure, and some good pose photos, I made the decision to seek out the Rocky statue for myself. Anyways, I needed some ridiculous capitalist monument to balance out the ridiculous socialist monuments I have seen here. A Rocky statue in rural Serbia would certainly fit that bill.

So, bright and early this morning me and a friend set off by bus towards the city of Zernjanin. Arrival at the depressingly abandoned and windswept station in sub zero (Centigrade) temperatures revealed an hour wait for a vintage bus that took us an additional 20 minutes to the city of Zitište. The bus drivers laugh when they learn of our quest, and agree to drop us right at the statue.

And sure enough, they did as promised. Our bus clanks up into the center of town, the doors open with a hiss, and with my own eyes I saw the great Rocky statue of Zitište, Serbia. This, I can assure you, is for real folks. Here is me in front of it. We have a giant metallic ‘Rocky Balboa’ statue in the middle of a farming village in rural Serbia. In an even greater twist of fate we discovered that the statue’s address is actually the (glorious) “Marshall Tito Street” of Zitište.

While some might term spending close to thirty dollars and the better part of 6 hours in the cold or on questionable buses to see a Rocky statue as ‘silly’ I consider it time well spent. Anyways, it is so strange that you really need to see to possibly believe it as true. The only possibly stranger monument I know of is in Mostar, Bosnia. There the citizens of the war-torn town, divided by ethnic conflict, elected to erect a statue of none other than Kung-fu movie legend Bruce Lee. It was the only person that had absolutely no connection to the war, and that everyone liked. I’ve also heard a rumor that there are plans to erect a Bill Clinton statue in Kosovo. Welcome to the former Yugoslavia.

Rocky Balboa aside, lets look at something else funny that I found a few days back, this time in Novi Sad. As most people know by now, Serbs drive crazy. What you may not know is that Serbs park crazy too. Its a serious problem. Serbian parking control, to combat the problem, has taken inspiration from the Lord of the Rings to create an appropriately crazy and eccentric counter-measure; resorting to the capture, taming, and keeping of a giant car eating spider. It roams the streets at odd hours of the day devouring illegally parked Yugo hatchbacks.

The final photo upload of the trip, lets also look at the weather. Its snowing a bit now here in NS (just a dusting). I thought it might be fun to compare the view from my window on week one (Late August), and then the view two days ago. Hey look! Its gray outside! Thankfully the snow slows down the giant spider a bit.

If there are particular photos you are hoping Ill bring back, now is the time to ask. I have less than 7 days left.

In other news, the Hotel Putnik in the center of town (a mere block from this internet cafe) erupted into flames earlier this week, killing three people and causing significant damage to the building. The official story is that a slot machine caught on fire. The story from a good friend that ‘knows some people’ is that the cause of the fire was a slot machine, but it was filled with cans of gasoline or dynamite or something. The words ‘Mafia’ and ‘buy the building cheap after fire’ came up in the discussion with the guy who ‘knows some people’. Serbia always finds a new way to keep you on your toes.

Eliot: Ga-Bruuutus!

Dana: This computer lacks a functioning sound card, but that looks pretty cool. Any kind of back story?

Those things being said, I am looking forward to cats, family, old friends, bagels, free computer access, high speed internet, stand up showers, my own car, and being able to speak as fast as I want in English and have a total expectation that everyone around me will understand precisely what I am talking about. Oh, and graduating in a few more months… though I’m sure in a few months after that Ill wish I was still in school.

I also have come to the somewhat embarrassing realization that there is a lot more of Serbia that I want/need to see, but have not. For example, I have yet to get to Nis or Novi Pazar. I haven’t spent a recreational day in Belgrade on this trip. I haven’t been to Zlatibor. Amazing how fast time slips by when you are here, especially when there is partying to do on the weekends. I suppose all this means I have a good reason to come back.

With the limited time here, and guilt over not seeing the southern half of a country that is only the size of Maine, you might be surprised to know that in my last moments of free weekendom I have planned a visit to a rural village only an hour or so east of here. Why you might ask? Well, stay tuned…

The last few days have been busy. Lots of looking around for gifts and things that I might want to bring back (looking and buying are two diffrent things, and it takes a lot of looking here). I got to see Mythbusters, went shooting again. I watched the European Curling championships with commentation in Serbian, which makes it just that much more comical. I tried playing Snooker with a friend, which we both found to be nearly impossible, even though we are both reasonably good pool players. Yesterday in class we took a sort of final exam type of thing (?) on which I got a 9/10 on, which is good. I still think its unfair that my one classmate has studied Serbian three months longer than I have, but whatever, as long as I’m not failed because of it I’m ok, since the grade doesn’t count on my GPA and I’m learning as best I can. We also got a very fancy new textbook to get us through the last 8 or so days of class, which I find odd.

I have also found out one of the more comical details of my time abroad, and that is that restaurants, particularly restaurants that have some kind of reputation, go kinda crazy over you if they think there is a remote chance that you might be a travel writer. Snezena and I went to such an image conscious restaurant for lunch one day recently, which ended up being a fancy-pants Serbian ethnic food restaurant near Spence, where this was demonstrated well.

The waiter approches us, he is what you might call ‘comical’, being dressed in traditional Serbian ethnic garb, and bouncing up and down energetically to the Serbian music in the background (He’s in his mid 30′s). Pretty quickly he catches on to the fact that I’m not from around here, speak a bit of Serbian, and have a bag that contains notebooks and a camera (which would be my textbooks). Shortly after ordering, some unexpected potatoes, with Kymak, suddenly show up at our table ‘on the house’, followed a few minutes later by a wonderfully prepared meal and unnecessary amounts of bread. We are given an exceptional amount of attention by Serbian waiter standards. Upon finishing we are given a free plate of deserts, and our Serbian waiter is very concerned about what I thought of the meal. The entire kitchen staff tells me goodbye as I leave. Oh, and heaven forbid you take a photo of your food or something for blog purposes; then they are totally convinced you are a travel writer. I never say anything to make them think I’m anything special, they just put it together themselves and I don’t correct them.

So, in my time here I can now safely add “Travel Writer” to “Spy” as the things that people have assumed that I am but am not.
Dana: Once Brutus masters mind control you will be up at all hours of the night to feed him. Better watch Jedi-cat development carefully! How is he doing in NYC by the way?

Julie: I have a photo of a Hungarian Trabbie, and Im SURE Wikipedia could get you some details. For the glory of the party!

Time is short again, Im actually over at a friend’s house, so lets answer questions.
Julie: You can buy fireworks in the mall, to name one place. And no, they dont have any kind of fire supression. I assume its the same group of kids trying to take down the pigeons, but it cant be the same group of kids that woke me up at 6am today lighting off enough fireworks that I thought there was a gunbattle in the courtyard below my appartment.
Mom: Pigeons here chase back. Im serious. They work in groups, large beligerent groups of pigeons.
Aleks: Nice to have you here. You are old classmate Aleks, yes? If you do make it up to NH you are welcome to visit in Bow, but Im affraid you might find it a bit “dull”, I think most of us do (not that its a bad place). Im going to be out of here for New Years, which is sad, since I hear the locals ‘take it up a notch’ with explosives, throwing more fireworks, and some serious shooting in the air. Stay away from the windows.
Tim: Regulations here are what you might call a bit lax. Or, if there is a regulation, you just need to know the right people, and it will probably dissapear.

1-Fireworks are AWSOME: They light them off. Alot. You know when school lets out, because they start lighting them off and the air is filled with concussions.

2-Bigger fireworks are better: Bigger bangs are, of course, prefered. If you can trip car alarms you know you are on the right track, that sort of thinking.

3- Shooting things into the air is better: Its just more dramatic. See American 4th of July.

4- Pigeons: Pigeons, being stupid and plentiful, are quickly discovered to scatter when firworks are detonated, particularly when fireworks are detonated in the air. The building behind our school is like Pigeon capitol of Serbia (though, not as bad as the park where I was surrounded by several hundred Pigeons after I made the mistake of having food).

5- Shooting fireworks at pigeons: In a most resourcefull manner, our youngsters are practcing their anti-aircraft artillery skills by now shooting at the pigeons by making the detonations happen close to the roof where they sit. The technique; light a few of them off at once, it looks like flak from WWII. Dont let anyone ever tell you life was boring in Serbia.

6- Police presence: When the Serbian Police do come looking around, they are easy to outrun. A Yugo 101 equipped with a blinking light and manned by three large man in body armor is not an appropriate choice for a police pursuit. The police seem to have wised up to this, and are now buying high speed Peugots.

Beyond the antics of our young gunners, things are going well here. The temeprature hovers at around a few degrees above freezing, and we have alternating days of clouds and sun. At the American Corner meeting on Wedesday it was a madhouse of “Ask questions about everything American!” for most of the time, we getting well away from any of the topics I had thought up. We ran out of chairs again; the AC is getting pretty popular. Friday night meetings have stopped with my pending departure, freeing up some time for me at the begining of the weekend.

Thursday a friend took my out to lunch at the extreme cafeteria of the Novi Sad University. By extreme, I mean it gave me extreme retro feedback to my days in 4th grade. However, at 250 dinars (under $5) for the two of us to have a not-great-but-much-better-than-expected meal complete with meat, potatos, fruit, drink, and bread I would call it a great deal. Especially when contrasted to the 100 dinars I often pay for just one sandwich or slice of pizza in the center. Serbian lunchladies are just as happy to see you as most American lunchladies… which is to say, not at all.

Tonight I’m going airgun shooting again, and one of my friends from the AC has invited me over to watch Mythbusters for the first time since I got here (thats not entirley correct, I saw about 5 minutes once in the mall). I’m looking foward to it.

Since this is a short entry, the author wants to get going, lets answer some questions from the last two entries:

Eliot: I suggest you investigate something called Turbo-Folk for a uniquley Serbian… experiance. They do have pretty good domestically produced rock music, as well as plenty of music from Western bands in English.

Aleks: Thanks! Everyone, most mystery foods on last entry are no more thanks to a new contributor.

Dana: Indeed there are places in NYC that sell such foods! I would love to visit little Bosnia, and for those who want me to take the mystery out of life, my Serbian friends who “have been there” say that you should visit one cafe “Derdan” (possibly other spelling) found in NYC at 8th Ave, 48th St.

First up is a photo from a Slovenian Bakery. Its full of delicous sweets typical in Slovenia. Of particular note is the white stuff on the bottom right, which is like the national dessert. Think pudding in a cake.

Our next photo comes from my visit to Istvan’s house. Here is featured some stew along with some juices made in the local juice factory (and some Coke).

In the first installment of the Sarma chronicals, we bring you photos of Hungarian Sarma which is cabbage filled with meat and cooked in a fashion like this. It is described as being related to sour kraut.

Another dish from Istvan’s house is this bowl of semi-hot peppers. I wasn’t a big fan of these, and Istvan said his mother had to make him eat them when he was young, so I think I’m in good company. Istvan’s mother made a fabulous birthday cake and these little sweet things below it (filled with dates maybe?). I actually not only can tell you that the cake was really wonderful… but I even got the recipe for it.

In a complete change of speed, let us jump back to my first visit to Subotica, where I enjoyed a wonderful pizza lunch. Note the presence of the silverware (only savages eat pizza with their hands here), the obligatory ash tray, and the little cup of tomato sauce (called Ketchup) that is poured over the pizza at the users choice. Lav is one of two major brands of beer here, and makes a wonderful accompaniment to pizza.

We will now progress to my reconnaissance missions in Mira’s (my host) kitchen where I try to take photos of all interesting things that could be eaten, even if I dont get to try them. Our first captured image is of a pretty good tasting pork filled pastry called Rolat (if memory serves). Then one day I snapped a picture of mystery food 1 which I didnt get to try, but looked to be about an inch thick.  One day Mira brought me these wonderful fruit pastries called Kolać, filled with Cherry or Apple, which I was a really big fan of.

During the family Slava there was a lot of food, and I dutifully grabbed what photos I could, which is to say, not many. The first photo is of the holy bread that you much eat during Slava, it is blessed by a priest (thats what the red stain is, from the holy wine). While it has great ceremonial importance, I have to say it really was exceptionally unremarkable in flavor. Mira (a Serb) had also cooked Sarma, which appears pretty similar to what Istvan’s (Hungarian) family made, but it was all eaten before I got to try it.

Up next is mystery food 2, which I did get to try. It reminded me very much of cornbread in texture, though it had a different flavor; it was very good.

On Thanksgiving I went out to a restaurant (by myself, very depressing) to eat a nice hardy meal, since I lack the resources to make a meal myself. As such at a local restaurant I ordered Chicken and a salad, and that was my Thanksgiving Dinner.

Our final installment is mystery food 3, which was a really wonderful pastry that Mira made one day. Filled with cheese, it reminded me a bit of Burek (a staple food that I need to get a photo of), and it tasted wonderful and probably took a year off my life because of the grease in it.

So, I hope you have enjoyed that exercise in cooking research. Sorry its not more detailed, but there is a bit of a language barrier, you know? I need to get to class now, take care.

Not to be disappointed, our aging train car turned out to have a major, possibly injury inducing, component of the roof in the process of falling off the ceiling. I might call the train antique, but another Serbian train deffinatley has the corner on antique: the local commuter train that proudly proclaims its origins as part of the Olympic games… held in Nazi Germany. Its still in daily use, its presence in former Yugoslavia being a remnant of war reparations.

A slow train ride got us to Subotica station, and a short work thusly to Istvan’s house. Its a 100 year old earth house that looks like it was build about 10 years ago; that is to say, very nice. Its heated by wood stove, and guarded by a dust mop kind of dog. His parents are nice people, though neither of them speaks much English: Dad speaks just some phrases from TV, mom learned German and has filled in her German vocabulary with English words to make a reasonably understandable personal language, leading to such phrases as “Come mitt me”. Both speak Serbian though, and Hungarian too, but they might as well speak Chinese, since I know exactly 0 words of Hungarian. His sister stopped by, she speaks excellent English from working at the local juice factory that is owned by Coca-Cola. It results in quite the linguistic cross fire: at one point English, Hungarian, Serbian, German, and Russian were all used in the span of under 5 minutes, sometimes even in the same sentence.

Lunch is served, an assortment of nice foods that I took photos of (next post is going to be the food post; already have the photos uploaded). Home cooked meals are few and fare between for me these days, so it was pretty nice. Istvan just gets one gift from his family, a nice electric shaver. I bring him a book. After lunch we drive out to lake Palic, a big lake that was a tourist retreat back in the Austro-Hungarian times. It still is a tourist retreat, though its popularity decreases quite sharply during winter. Thats a nice walk around.

Comming back to the house, Istvan’s best friend arrives, and we watch his father switch between the “German Train Channel” and “Communist Party News: China” (in the respective native languages) on satellite TV which both lack subtitles, meaning no one in the party understands what is going on. Istvan has told me this is a normal practice. Finally, Istvan gets a call, and we head off to the house of some more of his friends (parents get left behind) out on the end of town. We ride in a Yugo taxi (yay! Finally ridden in a Yugo) to the house.

The party is a wonderful assortment of home cooked pizza, wine, Back Street Boys’ music (oh dear), board games, questions about sexual innuendos in English, and general merriment that lasts until three in the morning. For my friends, pretty much envision the kinds of activity that happens with the fencing group, but throw in the presence of no fewer than three languages and have at least one person at the table who speaks that as their mother tongue.

This morning Istvan and I hopped on the train for the painfully slow trip back to Novi Sad. The local train stops EVERYWHERE. My personal favorite is a place called “Mali Beograd” or ‘Little Belgrade’. The little Belgrade rail station is literally a small deteriorating concrete box located on a dirt road in the middle of a perfectly flat plain that features a few trees and two visible houses. Mali Beograd is far enough away that I need to be assured that “its out there, you could just follow that dirt road.” We made it back to Novi Sad after about two hours.

Now, as some of you may have gathered from this post and the last, linguistics in this area could best be compared to herding cats. I know people here who have the following languges as their mother tounge: Serbian (plus distinct variations of Croatian, Bosnian, Montenegrin), Hungarian, English, German, and Rusyn (an obscure language not to be confused with Russian). And thats just from people I know after being here 3 months. The dialects within most of those languages are staggering: a Hungarian from one village can speak a distinct dialect from Hungarian in the next village, both of them being distinctly different from Hungarian spoken in Hungary. A man from the South of Serbia will use a completely grammatically incorrect system in speech (I am told), though he will write in standard Serbian. It all makes perfect sense when you live here.

So, to answer questions:

Julie: Even though Croatian, Serbian, Bosnian, and (recently) Montenegrin are considered ‘different languages’ they can all be understood just fine by native speakers. So even though Milosh is from Bosnia, he still speaks his native tounge here in Serbia, as does Snezana from Montenegro. Most of the Hungarians here speak Serbian fluently. So, actually, the conversation over drinks could easily have been in Serbian, but its mostly done in English.

Atilla: Are you feeling ok? I can’t stand the holiday rush myself. I’d rather sit here and listen to the occasional blasts I hear outside and ponder if their origins are ‘gunfire’ or ‘kid with fireworks’.

Eliot: For sure ‘Bosnian-Montenegrin Jumping Snakes’ sound like horror. Oh, and Montenegro has Sharks too.

At any rate,  last night was my usually scheduled American Corner meeting. We had a record turnout, running out of chairs as the group split into two to take up the entire AC. Bunch of new faces, including some music nerd kids from Novi Sad University. My group got to talking about technology, first asking the question “which is more important, art or science?”. The general conclusion being…

ok, Serbian television has suddenly invaded the internet cafe… its very odd, and very distracting. They are interviewing the owner.

…being that Science was more important (the music student disagreed), but admitting that having just science leads to such terrible mistakes as the identical communist apartment blocks many live in here, me included. That then turned into “is technology moving too fast”, to which I expected many “yes” answers, seeing as how Serbia is a country that has been left behind somewhat as technology advances. I was surprised that most people said “no, technology must move as fast as possible”.

At the end of the night me and a few of the younger people went out for drinks. Like many nights in the past, we ended up at the Irish pub in town (I think every city in Eastern Europe has at least one fake Irish Pub). The crew for tonight, from left to right, was Snežana (I think thats spelled right, it means “Snow White”), Miloš, Karen, and Istvan. I was there too. We spent about 4 hours there talking about subjects that ranged from education and travel, the TV show Myth-busters, to how Serbian has no verb for “To Spank”, instead having to resort to “Seize butt” or something like that.

At some point Snežana got to talking about growing up in Montenegro (actually, come to think of it, none of the people there were technically Serbian. Miloš is a Bosnian Serb, Snežana from Montenegro, Istvan is Hungarian, and the rest of us American). Now, while the places I visited in Montenegro were quite tame, Snežana had stories of many poisonous things that live in the dry, rocky, mountains of the rural areas, to include: scorpions, black widow spiders, horned snakes, and (my personal favorite) jumping snakes. Personally, a jumping, poisonous, snake sounds like about the most terrifying thing ever… then again, having your grandmother live in a house that had Scorpions running in and out of the foundation in the basement would probably traumatize any child, but Snežana seems pretty normal. Miloš said that his area of Bosnia had most of the same scary things since it has the same climate. So, in addition to land mines, Bosnia can now add ‘snakes’ to the list of possible premature, invisible, death sources.

At some point I asked Snežana if, growing up around so many dangerous critters, had any of her friends or neighbors been bitten. Which earned me “Oh yes, and they all lived… well, most of them”.

Lets throw up a few photos from when I was in Budapest:

First, a great sign in the old palace. Then there is a view from the palace of the Pest side of the river (hey look, its grey out!). And there is a photo of the beautiful main entrance of the palace at night.

Questions:

Julie: The air pistol was really light compared to the guns we used, since they dont have any kind of rapid fire stages (impossible with a pump up air gun). I think I was standing funny because of the balance difference. I fired the rifle Miloš was holding, but it was kinda junk (Miloš agreed, he just liked it because it reminded him of the gun he had as a kid). We had been using a Mauser competition air rifle, which was a really amazing gun, but it broke… or maybe Miloš broke it, never did find out.

Lori: Thanks for the update on the forms! I was worried when Julie sent me an email about graduation stuff and I had heard nothing from the school. See you soon!

Mom: Christmas here happens later than in the USA/West Europe (since they roll with the Orthodox calender), which is one of the reasons my school gets out only three days before US Christmas. What little Christmas stuff I have paid attention to seems really similar to US stuff, right down to saying “Merry Christmas” on it in English… so I don’t think its very Serbian. Ill check some smaller stores and get back to you. Maybe Ill ask my friends for Christmas stories too.