Today on the trolley, I was Clint Eastwood.
No, don't listen to that. It's not half as exciting as it sounds. But I'm getting ahead of myself.
Today I woke up with the best of intentions, and found to my dismay that my bed is entirely too comfortable for my own good. It's a cozy little cubby that defied even the inadvertently-imbibed caffeine's attempts to keep me awake last night, but the flip side of that is that getting up is something of a struggle. I dragged myself out of bed and hit the floor. Literally. Pushups are getting easier and easier, and I'm hoping to break 50/set today. I've also dusted off the family pull-up bar (like I said, I love it here) and am getting my back...um, back...into shape. Shower, breakfast, conversation with Bane, and I headed out.
I would like to take this time to introduce you to what I've come to dub the Yugovator:
It does not go back further. It is roughly the size of a phone booth, and sounds about as smooth. I am so incredibly taken by the Yugovator that I legitimately look forward to my trips from the fourth floor to the ground. It's the real McCoy, too--two closing glass doors, visible shaft walls as you move through the building, grinding noise as you approach the bottom. I'm riding in a piece of history.
From there I walked to the metro stop and boarded the #2--a trolley (on tracks; makes about as much noise as the Yugovator). The #2 is unique in that it goes in a circle. In theory, one could ride the #2 as long as they wished, and in practice, the city's homeless frequently do to escape the gnawing cold of Beograd. I sat down across from a sleeping homeless man who nevertheless had nicer shoes than myself. Good on you, sir.
We rounded Трг Славиjа, (Trg Slavia--seriously, just give up on vowels. It's not happening.) an enormous roundabout of which I have heard said "take a car through the Trg three times without injury or death. Only then are you inducted into the higher secrets of driving in Beograd". A student boarded among many people at this stop, and out of my periphery I see this fellow staring me down.
This is where I went full Eastwood.
I looked up, and he looked away. But I held that shit. Stared him right back down. Eventually, he looked back and we made eye contact.
This is when Ecstasy of Gold came on my MP3 player.
Jump to 2:21 for the gist of it, but suffice it to say that somewhere, Clint Eastwood is smiling (probably to a chair, possibly lovingly, but that's beside the point).
That's when I remembered that eye contact is a norm on Beograd public transit, and felt like a dork.
A lucky dork, punk.
Observations:
(Gmail decided that it had enough salting my wounds by resending the same late emails. Props on doing something right!)
No, don't listen to that. It's not half as exciting as it sounds. But I'm getting ahead of myself.
Today I woke up with the best of intentions, and found to my dismay that my bed is entirely too comfortable for my own good. It's a cozy little cubby that defied even the inadvertently-imbibed caffeine's attempts to keep me awake last night, but the flip side of that is that getting up is something of a struggle. I dragged myself out of bed and hit the floor. Literally. Pushups are getting easier and easier, and I'm hoping to break 50/set today. I've also dusted off the family pull-up bar (like I said, I love it here) and am getting my back...um, back...into shape. Shower, breakfast, conversation with Bane, and I headed out.
I would like to take this time to introduce you to what I've come to dub the Yugovator:
 |
| Pictured: Yugovator, aka Little Bertha, ak(incorrectly)a The Sovietblaster |
It does not go back further. It is roughly the size of a phone booth, and sounds about as smooth. I am so incredibly taken by the Yugovator that I legitimately look forward to my trips from the fourth floor to the ground. It's the real McCoy, too--two closing glass doors, visible shaft walls as you move through the building, grinding noise as you approach the bottom. I'm riding in a piece of history.
From there I walked to the metro stop and boarded the #2--a trolley (on tracks; makes about as much noise as the Yugovator). The #2 is unique in that it goes in a circle. In theory, one could ride the #2 as long as they wished, and in practice, the city's homeless frequently do to escape the gnawing cold of Beograd. I sat down across from a sleeping homeless man who nevertheless had nicer shoes than myself. Good on you, sir.
We rounded Трг Славиjа, (Trg Slavia--seriously, just give up on vowels. It's not happening.) an enormous roundabout of which I have heard said "take a car through the Trg three times without injury or death. Only then are you inducted into the higher secrets of driving in Beograd". A student boarded among many people at this stop, and out of my periphery I see this fellow staring me down.
This is where I went full Eastwood.
I looked up, and he looked away. But I held that shit. Stared him right back down. Eventually, he looked back and we made eye contact.
This is when Ecstasy of Gold came on my MP3 player.
Jump to 2:21 for the gist of it, but suffice it to say that somewhere, Clint Eastwood is smiling (probably to a chair, possibly lovingly, but that's beside the point).
That's when I remembered that eye contact is a norm on Beograd public transit, and felt like a dork.
A lucky dork, punk.
Observations:
- I came home to my host family watching on their TV the surveillance footage from the front of the building. Make of that what you will.
- A good half hour conversation with my host sister about how we by-and-large grew up with the same cartoons, which I think is really cool.
- The first person singular conjugation for "to be" ("I am" in English, if you were wondering) is "sam", as in "Ja sam". Ergo, ja sam Sam. Furthermore, "sam" with the accent on the "a" or thereabouts means "alone". So: ja sam Sam sam, or "I am Sam alone", a phrase which Dave believes could be turned into a bitchin' folk song, our language teacher thinks is hilarious, and I believe reinforces my earlier Clint Eastwood conviction.
- KC Grad is still awesome. Borgo is my bro.
(Gmail decided that it had enough salting my wounds by resending the same late emails. Props on doing something right!)
No comments:
Post a Comment