I'm sitting on the soft couches in my somewhat unfamiliar living room at home. It's 2 in the afternoon and I've been awake since 5:30. The day outside, invited in with an open screen door, is unbelievably beautiful. I don't use that as hyperbole--seriously, it's hard to believe. The vivid colors and mid-morning haze make it look like the dream sequence from Happy Gilmore.
I'm...confused. Happy, but confused. I decided to postpone writing this blog until I could sit down and fully sort my thoughts out (okay, that and I was having way too much fun in Frankfurt. And I'm a lazy bastard at heart. But mainly the first reason). I realized that if I were to do that, I'd probably be typing this in October. So for now, I'll tell the story (doing my best to leave out the introspection) and we'll figure it out from there.
THE STORY
Novi Sad, Three Days Before Lift-off: We bused out to Novi Sad, the capital of the Vojvodina region, an hour and change northwest of Beograd (as the crow flies, because it's about as flat as central Ohio and half as populated). Pulling into town, we disembarked, headed into the hotel, and immediately realized that half of us forgot our passports (apparently as useful for getting into hotels as they are for other countries). With a few photocopied versions, we checked in, and then headed to the final seminar.
Considering its role on the other end of the semester, Dave and I coined the process "disorientation". And to be fair, it kind of works. We circled up like a junior AA meeting and started unpacking our thoughts, emotions, reactions--everything we were feeling about the semester. It started moving about as smoothly as a rusted wheelbarrow, with gaping silences following extremely big questions, but with a little bit of adjustment, many of us soon arrived at the conclusion that we really were fucking going home in four days. Also, we realized that none of us have the slightest idea as to how to rate our contribution to the "group learning process and dynamic". I'm actually pretty okay with that.
That evening, we lit out for the fortress above Novi Sad (because every city in the Balkans needs a river and a fortress, apparently). Fortunately, this one is replete with an enormous restaurant and a view of half the city. Coupled with a plastic cover and a raging thunderstorm, the twenty pound trays of meat (!!!) made the night one to remember.
Novi Sad, Two Days Before Lift-off: I woke up early (noticing a theme here?) and went out to find some fruit for breakfast. I had three apples, a bottle of yogurt, and a half-hour to kill, so I wandered around Dunavski Park, one of the most beautiful artificial gardens I've ever seen. It was all very sha-shasha (it had freaking swans wandering around), but still an amazing way to kick off the morning.
We returned to Beograd by noon or so, and I commenced my nomadic wandering from bookstore to bookstore, because I'm a nerd of catastrophic proportions, and don't let anybody tell you different. I picked up a few interesting things (did you know they have Go the Fuck to Sleep translated into Serbian? Well now so do I). Day well-spent.
Beograd, One Day Before Lift-off: That was a frantic day consisting of marathoning the Walking Dead while packing (after four months of patient waiting, I can comfortably and confidently say Jesus Christ, Carl, what the hell is wrong with you?), which may not have been the most efficient method, but it was a hell of a stress reliever. I think it was also nice to inoculate myself back into the rhythm of things, take a bit to expose myself to something familiar of my life back in the states. I pounded out that whole process, wrapped all the rakija in four or five layers of cotton and plastic (which would prove to be a smart move), and headed off to the farewell dinner.
It took place in Supermarket, a fancy-sleek-chic-underground-hipster-noveau-haute-someotherbullshitwords restaurant/miscellaneous shop. I don't give a shit what it's called; it had delicious food. Trays upon trays of sushi and shrimp cocktails. I filled up on those as the restaurant filled up with homestay families. It felt like a family party at the age of eight all over again--the kids circled up and goofed off while the grown-ups caught up. The only difference here was that the kids went through all the wine, but I digress.
The party started winding down, and then my peers started dropping like flies. This is when the emotions hit, and as we moved out into the warm air and thirteen became ten, then seven, then four in increasing frequency, it started to hit me what my friends meant to me on this trip. Those damn feels are at it again. When it dwindled down to one, I crawled under the covers and drifted off.
Beograd, the Day Of: I woke up at 9, and puttered around until eleven. Then I sat for a while with my host family and talked about...well, everything, really. They gave me a bottle of rakija and a shirt, and walked me down.
The agency picked me up in a Mercedes, and the driver, god bless him, didn't care if I put the window down. I felt the spring (or maybe summer?) wind against my face as we tore down the streets I'd come to know, in some ways more intimately than I do those of my own hometown. We took a ramp onto the Old Ada Bridge and tore off for the airport, relishing the sweet, rare Beograd sun for the last time for a while (well, I did. I don't think the driver was sharing in my nostalgia trip).
I moved through the airport and am now utterly disturbed by Serbian airport security (I won't go into details, but suffice it to say I'm pretty sure their metal detector is just a plastic doorframe). Through the plate glass window, I took one last look at distant Belgrade and stepped aboard the plane.
Or so I'd thought. I was afforded my real last look when the plane banked to the right to change direction, showing me everything at once--I picked out the bridges I had run across and the river I had walked along with no difficulty. A bit of squinting showed me Kalemegdan, and then Tašmajdan, whose green expanses hosted some of my best memories of the trip. And I think, though I could be full of crap, that I maybe glimpsed the SIT building, across from the bus park before we pulled above some low clouds. See you, Beograd.
Frankfurt, the Day Of: I stayed at the Steigenberger Hotel. It's classy as fuck. I don't know what a saunarium is, but it felt phenomenal and I want one.
Frankfurt, the Night Of: And the Unterschweinsteig Restaurant has delicious rabbit haunch.
Frankfurt, the Day After: I forced myself out of the room and onto the airport shuttle, and somewhere between the entrance to the airport and passport control, the first and last tears happened. No waterworks, just a crystallized realization that it really was over in very many senses. I got my shit together, swiped my passport, and made my way to the gate with an hour and a half to spare. In the meantime, I spent the remainder of my euros on the new(ish) Stephen King book, a pack of gum, and a bottle of water, which served as a final validation of sorts for not studying in the eurozone.
The plane wasn't bad. With all the bus service around the Balkans, I think I've gotten distressingly used to this whole "sitting in one place for eight hours at a time" schtick. Of course the guy next to me was coming in from New Dehli, so I certainly can't complain anyway. The hours ticked by, I watched Jamie Foxx kill half the South, then Tom Cruise kill half of Pittsburgh, then scowled at the entire in-flight movie institution and read a book instead.
I landed and talked to the customs people. Upon asking my declarations, I told them I have a bottle of brandy. The customs agent asked what year, and upon hearing one of the bottles' vintage ('91) he informed me matter-of-factly that he'd have to seize it. Fortunately for everyone involved, he laughed about five seconds later, leaving me to wonder how I consistently seem to score the dubious honor of unearthing TSA employees with a bonafide sense of humor. Cleared through, I made my way to the parking garage, was picked up, and the rest, as they say, is history.
THE FEELS
Okay, let's bullet some things that I did within 24 hours:
But good lord, do I miss the Balkans. I'm not going to sit here and rattle off everything, but this surprised and stuck out to me: I miss the curtness. I'm already tired of people smiling just because "courtesy" told them that everything is worth smiling at. We cast emotions around like they're free here. I'm not saying be grumpy all the time, and if you see somebody who looks like they could use a friendly smile, of course you should crack one. But I'm starting to feel like a smile isn't really a smile anymore if it's obligatory. Or maybe I just don't want it to be.
I miss the people. I miss the random people I'd see on the street while walking the dog, and the regulars at Zeleni Venac, and the surly security guys behind the desk. I miss the clusters on buses and trams, outright eye contact and uncomfortably long looks.
To the friends I made on the program: I'll just say that without each and every one of you, I couldn't fairly say that this was one of the best experiences of my life and leave it at that.
But you know what? For every minute I miss Serbia, I feel two of excitement to bring it all home. I'm bursting at the seams to grill up pounds of ćevapi this summer. I can't wait to toast a glass of rakija when I see my friends and family very soon. I'm keeping an ear open for stray words of Bosnian from strangers I pass in the city, and the next time somebody (else) I know gets a haircut, I fully intend to flick 'em in the head with little to no explanation, because these things are all a part of me now (especially the ćevapi, but that's just protein synthesis) and they're not going anywhere. Take it or leave it.
To everybody whose been reading this whole mess (especially my readers from Russia and China--I'm not sure who you are, but cheers!), I'd like to express both my sincere gratitude at your dedication and my most profound sympathies as to the state of procrastination that drove you here. I've told plenty of half-stories on here, and omitted many more, so if you ever want to get me started, just let me know and I'd be glad to share over a glass of šliva.
Is this the last Serbia blog? Yup. Sorry. Is this the last blog, period? Well, and I say with as much conviction as I can muster: hell no. Ladies and gentlemen, I plan to go to a lot of exciting places, do a lot of cool shit, and make a lot of ridiculous errors, and I would do a disservice to both your entertainment options and my mental health if I didn't catalog them in some fashion. Just to whet the appetite...I'm certainly considering working abroad for a year or so after I graduate. So keep your eyes open, guys. Might be that this time next year, I'm sitting in a hostel in Bishkek while the rest of the city sleeps, with two cats purring quietly on my lap. Or maybe sitting in a dining room in Jakarta, getting the staredown from my Indonesian grandmother.
I hope she likes bread.
 |
| Pictured: Home, sweet home. And devoid of crocodiles! |
THE STORY
Novi Sad, Three Days Before Lift-off: We bused out to Novi Sad, the capital of the Vojvodina region, an hour and change northwest of Beograd (as the crow flies, because it's about as flat as central Ohio and half as populated). Pulling into town, we disembarked, headed into the hotel, and immediately realized that half of us forgot our passports (apparently as useful for getting into hotels as they are for other countries). With a few photocopied versions, we checked in, and then headed to the final seminar.
Considering its role on the other end of the semester, Dave and I coined the process "disorientation". And to be fair, it kind of works. We circled up like a junior AA meeting and started unpacking our thoughts, emotions, reactions--everything we were feeling about the semester. It started moving about as smoothly as a rusted wheelbarrow, with gaping silences following extremely big questions, but with a little bit of adjustment, many of us soon arrived at the conclusion that we really were fucking going home in four days. Also, we realized that none of us have the slightest idea as to how to rate our contribution to the "group learning process and dynamic". I'm actually pretty okay with that.
That evening, we lit out for the fortress above Novi Sad (because every city in the Balkans needs a river and a fortress, apparently). Fortunately, this one is replete with an enormous restaurant and a view of half the city. Coupled with a plastic cover and a raging thunderstorm, the twenty pound trays of meat (!!!) made the night one to remember.
Novi Sad, Two Days Before Lift-off: I woke up early (noticing a theme here?) and went out to find some fruit for breakfast. I had three apples, a bottle of yogurt, and a half-hour to kill, so I wandered around Dunavski Park, one of the most beautiful artificial gardens I've ever seen. It was all very sha-shasha (it had freaking swans wandering around), but still an amazing way to kick off the morning.
We returned to Beograd by noon or so, and I commenced my nomadic wandering from bookstore to bookstore, because I'm a nerd of catastrophic proportions, and don't let anybody tell you different. I picked up a few interesting things (did you know they have Go the Fuck to Sleep translated into Serbian? Well now so do I). Day well-spent.
Beograd, One Day Before Lift-off: That was a frantic day consisting of marathoning the Walking Dead while packing (after four months of patient waiting, I can comfortably and confidently say Jesus Christ, Carl, what the hell is wrong with you?), which may not have been the most efficient method, but it was a hell of a stress reliever. I think it was also nice to inoculate myself back into the rhythm of things, take a bit to expose myself to something familiar of my life back in the states. I pounded out that whole process, wrapped all the rakija in four or five layers of cotton and plastic (which would prove to be a smart move), and headed off to the farewell dinner.
It took place in Supermarket, a fancy-sleek-chic-underground-hipster-noveau-haute-someotherbullshitwords restaurant/miscellaneous shop. I don't give a shit what it's called; it had delicious food. Trays upon trays of sushi and shrimp cocktails. I filled up on those as the restaurant filled up with homestay families. It felt like a family party at the age of eight all over again--the kids circled up and goofed off while the grown-ups caught up. The only difference here was that the kids went through all the wine, but I digress.
The party started winding down, and then my peers started dropping like flies. This is when the emotions hit, and as we moved out into the warm air and thirteen became ten, then seven, then four in increasing frequency, it started to hit me what my friends meant to me on this trip. Those damn feels are at it again. When it dwindled down to one, I crawled under the covers and drifted off.
Beograd, the Day Of: I woke up at 9, and puttered around until eleven. Then I sat for a while with my host family and talked about...well, everything, really. They gave me a bottle of rakija and a shirt, and walked me down.
The agency picked me up in a Mercedes, and the driver, god bless him, didn't care if I put the window down. I felt the spring (or maybe summer?) wind against my face as we tore down the streets I'd come to know, in some ways more intimately than I do those of my own hometown. We took a ramp onto the Old Ada Bridge and tore off for the airport, relishing the sweet, rare Beograd sun for the last time for a while (well, I did. I don't think the driver was sharing in my nostalgia trip).
I moved through the airport and am now utterly disturbed by Serbian airport security (I won't go into details, but suffice it to say I'm pretty sure their metal detector is just a plastic doorframe). Through the plate glass window, I took one last look at distant Belgrade and stepped aboard the plane.
Or so I'd thought. I was afforded my real last look when the plane banked to the right to change direction, showing me everything at once--I picked out the bridges I had run across and the river I had walked along with no difficulty. A bit of squinting showed me Kalemegdan, and then Tašmajdan, whose green expanses hosted some of my best memories of the trip. And I think, though I could be full of crap, that I maybe glimpsed the SIT building, across from the bus park before we pulled above some low clouds. See you, Beograd.
Frankfurt, the Day Of: I stayed at the Steigenberger Hotel. It's classy as fuck. I don't know what a saunarium is, but it felt phenomenal and I want one.
Frankfurt, the Night Of: And the Unterschweinsteig Restaurant has delicious rabbit haunch.
Frankfurt, the Day After: I forced myself out of the room and onto the airport shuttle, and somewhere between the entrance to the airport and passport control, the first and last tears happened. No waterworks, just a crystallized realization that it really was over in very many senses. I got my shit together, swiped my passport, and made my way to the gate with an hour and a half to spare. In the meantime, I spent the remainder of my euros on the new(ish) Stephen King book, a pack of gum, and a bottle of water, which served as a final validation of sorts for not studying in the eurozone.
The plane wasn't bad. With all the bus service around the Balkans, I think I've gotten distressingly used to this whole "sitting in one place for eight hours at a time" schtick. Of course the guy next to me was coming in from New Dehli, so I certainly can't complain anyway. The hours ticked by, I watched Jamie Foxx kill half the South, then Tom Cruise kill half of Pittsburgh, then scowled at the entire in-flight movie institution and read a book instead.
I landed and talked to the customs people. Upon asking my declarations, I told them I have a bottle of brandy. The customs agent asked what year, and upon hearing one of the bottles' vintage ('91) he informed me matter-of-factly that he'd have to seize it. Fortunately for everyone involved, he laughed about five seconds later, leaving me to wonder how I consistently seem to score the dubious honor of unearthing TSA employees with a bonafide sense of humor. Cleared through, I made my way to the parking garage, was picked up, and the rest, as they say, is history.
THE FEELS
Okay, let's bullet some things that I did within 24 hours:
- Ate some peanut butter products--you don't know what you're loving until you've lost it, my friends, and nowhere is this more true with Resee's Cups.
- Drove at a generally licit speed down 202 a few miles at six in the morning, with the windows down. listening to 93.3, because nothing reintroduces you to your mother tongue like a disc jockey.
- Made some honest-to-god decent, Chinatown-bought looseleaf green tea. It's all coffee, coffee, coffee over in the Balkans.
- Played Gamecube, because guys--it's Gamecube.
- Went for a run, because it helps to kill the jetlag.
- Availed myself of the punching bag, because it's been half a year.
- Made a kale shake, because...shit, do I even need a reason?
- Conked out in my own bed for a while.
But good lord, do I miss the Balkans. I'm not going to sit here and rattle off everything, but this surprised and stuck out to me: I miss the curtness. I'm already tired of people smiling just because "courtesy" told them that everything is worth smiling at. We cast emotions around like they're free here. I'm not saying be grumpy all the time, and if you see somebody who looks like they could use a friendly smile, of course you should crack one. But I'm starting to feel like a smile isn't really a smile anymore if it's obligatory. Or maybe I just don't want it to be.
I miss the people. I miss the random people I'd see on the street while walking the dog, and the regulars at Zeleni Venac, and the surly security guys behind the desk. I miss the clusters on buses and trams, outright eye contact and uncomfortably long looks.
To the friends I made on the program: I'll just say that without each and every one of you, I couldn't fairly say that this was one of the best experiences of my life and leave it at that.
But you know what? For every minute I miss Serbia, I feel two of excitement to bring it all home. I'm bursting at the seams to grill up pounds of ćevapi this summer. I can't wait to toast a glass of rakija when I see my friends and family very soon. I'm keeping an ear open for stray words of Bosnian from strangers I pass in the city, and the next time somebody (else) I know gets a haircut, I fully intend to flick 'em in the head with little to no explanation, because these things are all a part of me now (especially the ćevapi, but that's just protein synthesis) and they're not going anywhere. Take it or leave it.
To everybody whose been reading this whole mess (especially my readers from Russia and China--I'm not sure who you are, but cheers!), I'd like to express both my sincere gratitude at your dedication and my most profound sympathies as to the state of procrastination that drove you here. I've told plenty of half-stories on here, and omitted many more, so if you ever want to get me started, just let me know and I'd be glad to share over a glass of šliva.
Is this the last Serbia blog? Yup. Sorry. Is this the last blog, period? Well, and I say with as much conviction as I can muster: hell no. Ladies and gentlemen, I plan to go to a lot of exciting places, do a lot of cool shit, and make a lot of ridiculous errors, and I would do a disservice to both your entertainment options and my mental health if I didn't catalog them in some fashion. Just to whet the appetite...I'm certainly considering working abroad for a year or so after I graduate. So keep your eyes open, guys. Might be that this time next year, I'm sitting in a hostel in Bishkek while the rest of the city sleeps, with two cats purring quietly on my lap. Or maybe sitting in a dining room in Jakarta, getting the staredown from my Indonesian grandmother.
I hope she likes bread.
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