I never seemed to have time to blog again after my last post and now I'm home again. Put on your reading duds and let's see how much I remember!
On Thursday, we went in to the office and I took minutes at the morning meeting. The department is having some ongoing troubles that are more related to politics than common sense, so Angela is gathering allies. Oy. It was boring, but whatever. We headed back to the hotel for lunch.
And lunch is a story in and of itself. Since she got back to the hotel late the night before, Angela got dinner at the pizza place around the corner. Apparently, they had offered two sizes: regular and large. She's not fluent in Serbian yet, but in retrospect, she thinks that the guy was asking "Are you sure?" when she asked for a large pizza. He had to go into the back to get the bigger paddle and a box. It was, without a doubt, the biggest pizza I have ever seen - like a wagon wheel! She had dinner, we had lunch and there was still some left over. Oh, and they serve it with the tomato sauce on the side.
After lunch, we walked through the city to The Petrovaradin Fortress. First we stopped at the DM, which turned out to be the equivalent of Shopper's Drug Mart. We wandered through a city park on the way, where the public wifi sign taught me the word for "guest". It's gost! We had to cross the Danube and the wind across the bridge was insane - I really wondered if we'd be blown over the rail! The walk also let us see more of the graffiti that the city is covered in. I think that in most NA cities I've been in, there are unwritten rules about what you can and can't tag - not so in Novi Sad. Everything is covered in graffiti and very little of it is particularly artistic, sadly.
It was windy and raining sporadically when we got to the Fortress, but we climbed around and admired the views from all the vantage points. The area has been used as a defensible point for hundreds of years. It's the highest point on the river for quite an area around - at 125m! Heehee! It's got a hotel now and a lot of art. And a museum, that we ducked into to get out of the rain. It was a whopping 100 SRD entry fee (about $1CAN) and well worth it. The main floor was mostly military - pictures of the bombings in 1999 and relics found on the site. But as we were getting ready to leave, the attendant said, "Come upstairs". He unlocked a room and let us wander around the displays of furniture, knick knacks and art work from the 18C and 19C. Some gorgeous, gorgeous stuff!
On our way back through the city, we window shopped through the area around the hotel. Angela bought a bunch of kids books in Serbian and got a free coffee from the cafe in the bookstore. So she got a coffee and I ordered hot chocolate. I may never drink hot chocolate in Canada again. What I got was a mug of hot, liquid chocolate (like a melted chocolate bar) buried in a mound of whip cream. With a small cookie on the side, just to tip it into madness. It comes with a spoon, 'cause if you don't suck it straight down, it starts to thicken up again as it cools. Heaven.
We looked at LOTS of shoes and I was tempted by a pair of cream knee high boots that laced up that back. I didn't take them though and I'm kicking myself now. Oh well. We went back to Zak for dinner - 'cause frankly it was close and astonishingly yummy. I had the greek salad again and the osso bucco. We also shared a plate of squid. We were finishing up when the waiters started pulling tables together for a very large party. We never found out who they were, but they had two body guards in tow! They didn't look like media folks, so I guess money, politics or Ang's guess was mob.
Friday was another boring day at work. I'd pretty much done everything I'd needed to, so I was there to provide support and take more notes. After lunch, we popped outside for some fresh air, checked out the local supermarket (which we'd been walking passed unknowingly all week) and sat in the park for a bit. It was a gorgeous day - 18C and sunny. I don't know if the Serbs do host gifts, but I bought a couple of bags of cookies for the guys who'd been helping me out. I figure young man always like baking, right?
After our last meeting, I headed back to the hotel for a shower and a quick nap. I was waiting for my LHC friend MonaLisa in the lobby when Ang came through. The whole gang was heading to Zak for dinner, so we joined them. MonaLisa was awesome - so pretty and she has gorgeous tailbone length brunette hair. She works for the government now, but she used to host a tv show reviewing video games. Cool! The rain had stopped by the time we were done dinner, so we went for a wander around. She doesn't know Novi Sad either, but it was nice to be out and moving and in a quieter environment to talk. She left in time for a 10pm bus back to Belgrade and I went back to the hotel.
I got to sleep for about 5 hours and then my alarm went off at 3am. Gurk! I cleaned up, finished packing and we checked out. It was ridiculously foggy in the city and worse on the highway to the airport, but we made it safely.
Collin's flight left at 6am and we killed time until our 8:15am flight. I slept for about 30 minutes on the way to Amsterdam. We had just enough time there to hit the washroom and the duty free before getting on our flight to Calgary. We switched our seats so we could sit together and inadvertently did away with Angela's "upgrade" to the comfort economy seats. Oops! I managed a couple of naps but not much more than an hour or so. I read for most of the flight, but I did watch Dark Shadows. It was ok, but frankly Tim Burton's last few movies have been kind of disappointing.
We got through customs and got our baggage without any problems. Mike was there to get Angela but... no Stuart? He was stuck in traffic because of an accident on the Deerfoot. No kidding. Travel half way across the planet without a problem, and get held up at home. Crazy. Anyway, I'm sure I'm forgetting things I planned to tell you, but I guess they'll have to wait for another post.
On Thursday, we went in to the office and I took minutes at the morning meeting. The department is having some ongoing troubles that are more related to politics than common sense, so Angela is gathering allies. Oy. It was boring, but whatever. We headed back to the hotel for lunch.
And lunch is a story in and of itself. Since she got back to the hotel late the night before, Angela got dinner at the pizza place around the corner. Apparently, they had offered two sizes: regular and large. She's not fluent in Serbian yet, but in retrospect, she thinks that the guy was asking "Are you sure?" when she asked for a large pizza. He had to go into the back to get the bigger paddle and a box. It was, without a doubt, the biggest pizza I have ever seen - like a wagon wheel! She had dinner, we had lunch and there was still some left over. Oh, and they serve it with the tomato sauce on the side.
After lunch, we walked through the city to The Petrovaradin Fortress. First we stopped at the DM, which turned out to be the equivalent of Shopper's Drug Mart. We wandered through a city park on the way, where the public wifi sign taught me the word for "guest". It's gost! We had to cross the Danube and the wind across the bridge was insane - I really wondered if we'd be blown over the rail! The walk also let us see more of the graffiti that the city is covered in. I think that in most NA cities I've been in, there are unwritten rules about what you can and can't tag - not so in Novi Sad. Everything is covered in graffiti and very little of it is particularly artistic, sadly.
It was windy and raining sporadically when we got to the Fortress, but we climbed around and admired the views from all the vantage points. The area has been used as a defensible point for hundreds of years. It's the highest point on the river for quite an area around - at 125m! Heehee! It's got a hotel now and a lot of art. And a museum, that we ducked into to get out of the rain. It was a whopping 100 SRD entry fee (about $1CAN) and well worth it. The main floor was mostly military - pictures of the bombings in 1999 and relics found on the site. But as we were getting ready to leave, the attendant said, "Come upstairs". He unlocked a room and let us wander around the displays of furniture, knick knacks and art work from the 18C and 19C. Some gorgeous, gorgeous stuff!
On our way back through the city, we window shopped through the area around the hotel. Angela bought a bunch of kids books in Serbian and got a free coffee from the cafe in the bookstore. So she got a coffee and I ordered hot chocolate. I may never drink hot chocolate in Canada again. What I got was a mug of hot, liquid chocolate (like a melted chocolate bar) buried in a mound of whip cream. With a small cookie on the side, just to tip it into madness. It comes with a spoon, 'cause if you don't suck it straight down, it starts to thicken up again as it cools. Heaven.
We looked at LOTS of shoes and I was tempted by a pair of cream knee high boots that laced up that back. I didn't take them though and I'm kicking myself now. Oh well. We went back to Zak for dinner - 'cause frankly it was close and astonishingly yummy. I had the greek salad again and the osso bucco. We also shared a plate of squid. We were finishing up when the waiters started pulling tables together for a very large party. We never found out who they were, but they had two body guards in tow! They didn't look like media folks, so I guess money, politics or Ang's guess was mob.
Friday was another boring day at work. I'd pretty much done everything I'd needed to, so I was there to provide support and take more notes. After lunch, we popped outside for some fresh air, checked out the local supermarket (which we'd been walking passed unknowingly all week) and sat in the park for a bit. It was a gorgeous day - 18C and sunny. I don't know if the Serbs do host gifts, but I bought a couple of bags of cookies for the guys who'd been helping me out. I figure young man always like baking, right?
After our last meeting, I headed back to the hotel for a shower and a quick nap. I was waiting for my LHC friend MonaLisa in the lobby when Ang came through. The whole gang was heading to Zak for dinner, so we joined them. MonaLisa was awesome - so pretty and she has gorgeous tailbone length brunette hair. She works for the government now, but she used to host a tv show reviewing video games. Cool! The rain had stopped by the time we were done dinner, so we went for a wander around. She doesn't know Novi Sad either, but it was nice to be out and moving and in a quieter environment to talk. She left in time for a 10pm bus back to Belgrade and I went back to the hotel.
I got to sleep for about 5 hours and then my alarm went off at 3am. Gurk! I cleaned up, finished packing and we checked out. It was ridiculously foggy in the city and worse on the highway to the airport, but we made it safely.
Collin's flight left at 6am and we killed time until our 8:15am flight. I slept for about 30 minutes on the way to Amsterdam. We had just enough time there to hit the washroom and the duty free before getting on our flight to Calgary. We switched our seats so we could sit together and inadvertently did away with Angela's "upgrade" to the comfort economy seats. Oops! I managed a couple of naps but not much more than an hour or so. I read for most of the flight, but I did watch Dark Shadows. It was ok, but frankly Tim Burton's last few movies have been kind of disappointing.We got through customs and got our baggage without any problems. Mike was there to get Angela but... no Stuart? He was stuck in traffic because of an accident on the Deerfoot. No kidding. Travel half way across the planet without a problem, and get held up at home. Crazy. Anyway, I'm sure I'm forgetting things I planned to tell you, but I guess they'll have to wait for another post.
2 comments:
Some of the pictures won't show :( what was the market like?? How cool that you got to see the upstairs of the museum!!
-britt
Hmmm... Weird, I'll see what I can do about the pictures!
The market looked just like a grocery store here, only maybe shinier because it had only opened the week before. If you are imagining something more like a farmer's market - nope! They do have a few farmer's markets in the city, but they don't produce much locally (mostly corn) so even the stuff in the those is imported.
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