And So It's Divorce...

I am sorry, dear readers, to end our journey with this post. I had not anticipated it.

I would not say that every Balkan-American marriage will end this way, not even most I hope. Just this one.

It's hard for me because I am giving up not just a marriage and close relationships with step-children, but also two countries. Croatia, the country of my husband's birth and his soul's home, and Serbia the country of his adulthood and in many ways the home of my dreams.

Often the cultural differences held us together, so we were never bored with each other, as much as they impaired our ability to communicate truly. One thing's for sure, you'll never gain a certain perspective on your own culture until you marry someone from another.

Some very basic concepts, what is a wife, what is a husband ... are profoundly different in everyday life, although perhaps not in their greater meanings. The Puritan work ethic, a moral fabric of the region I'm from, is considered nonessential, even absurdly silly, by many people from my husband's region. While Balkan-style drinking, well that's judged differently here. The whole Slavic dark moodiness, not to mention the Serbian sense of destined "victim-hood", well, we Americans just don't have those in our think-positive ethos, which must sometimes seem simple-minded to those outside of us.

We also shoot straight with our words, like John Wayne with his gun. You can't read between the lines, or see a conspiracy, or decipher a deeper, different message. We say what we think and that's it. It must be confusing for someone for whom every conversation has Byzantine layers of meaning. They're sifting for what you really meant, when it's plain in front of their faces. In return, I'd take conversations at face value, to learn later I'd been making assumptions that were 180 degrees from the truth.

I've gained a lot from this marriage. I know that. Travel, meeting new people, looking up from my desk to the sunny skies above, the family singalongs, you name it. I'll miss Sombor most of all. I look at pictures of it online and they move me to tears. I even have fantasies about moving there by myself... but without speaking fluent Srpski that's a crazy dream.

I want those of you who are personal friends of mine to know everything's alright. I have my family, my friends, my lovely home in the US, and a career that fits me well. For me right now it feels like the sun after a hurricane. Pleasant and sweet. The landscape seems strange, with big old trees blown down. But soon enough it will feel normal again.

It's time to build a new life. And American that I am, I just went out and bought a new car. I'm going to have fun tooling around in her, exploring a new life here.

I really truly enjoyed writing this blog. Sometimes when I was adrift, traveling about in foreign places, it helped anchor me. And I adored meeting so many of you who wrote comments and letters, as well as being a sort of mini-spokesperson for Serbia for those who wanted to know more about the country. But that's it for me now. I'd feel a fraud if I continued. Perhaps someday I'll begin again. But not, I think at this URL.

The Serbian Orthodox Generation Gap: In Which Our Priest Bitches Out His Congregation

Well before the end of Easter Sunday services at our local US church, at least half the congregation is already outside milling about in the spring sun. Some went out because their small children don't have the patience for a two hour service (the congregation is bursting with two and three year olds, Easter 2008 must have been a sea of pregnant bellies.) Others went out to socialize with family and friends. Still others never quite made it inside the church at all, many arriving more than an hour after service started, just to be together and enjoy the Church luncheon that will be served afterwards.

The parking lot, the overflow lot, and the streets all around are jammed with cars with plates from five different states. Many people, like us, have driven more than an hour to be here.

Most of the service is in Serbian. But one speech our young priest feels is important enough to be translated into English as well. No, it is not the Patriarch's annual letter. (If you want that in English, you have to give the priest your email address.) This translated speech is a lecture by the priest himself. He is upset with the low turn-out at last night's midnight service. He feels that many more of us should have been there. I look around at the young families surrounding us who have driven such a way with their two year olds today, and think, "He's certainly not a father."

His chastisement continues. Most of the people who were there at midnight didn't seem to know how to behave in a church service. And, after he led the march around the outside of the church, which occurs at about the half-way mark in the service, most people left for home! Then, as the midnight service continued, more and more people peeled out. By the end of the service there were fewer than a dozen parishioners left in the church with him. And one of them, he adds in damning tones, one of them was a Bulgarian!

I am struck once again with this evidence of the generation gap in the Serbian church, which I've noticed both in the US and in Serbia itself. The new generation of clergy seem fierce and evangelical. Their religion is Crucial. People should Pay Attention! I recently met one young monk in Serbia who has posted videos of himself on YouTube speaking on (and on and on) the importance of religion.

On one hand, these vigorous green shoots are marvelous. Exactly what the doctor ordered for a religion that had been ignored or suppressed for so many decades under socialism.

On the other hand, it puts them at odds with their own congregations. It's difficult for these fervent young clergy to understand, much less build a bridge of commonality with, the Serbs of my husband's generation who mostly grew up thinking of religion as something your ancient granny in the country knows about, but no one else, certainly not their parents so proud of their new Yugoslavia. They grew up without Christmas, without Easter. Tito's birthday and May Day were the big celebrations.

Those who did find their way to Orthodoxy in the past two decades often did so less from a religious impulse than from a cultural one. Orthodoxy was part of a Serbian identity they were exploring now that being a Yugoslav was closed to them.

Others, including I suspect many in our local congregation which is mainly made up of Serbs who came to the US as adults, came to to the church for social purposes. The Easter luncheon is the one of only times in the entire year that you can be in a room full of people speaking your own language!

Also, if you are new to our area, the Church is one of the first places you stop in to try to meet people. For example, I met a young Serb from New Zealand at a Church picnic last summer, who had clearly trotted over as soon as he moved here to see if there were any nice girls in the congregation.

Lastly, given how far apart many of the expat community live from one another, not to mention the busyness of every day life here, the Church is one of the best places for extended family and friends to get together and see each other. Easter Sunday is a clearly an important reunion. You've never seen to many hugs and cries of welcome in a parking lot in your life.

All of this, for our young priest, is clearly beside the point.

I felt a little sorry for him. And, I wanted to go up and give him an education. So what if people come to your church for what you think are the "wrong" reasons? So what if they are not as fervant as you are?

Don't be angry. Instead, be glad that they are coming at all. If you know what you are doing, if you are a good "fisher of men", you can turn this gathering to your advantage. Just look at all those toddlers who'll be ready for Sunday school soon! But, you have to thoroughly understand, empathize, and work with your congregation to be able to turn their thoughts toward the call of heaven.

Harrange them, and they'll slip through your net to return to the ocean.

Springtime in Belgrade - End of Winter in New England

The utter unfairness of life. When my husband kept telling me, "It's short sleeve weather in Belgrade," I didn't think he was serious. Or rather, I thought he was in short sleeves, but everyone sane was still bundled up in a sweater and coat. As they would be here.

Usually Belgrade weather is fairly close to Southern New England's where we live in the US. But, it snowed here last week. And in all the photos of views-from-possible-stan-windows that my husband's now sending me, Serbian Spring is in full throttle. It's 75 degrees there! The leaves on the trees are fully unfurled.

I sit here in my American office cubicle, looking out the window at bare branches and a chilly, gray haze so thick the harbor fog horns have been booming all day long. My husband calls anxiously, have I gotten this and that planted out in our US garden yet? "Hold your horses honey," I tell him, "first I have to wait for the sleet to stop."

American Composers Teaching in Sombor This Week

Damn. Well, I'm here in the US until late August when we're scheduled to at long last take a break in Serbia. Just got an email from one of the composer-organizers behind the Summer in Sombor seminar. (Here's their brochure.) She says she'll be hanging out at our favorite place by the canal, Cafe Del Sol, if I'd like to stop by. Boy would I.

This time of year in the career rat-race in the US is when I miss the laid back summer life in Sombor the most. And I am disgustingly proud of the fact that these wonderful composers chose Sombor, of all places in the world, to have their annual seminar at year after year.

While other people in the office have PC screensavers of tropical beaches, my vacation dreams are of Sombor. Call me crazy, but I know where I like to go to relax and have a good time... and it's green and leafy!

In Which I am Chided By an American Hotel for Misspelling My Last Name

I am in Arizona at an industry trade show. I checked into the hotel using my married name -- which ends in the traditional Serbian "ic".

Then I go to my room and try to get online so I can email everyone to let them know I arrived safely. To get to the Internet, you have to type your room number and last name. I do it over and over again. No good, something's not working.

Defeated, I call the front desk. "Well, how are you spelling your last name?" she asks. "Like it's spelled," I say slowly, thinking what an odd question.... "How did you spell it exactly?" the woman at the front desk sounds a bit exasperated. I spell it out for her. "There's your problem!" she exclaims, "you're not spelling it correctly. You have to put an 'h' at the end."

Yugoslavs Use Landmarks, Not Street Signs, to Find Their Way

My husband calls me as his train pulls into Manhattan's Penn Station. He is slightly panicked. "This is not Grand Central Station!" I say it's OK. Penn is the main New York station for North-South trains and he should get off the train immediately because he's in the right place. Now, all he has to do is walk 30 minutes to the Croatian Consulate where he has an appointment.

"But I only know the way to get there from Grand Central! How can I find the Consulate if I am walking from a different place?!"

I suggest he get directions from someone or take a cab maybe. "Don't be stupid. Most New Yorkers do not know where the Croatian consulate is," he replies crushingly.

As it turns out, he himself has no idea of the actual address of the place. It's never even occurred to him to research it or to carry it with him on a slip of paper for easy referral. After all, he already "knows" how to get there. By landmark. Isn't that how everyone knows how to get places?

Suddenly I remembered a remark his sister had made a few years ago, which I hadn't really understood at the time. She said, "It used to be impossible for me to find my way on the highways in America. Every exit looks so much the same! I could never recognize where to turn." At long last it had occurred to her to read the signs.

I never realized that relying on road signs, addresses, or even maps could be such an alien concept to some people. People who are from a smaller country, a place that's rife with landmarks, where everyone knows where to go because they've been going there all their lives.

Government-run Pensions: Perhaps the Only Political Promise Former Yugoslavs Believe In

Former Yugoslavs are famous for being cynical about almost anything to do with governments and politicians. Tell them you trust a promise made by the US, Serbian, or Croatian governments and they'll scoff loudly at your naivete.

Except for one thing.

Their credulous, child-like faith in government-run pensions.

I do not have any American-born friends who honestly, completely trust that Social Security will be there for them when they hit retirement age. Not 100% guaranteed. We love America, but we're not blind to her failings.

My husband just can't imagine this. Of course there will be Social Security!!!

I guess you base your beliefs on your experiences. In his experience, countries may fall apart, your neighborhood may be bombed, inflation may hit 10,000%, the economy be wrenched from socialism to capitalism, etc.; but, no matter what, old people will always get their government pensions. True, the payments may not be as high as originally promised, but you'll get something, and you'll get it every month too.

Thankfully, My Serb-American Holidays Are Now, At Last, Over

I woke up this morning feeling like it's the day after I ran a marathon. Dazed, a bit disorientated, slightly frayed at the edges, and really happy to be entering regular life again. I sense this regular life will take a few days to feel "normal" though.

The problem is not the holiday season, but rather the combination of Serb and American holidays. When I was single, I'd take off a week between Dec 25-Jan 1st and then get right back to work. Now that I have a family, my own holidays take on greater importance, plus we add in Serb holidays as well. That quick week off mainly dedicated to sleep has turned into four full months punctuated by celebration after celebration, each requiring special shopping, cooking, eating, drinking, long distance phone calls, and hours and hours sitting around the table being with each other:

Oct 31 - American Halloween
Late Nov - American Thanksgiving
Dec 25 - Western Christmas
Dec 31 - Western New Year's Eve
Jan 1 - Western New Year's Day
Jan 7 - Serbian Orthodox Christmas
Jan 13 - Serbian Orthodox New Year's
Jan 19-20 - Our Serbian Family's Saints Day (date varies depending on your family history)

All I can say now is, thank goodness we have a nice long rest before both Easters kick in.

The Problem with English (Part II): Idioms

My Yugoslavian-born husband is the owner of a book entitled, '100 American Idioms'. Which is why he can, only slightly self-consciously, make declarations such as, "It is raining cats and dogs!"

We are all terribly proud of him. How many men, after all, could come to America at the age of 40, with only a haze of remembered high school English, and then a scant handful of years later be able to say things like that? In normal conversation!

Which brings me to last weekend, on the Saturday after the big American Holiday of Thanksgiving. Due to the depredations of an unusually aggressive squirrel, we had to go buy a new 30lb sack of bird seed for the feeder outside our favorite window.

My step-daughter, home from college, had borrowed the car the night before. So, instead of my regular music, the sound system boomed out songs from a CD she'd left in the player. As we neared the local farmer's supply store where we buy bird food, the sound system blared a song, with an insanely danceable beat, to which the words, as best I can remember them, went, "I'm going down on you, I'm going down, I'm going down. I go down on you every morning; I go down on you every night. I'm always going down on you."

I thought nothing of it... until my husband, caught by the danceable beat, began to sing along, "I'm Going Down on You!" he warbled. 'I go down on you every morning! And every night!!"

My husband is a Serb. Which means he is completely unafraid of and unabashed by public singing. If you've got something to sing, well sing it out loud and sing it for quite a while.

As I descended from the driver's seat I was struck by this thought and interrupted him. "Honey? Do you know what this means? To go down on a person?" "Of course I do," he scoffed, "It is about going down to the river, going down the hill, going downstairs. Everybody knows that." With that he started singing with renewed vigor...

...and it was only with the utmost persuasion I got him to stop while we were in the store. I'm pretty sure he still thinks I over-exaggerated the reason why.

Note: The Problem With English Part I is here.

Super-Easy Way to Piss Off Serbs: Praise Any Clinton

In a move calculated to piss off pretty much every Serb around the world, Kosovo is about to unveil a statue of Bill Clinton. This is an overly dramatic comparison, but think how would Americans feel if another country commissioned a big public statue of Osama bin Laden?

Deliberate provocation.

I wasn't aware of any connection between Clinton and Serbia before I married my husband, and so was astonished by Serbs' invariably venomous reaction to any mention of the name "Clinton." The anger extends to the whole Clinton family, and simmers just under boiling to this day. It's about the NATO bombing of course. Something typical Americans were only vaguely aware of, and only few knew Clinton had anything to do with. It was a European thing, between Europeans, surely?, many would say if asked.

So no one in New York thought it was unusual when then-Senator Hilary Clinton promised to use her powers of international persuasion to get that young Serbian basketball player sent back to the US to stand trial for beating up an American in a bar a couple of years ago. Anyone who knew Serbs laughed at her presumption. Not a chance. No matter how hard she tried or what she promised -- with a name like Clinton!

And now, most people in the US who hear about the new statue of Bill Clinton in Kosovo will probably think, 'How nice' and assume American aid such as food for hungry people or help building schools had something to do with this international 'thank you'. They won't recognize the insult. Kosovo is slapping Serbia in the face, and using an American President's image to do it.

Serbian Man vs American Woman: The Toilet-Seat Battle Rages On...

I'm not naming names, but, somebody-just-back-from-the-Balkans apparently unlearned his ability to put the toilet seat back down after using it. Five years of my seat-tutorials down the toilet after just three short weeks visiting the old country. What is it with Central European men? Do women there never teach them anything?

Freakishly Strange 'We'll Wrap Your Baggage in Plastic" Service At Belgrade Airport

The first time I saw this in the central hall at Nikola Tesla Airport, I stopped in my tracks. I've traveled quite a bit. Across the USA, Italy, UK, India, Nepal, and various way-stations in between. I had never, ever seen a machine that wrapped your luggage in plastic before.

I'm particularly thrilled by this photo -- which required multiple visits to the Belgrade Serbia Airport -- because it shows the machine in action. I'd seen the machine sitting there with its attendant many times before, but somehow never quite believed that anyone actually used it. This is proof that people do!

My assumption, which could be utterly wrong, is that some Serbs headed abroad, this machine makes perfect sense. Perhaps this is their first time. Perhaps they want to put their best foot forward. Perhaps they think if their luggage is scuffed, it would look old and tacky. Perhaps they have no idea that we travelers in the West consider scuffs a badge of honor, showing that you've been there, done that, and sold the t-shirt at a garage sale already.

Visiting the Balkans (a View from the One Left at Home)

So I'm going crazy because my husband has been over in the Balkans, mainly Serbia and Croatia, for the past three weeks. We had personal business why he had to leave. These days US banks are giving 1.85% interest on CDs, Serbian and Croatian banks are giving 3.5-6% interest on CDs, so he decided to move his savings.

But I think part of the unofficial reason he took off is because I got bored-shitless in "early retirement" so I launched another start-up and am working crazy hours again.... for just now I swear! But, Balkan men like to come home from work at noon and find a meal waiting for them along with a smiling relaxed woman who might not be averse to a midday nap. And I was like, "I hope you don't mind left-overs; how fast can I get back to my computer?"

Well that's an over-exaggeration on both sides, but you get the idea.

So anyway, he jetted off to deal with Balkan financials while I worked longer hours on my start-up which will payoff someday in the future.

The plan backfired when I ran up against the no-husband-here wall though. It's a psychological thing. For the first week he's gone, I'm more than ok. In fact I'm actively thrilled. I'm Getting Work Done Without Interruptions! I feel like a balsa-wood model airplane set loose to fly on my own in a hot updraft. Then week two comes. Cooler air. My work starts to stumble. By week three, the winds are positively frigid. I'm losing altitude quickly.

Even now, he's in a good mood on the cell phone when I call each morning. Things are going well. He's met with this old friend and that old buddy. He's moved the money. He's dealt with the landbooks (In Croatia, 2009 is the last year to register former family lands officially so they're not taken over by the State.)

He misses me. Sure. Of course. But this and that happened yesterday and isn't it all exciting? Such is traveling.

But I'm back in my office in the US. I haven't been able to sleep at all for the past week. Just a couple of hours a night. I'm so tired now the extra hours aren't translating into more work done. It's all an ashy, tired eyes, burned out gray. Ten hours at the computer equals maybe three if I were really awake.

I can't sleep. I can't sleep without him. Damn the Balkans.

Should You Ship Your Car from the US to Serbia? Or Should You Buy a Car in Serbia?

As I blogged last month, we just bought a new, higher mileage SUV using America's Cash for Clunkers program with the main idea of shipping it to Serbia as soon as the state sends us our title paperwork (which takes months here, arrgh.) I've tried to ship cars in the past (never yet actually made it), but since a reader emailed me a "ship from the US vs buy in Serbia" question I thought I'd outline the factors we've considered in our decision-making process.

1. Can you afford to buy a car outright?

Buying a car in the US is vastly less expensive than buying it in Europe. But, if you're going to take your US car to Serbia, you can't be leasing it (leases usually prohibit you from taking the car outside of North America). You may not be able to take a car you're financing (buying on credit) outside North America either. You have to own title clear and outright.

That's to stop people from buying lots of new cars in the US and then flipping them in other countries where cars are far more expensive (pretty much everywhere on the planet).

If you have European plates, you can drive your car as a tourist to Serbia. But, once you've been there for a year or two the police will require that you get local plates. For local plates, you'll have to register it locally, and pay taxes on it.

2. Can you afford the taxes & insurance?

If you register your car in Serbia, you'll have to pay import taxes or duties. Each returning citizen is allowed to bring one car duty-free with them. You then are required to own the car for a certain number of years before selling it -- that's to stop you flipping it for a fast buck.

Annual car taxes in Serbia vary depending on the engine of the car. If you're driving a car with a smaller engine, it's cheaper. If you're driving a revved up SUV or truck, it's far more expensive. We chose the base model RAV4 due to this, the sport model would have been more in taxes.

Insurance isn't cheaper than the US, except for one thing. In the US most people insure for "comprehensive coverage", whereas in Serbia almost no one does. They pick the cheaper version. Your US coverage will not carry over to Serbia, you'll have to buy specific insurance. If your car is being delivered to a port in Croatia, Germany or other country, you'll also need insurance for that country for the time in which you drive the car from that country to Serbia, for which you will be GOUGED. It's a rip off, but it is what it is.

3. Do you strongly prefer automatic transmission?

Car dealers across Europe don't tend to stock automatics. You'll have to pay extra and probably wait for delivery. If you want to buy an automatic used, good luck. I've seen them, but it's not a big selection.

4. How many miles per gallon does your vehicle get?

Gasoline prices are, and always will be, more than double in Europe. Filling that tank becomes painful. Diesel, which is artificially high in the US as a form of tax on the shipping industry, is more economical than gas in Europe. So, diesel models are really popular over there. You can also have a Serbian garage switch you from a gas to a propane-burning engine. It's much cheaper and the investment may be $1000-2000 at most for the engine work. However, you'll obviously never take the car outside of areas with lots of propane stations ever again.

5. How much do you want to spend on the car itself?

Cars are often 50-100% more expensive in Serbia than in the US. Yes, that extends to used cars as well. I was shocked at the high sticker prices for used cars there. You'll see a lot of German-made cars on the roads because so many Serbs have relatives in Germany and Serbs trust German engineering, but they paid nearly double what you would have for the same model back home. Increasingly you'll see some Japanese cars, dealerships are springing up. But Japanese cars have higher import fees in many European countries to protect European cars, so there's an added cost there too.

6. Do you want to impress people or do business in Serbia?

People really judge you by the car you drive. (In Croatia this is more extreme, people really, really, really judge you by the car you drive.) I've been stunned by the snap judgments Serbs have made about me based on my car. (I drive a VW Passat which a Serb acquaintance told me is an "uneducated shopkeeper's car.")

If you plan on doing business in Serbia -- or Croatia -- an uber-fancy car such as a Maybach, a Jaguar, etc., will give you a type of instant credibility and respect that otherwise could take year to achieve. I think this is insanely stupid, but, again, it is what it is.

The nice thing is, it's OK if it's a slightly older model. Brand matters more than age. People will be far more wildly impressed by a used 2004 Bentley than a brand new, more common BMW that cost the same amount. So, if you want to impress people with your car, go for a flashy brand. In fact, if that's your goal, I'd make sure a native vetted choices before I bought.

7. Maintenance considerations

Garages are cheaper. In the US, a typical Audi dealership will charge over $100 an hour for basic maintenance fees. Serb labor is a lot cheaper, although parts probably won't be.

Parts for US-brand cars sold in the US will be tough. (As you may know, US brands like Ford have a completely different model line in Europe, so just because Ford Europe exists doesn't mean you can get new brakes for your F150.) If you bring over an American or Japanese pick-up truck, in particular, you'll be hard put to get parts quickly if at all. Practically no one drives a pick-up in Serbia. If it's a recent model Japanese sedan or SUV, you should be OK. And European-maker parts are no problem.

Paying in Cash. As in Cash Cash.

Like most Serbs, my husband is not truly comfortable paying with plastic. How can you be careful with your spending if you don't have to feel the pain of parting with actual bills? How do you know how much money you have left if there's no thinning wad of bills to touch? Not to mention relying on those bank computers! Someday, due to sunspots, Ukrainian hackers, or cheating executives, your electronic account will get diddled for sure.

Which is why, when he went down today to pick up the new car that we purchased under America's Cash for Clunkers program, he brought along several bundles of hundreds which he'd saved up in his safety deposit box at the bank to pay for it.

He's planning to ship this car over to the Balkans soon. You can't ship a car internationally unless you own it 100%. So, he had told the car salesman he'd be paying cash up front, instead of financing the purchase.

Why then, was the salesman so surprised when my husband thunked down a wad of cash onto his desk? I think the guy's eyelids were going to peel back into his head.

The salesguy jumped up and ran to the corner office in the dealership to confer with his boss. Apparently there was some terrible concern. Nobody was sure if they could receive in their own hands actual cash for a new automobile. How were they supposed to handle the bills? What if it was drug money from an illegal deal? What if it bit them like a live rattlesnake?

My husband asked what the problem was. "Well, when you said 'cash', we really didn't think you meant cash cash," the salesguy explained. I understood completely. To most Americans, 'cash' means anything that's not a formal bank loan. It could be a debit card, a check, or even a credit card. My husband, on the other hand, looked at the guy like he was a complete idiot.

I started laughing. You can take the boy out of the Balkans, but not the Balkans out of the boy.

The Struggles of a Multi-Language Home & Marriage

When, in the first flush of blossoming love, I promised my then-fiance, "Of course I'll learn your language", I imagined a year or so of hard work, followed by decades of of family jokes over my Amerikanka accent.

I never imagined five entire years later not speaking a single word of Serbian, beyond scraping-the-barrel-bottom (swear words, "good day", "yes/no", "potato", "to fart", "I love you", and that's about it.)

At first I blamed my job, then an 80-hour a week mental marathon. Then I blamed the language itself in which all nouns change given tense, even people's NAMES, often violently. (For example, my step-son's name on his diploma from Croatian Culinary School is spelt "Petrova" instead of "Petar" because it's in the "we're being really official" tense I suppose.)

And I'm sorry, but no matter how much you "ch, ch, ch" at me over the dinner table, I will never discern between Č and Ć. It's just not possible.

At last, we all realized I would not be able to learn the language while we still lived most of the year in the US. I would need an in-depth course in Serbo-Croatian in either Zagreb or Belgrade for several months when we moved over, and then to live in a non-English-speaking community for a year at least thereafter. So, whenever we really, honestly, truly move over, that's the plan. A few years from now.

In the meantime, there's the language thing at home. Everyone on my side speaks English and rocky high school French, but my relatives, like most Americans, visit infrequently. Everyone on his side speaks Serb and pretty good American English and like good Serbs are over at the house all the time. I feel GUILTY insisting that people speak English when I'm in the room. But at the same time I catch myself having an absolute nervous breakdown if they do not. I hate feeling completely left out of conversations, and by extension, cut out of the family.

On the other hand, my husband *should* be able to speak his own language in his own home. I'd got nuts if the tables were reversed! And his children, surrounded by American friends day and night, are delighted to get home for the release of being able to speak Serbian once again. (As my step-daughter once remarked, it's kind of awful knowing you're the only one out of 10,000 people on campus who speaks your native language.)

But then, there they are all chattering away, and I feel... completely left out. I get to cook up a few snacks, set the table, clear plates, and then sit at the side smiling blandly, blindly. Completely left out. Sometimes I feel a bit like the family dog, beloved and patted on the head, but ignored in conversation.

My step-brother Tom, who is also married to a Serb, has the opposite problem -- the offended grandparent scenario. His wife's mother and father, who are divorced, split the year, each spending roughly half in Belgrade and half in the USA with the grandchildren. Despite a Serb mother and year-round grandparent encouragement, the kids are not interested in speaking anything but American English. It's the language of their peers. Period.

Tears have been shed and adult feelings hurt.

Which pretty much mirrors my household. Sometimes though, I think even if I learned school-perfect Serbo-Croatian tomorrow, I'd still be left out. There would be cultural and family history jokes and references I would never get. I'd never, ever completely fit in. Which will always hurt and probably offer some pleasure at the same time. Families need oddballs, and oddballs need families.

When you marry a Serb, you are a permanent oddball in his family. It's just a fact.

Jesus Love's U?

Yesterday evening as my husband and I were walking on the public beach a few miles from our US home, we came upon a 20-foot-long message someone had drawn in the sand. "Jesus Love's U!" it proclaimed.

"How could anyone conceivably put an apostrophe in loves? Is our educational system that bad?" I exclaimed. As I set to rubbing out the offending mark with my feet, my Croatian-born, Serb husband stood stood to one side staring at the end of the message. Finally he asked in a slightly strained voice, "What does U mean?"

"You. As in me and you. It's the text message way of spelling it." "Oh", he said relieved. "Where I come from that means Ustashe."

He thought Nazi-aligned, Serb-hating fascists might be posting messages on our beach!

It's less unlikely than one might think because the political descendants of fascism are currently on the rise in Croatia, Austria and Germany. And, our hometown beach is in an area tourists and immigrants visit on their tour of America. We run into former Croatian and Bosnian visitors often enough for it to be unremarkable.

Luckily, though, this message was just from a dumb American.

Ewww! Former Yugoslavs Eating Raw Bacon

I couldn't figure out where the bacon was going. I work from home these days, so if someone was cooking up some bacon I was sure to smell it. But, I never did. There was a bunch of bacon in the fridge, and then it was gone.

Then I caught him.

I walked into my husband's home office late one evening and there he was tucking into a heaping portion of raw bacon on one of my favorite blue-and-white plates. Ewww! In America we cook our bacon up in a frying pan. Crispy or chewy, it's your pleasure, but it's cooked up before you eat it. Even then you feel kinda sinful because it's bacon, a guilty pleasure, you know?

So a few days later I'm hanging out chit chatting with a couple of former Yugoslav women - one from Belgrade, the other from Zagreb - and I think, 'well here's a funny story' and I bring up the raw bacon. They look at me like I'm nuts. "How else would you eat it?" the one from Zagreb asks.

OMG. Raw bacon. Situation normal. Ewww.

At last I ask, "is there any situation in which you'd cook the bacon before you eat it?" They think long and hard. "Perhaps with polenta or if you're frying some eggs?" at last the one from Belgrade ventures. "But, you'd cook it beforehand and pour off the fat before adding it to the rest of the food, right?" "No," she looks really confused, "Why would you want to do that?"

Jebiga! An Old (But Good) Story

When I first met my husband, he barely spoke English, but our hearts spoke the same language ... or so I thought with stars in my eyes.

Luckily I knew a guy at work who was half Serb, who indeed had spent a year of his college life in Belgrade. So, one day I asked him. There was this word my beloved used in conversation with me nearly constantly it seemed. And I was pretty sure it was an endearment. Which is why I didn't feel shy about asking my friend about it in public, in an open office full of people.

"What's the word?" he asked. "Jebiga!", I said, "'Jebiga, Honey.' He says it all the time to me. What does that mean?" My colleague gave me a look, such a look that I began to feel a bit foolish. Finally he said dryly, "Well, it's not endearment."

Two years later, by which time I could "jebiga!" with the best of them, he danced at our wedding.

Live from Belgrade! Bajaga in Boston (Sort Of)

Bajaga's been a rock/pop-star in the former Yugoslavia for 25 years now, which makes his act a shoe-in for the expat circuit. My husband was terrifically excited when his daughter bought us all tickets to Bajaga's Boston concert in April... which was then delayed for a month due to "visa problems". We consoled ourselves as we waited by watching a bit of video from his 2009 Canada tour which someone posted online. The crowds in Toronto looked enormous.

I for one, couldn't figure out how, because whoever was in charge of marketing the tour did a beyond-crappy job of it. We only found out about the tour by accident, and even then, it took my step-daughter a full hour of clicking and cursing to find her way down the rabbit's hole to where one could buy a ticket online. When, on the appointed day, we piled into the car and I asked for the address for the GPS, my worst fears were confirmed. The "Boston" concert was being held in a rundown neighborhood in Everett, a working class town a few miles away. Instead of a concert hall, the band rented 'The Silver Fox' a dingy local nightclub with no heat and folding tables and chairs. It had all the ambiance of your local VFW hall.

We arrived, unfashionably early, at the exact time our tickets said the concert started, then we scurried back out again to get coats left in the car. And for the next hour or so watched everyone else come in and then run back out again to do the same. I was one of the tiny handful of non-Yugoslavs in the crowd. (There were maybe 3-4 of us American-born spouses out of 125 or so concert-goers.) If I'm dressed right, I think I can pass as a Serb as long as I don't open my mouth, but I wasn't dressed right. Not by a long shot. I felt like an alien anthropologist.

The women were Feminine with a capital F. I'm talking heels - as spiky and high as possible - tiny, tight top ( a tank top if you could stand the cold), a skirt, and potentially something in the ensemble with glitter or sequins on it. These were Beauties On Display for a big night out, although as my step-daughter noted, sometimes the taste level was "lacking".

The men were also in uniform. This consisted of closely cropped hair, button-down shirt, jeans, and leather shoes. They all looked squeaky clean.

Everyone was drinking. And drinking. Then they went outside for a smoke, and returned to drink some more. If smoking were legal indoors I have no doubt the resulting fug would have obscured our view of the stage.

And everyone, besides us, seemed to know a lot of other people. It felt like a high school reunion. Lots of hugging, kissing, photo-taking. More phototaking. Wait! We have to take yet another photo with this person's camera too!

My husband figured nearly everyone in the room was a Serb, but I didn't recognize a single person from church. I guess there are two crowds of expats - the Orthodox and the Partiers. The women of both, it must be noted, have a fondness for spike heels, although the partiers perhaps in more colors. It should also be noted that the Orthodox definitely party, just look at the line for sljivoica shots with the priest in the church basement after services on important Sundays.

So, now we come to Bajaga himself. He looked, to my eye, like any former rock star on tour amongst the faithful. A bit older than anyone remembered, a little puffy from too much alcohol or jet lag or both, tired from the road but game for the concert. And that hair, well, he looked more like an aging Frankie Avalon from the 1950s with a dyed black pompadour than a star from the 80s and 90s.

But we didn't care, we came to hear him sing and play.

There was no opening act. We doubted, given how small the crowd was (due, again, to the utter crappiness of the marketing) that the band could afford one. The sound men, hired locally, sucked. And no one, no tour manager, no bar owner, could be bothered to hop on stage to introduce the act so poor Bajaga had to make the announcement himself. "Live from Belgrade, I am here Boston!" His backing band, two more guitar players, a drummer and an electronic keyboard guy launched into the first song. It was an unfortunate choice. A new song, apparently, no one in the audience had ever heard it before and it did not go over well with this nostalgia seeking crowd.

I'm thinking, where is the guy's manager? Idiot, idiot.

But then the hits started to come. Even I, the Amerikanka wife could spot them. Not for nothing have I had mix tapes of Yugoslav greatest hits as the backdrop to so much of my life over the past five years, including our wedding celebration. Some of the songs were pop born of their times - Yugoslav version of Culture Club, Yugoslav version of Caribbean rythmns, Yugoslav version of U2-style.... Some were classic Serb, songs that could only come from that culture. And some were just classics. Even I, speaking next to no Srpski, could tell the difference. It's like watching foreign movies, you know when you are in the presence of greatness even when it's not in your language. Some of Bajaga's songs should win the rock version of the Cannes Palme D'or.

And, the man can sing. He would be a singing star anywhere. Even worn out, jetlagged, with silly old fashioned hair and maybe a little drunk. He's a great singer. World class.

Afterwards my husband said he wishes we hadn't come. The reality was more tawdry and tired than his memories wanted to allow. He will not go see any more Yugo bands on tour, except maybe Bregovic who is well-known to keep production standards up. But I disagree. Maybe it's because I have no memories of Bajaga in his days of glory. Despite everything, right here, right now, he sounded pretty damn good to me.