"I drove under a rainbow today!" my husband announces when I make my daily phone call to the Balkans. "But don't worry honey, I am still a man."
"What?"
He assumes the problem is with the phone line and repeats himself, speaking extra loudly and clearly,"I'm still male. I did not turn into a woman."
I did not think he knew any fairy tales, certainly no Western ones. But it turns out there are Balkan fairy tales, and one of them details what happens to people who go under rainbows. Sex change!
My husband is a little surprised I hadn't heard about this fable before. Am I really sure? We each realize abruptly we are married to the Alien. It's one of those moments where you are so close, yet so far apart.
Friday, April 15, 2011
Tuesday, April 12, 2011
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."
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."
Thursday, March 31, 2011
In Which My Husband Finds His Dream Stan
For my husband, all of this stan-shopping has been just like shopping for a prom dress with a very picky teenage girl -- sheer torture after the first 15 minutes. "If it were up to me, by now I could have bought a stan and celebrated four or five times over," he exclaims repeatedly.
Yet, now that I've had to return to the States, he is slogging on doggedly and, to my mind, more than a little heroically.
When he calls me in exaltation, to tell me he's Found *The* Stan in Novi Beograd, I am delighted... but guarded. We've been shopping for property together before. I know what he looks for. He looks for An Extraordinary View. I also know what he doesn't look for -- a nice floor plan, a workable kitchen, comfortably-sized bedrooms, places to install closets, plenty of windows, etc, etc.
"You can see the city and the river and the sunrise and the sunset!" he proclaims. "The terrace is more than 20 meters plus there's an additional terrace you can expand into!"
From his description, I realize I know this stan. It's one of the few advertised on the Internet with the price "Dogovor" which means "ask." As in if you can't afford a lot, you should not bother asking.
As I guessed, the price is far above our budget. "But the realtor who knows our budget says we can afford this one, so I think the owner is really ready to come down," my husband says happily. I suspect it's more likely that the realtor has fantasies about the depths of American pockets, no matter what our officially stated budget.
"Wire more from our savings tomorrow! I want to buy this stan!" my husband orders just before we say goodnight.
I am overwhelmed. Here is a man who's never gotten excited about a stan before in his entire life, and he is all fired up. Forget my doubts about the kitchen. Somehow we can manage. I tell him to start negotiating. Down. Far, far down.
Everything now depends on how much the owner really needs to sell. It feels strange for me to be crossing my fingers and hoping so hard for someone else's desperate economic circumstances. We'll be offering a fair price based on square meters and the location, but as we've learned, owners in Serbia don't make decisions based on fairness. We'll see....
Yet, now that I've had to return to the States, he is slogging on doggedly and, to my mind, more than a little heroically.
When he calls me in exaltation, to tell me he's Found *The* Stan in Novi Beograd, I am delighted... but guarded. We've been shopping for property together before. I know what he looks for. He looks for An Extraordinary View. I also know what he doesn't look for -- a nice floor plan, a workable kitchen, comfortably-sized bedrooms, places to install closets, plenty of windows, etc, etc.
"You can see the city and the river and the sunrise and the sunset!" he proclaims. "The terrace is more than 20 meters plus there's an additional terrace you can expand into!"
From his description, I realize I know this stan. It's one of the few advertised on the Internet with the price "Dogovor" which means "ask." As in if you can't afford a lot, you should not bother asking.
As I guessed, the price is far above our budget. "But the realtor who knows our budget says we can afford this one, so I think the owner is really ready to come down," my husband says happily. I suspect it's more likely that the realtor has fantasies about the depths of American pockets, no matter what our officially stated budget.
"Wire more from our savings tomorrow! I want to buy this stan!" my husband orders just before we say goodnight.
I am overwhelmed. Here is a man who's never gotten excited about a stan before in his entire life, and he is all fired up. Forget my doubts about the kitchen. Somehow we can manage. I tell him to start negotiating. Down. Far, far down.
Everything now depends on how much the owner really needs to sell. It feels strange for me to be crossing my fingers and hoping so hard for someone else's desperate economic circumstances. We'll be offering a fair price based on square meters and the location, but as we've learned, owners in Serbia don't make decisions based on fairness. We'll see....
Wednesday, March 30, 2011
In Belgrade You Don't Have to Throw a Party to Have a Party
My husband calls me from the bathroom of his sister's stan in Belgrade on the evening of her birthday. He's in there because it's the only place to have a quick, private conversation out of the noise.
The noise from the non-party. She had decided not to throw any sort of party because this birthday isn't a special one (with an "0" or "5" at the end.) So a quiet evening at home with her brother was in order.
People just started showing up anyway... one bearing a gargantuan torte he'd spent hours creating. When my husband last counted, the total was up to 26 unexpected guests. In a 450 square foot stan. No problem!
Then the expats started calling in via Skype because they didn't want to miss anything.
Sure I'm a little jealous, and not just of the torte either. I've had plenty of friends in my day, and often thrown parties for 50 or more. But over time it's become tougher and tougher. In America, as you age your friends winnow down, mainly because people move frequently (on average every 7 years.) With more than 100 cities to chose from, they go on to new horizons. Maybe it will be different for the social networking generation, but for people in my age group, you're likely to have lost close ties to many of your old friends over the years. Everyone from high school, college, first jobs, your 30's... they're all scattered across 3,000 miles, with new lives and new friends.
Not to mention how busy everyone always seems to be. It can easily take up to a month to arrange a dinner date with my best local girlfriend as we juggle our schedules and obligations.
But, as my step-daughter says, "Everybody's always got time to be social in Belgrade."
And there's just a huge advantage to living in a capital city in a country with very few other cities. People come and they stay.. for life. You make a friend and they are always there. Or, they are working overseas while saving up and plotting their way to getting back to staying there for life.
To me, a single central city seems like an incredible luxury. I lay back in bed and imagined what it would be like if all my old friends from all those passages in my life were living in the same place. Gorgeous fantasy. Or, I guess you could say 26 people showing up for your birthday when you're NOT throwing a party.
The noise from the non-party. She had decided not to throw any sort of party because this birthday isn't a special one (with an "0" or "5" at the end.) So a quiet evening at home with her brother was in order.
People just started showing up anyway... one bearing a gargantuan torte he'd spent hours creating. When my husband last counted, the total was up to 26 unexpected guests. In a 450 square foot stan. No problem!
Then the expats started calling in via Skype because they didn't want to miss anything.
Sure I'm a little jealous, and not just of the torte either. I've had plenty of friends in my day, and often thrown parties for 50 or more. But over time it's become tougher and tougher. In America, as you age your friends winnow down, mainly because people move frequently (on average every 7 years.) With more than 100 cities to chose from, they go on to new horizons. Maybe it will be different for the social networking generation, but for people in my age group, you're likely to have lost close ties to many of your old friends over the years. Everyone from high school, college, first jobs, your 30's... they're all scattered across 3,000 miles, with new lives and new friends.
Not to mention how busy everyone always seems to be. It can easily take up to a month to arrange a dinner date with my best local girlfriend as we juggle our schedules and obligations.
But, as my step-daughter says, "Everybody's always got time to be social in Belgrade."
And there's just a huge advantage to living in a capital city in a country with very few other cities. People come and they stay.. for life. You make a friend and they are always there. Or, they are working overseas while saving up and plotting their way to getting back to staying there for life.
To me, a single central city seems like an incredible luxury. I lay back in bed and imagined what it would be like if all my old friends from all those passages in my life were living in the same place. Gorgeous fantasy. Or, I guess you could say 26 people showing up for your birthday when you're NOT throwing a party.
Wednesday, March 23, 2011
Are You Really, Really Sure You Don't Want a Shot of Rakija?
No matter what time of the day or night you visit someone at home in Serbia, most will immediately haul out a bottle of rakija -- fruit brandy with a 40-60% alcohol rating. Only after your third 'Ne hvala' they'll switch tactics and ask politely if you'd prefer some beer or wine instead. It takes real persistence on the part of a guest to reject alcohol.
(They'll also offer you coffee, but as an add-on to the rakija rather than a hospitality beverage all by its lonely self.)
Rakija is, in fact, so much a part of socializing that I was amused to see a young Orthodox monk happily accepting a shot during a house visit recently. This after he'd scrupulously turned down any meat from his hosts because it's Lent. "Wait a minute, is liquor allowed during Lent?!" I just had to ask. "Well... it looks so much like water," was the explanation. Which was perfectly true.
When I told my husband this story he remarked that funnily enough he'd been visiting an Orthodox priest on the same exact day, who had done the same thing too.
As you can see from this daily alcohol consumption chart published in The Economist, people in the Balkans as a whole consume roughly double the amount of alcohol that typical Americans do.
What I hadn't realized, until I dug into the latest World Health Organization numbers, was how different the data was between Serbs and Croatians.
In fact the Croatians made the Top 10 list of biggest global drinkers. And, the data shows they used to be much worse... this is after a big downward swing in consumption! That said, they are still behind the former Soviet Union. Serbs were somewhere in the mid-20s of top drinking countries.
The difference between American over-drinking and Serb over-drinking is that in Serbia, if you have an alcohol problem people will tell you about it as soon as they notice it. To your face. Americans will not. They will be "polite" and not say a word to you until things are so very bad that you require an "intervention." Which is a fancy American word for everyone in your circle getting together and telling you something that if you were a Serb you would have heard about incessantly long before. You drink too much. You need to stop.
Perhaps as a result, there's no branch of Alcoholics Anonymous in Serbia. Nor, if you Google for clinics will you find places focused on alcohol abuse. Heroin yes, alcohol not so much.
It's not to say people don't have problems in every country. Clearly according to research they do. But perhaps problems are better handled the Serbian way.
(They'll also offer you coffee, but as an add-on to the rakija rather than a hospitality beverage all by its lonely self.)
Rakija is, in fact, so much a part of socializing that I was amused to see a young Orthodox monk happily accepting a shot during a house visit recently. This after he'd scrupulously turned down any meat from his hosts because it's Lent. "Wait a minute, is liquor allowed during Lent?!" I just had to ask. "Well... it looks so much like water," was the explanation. Which was perfectly true.
When I told my husband this story he remarked that funnily enough he'd been visiting an Orthodox priest on the same exact day, who had done the same thing too.
As you can see from this daily alcohol consumption chart published in The Economist, people in the Balkans as a whole consume roughly double the amount of alcohol that typical Americans do.
What I hadn't realized, until I dug into the latest World Health Organization numbers, was how different the data was between Serbs and Croatians.
In fact the Croatians made the Top 10 list of biggest global drinkers. And, the data shows they used to be much worse... this is after a big downward swing in consumption! That said, they are still behind the former Soviet Union. Serbs were somewhere in the mid-20s of top drinking countries.
The difference between American over-drinking and Serb over-drinking is that in Serbia, if you have an alcohol problem people will tell you about it as soon as they notice it. To your face. Americans will not. They will be "polite" and not say a word to you until things are so very bad that you require an "intervention." Which is a fancy American word for everyone in your circle getting together and telling you something that if you were a Serb you would have heard about incessantly long before. You drink too much. You need to stop.
Perhaps as a result, there's no branch of Alcoholics Anonymous in Serbia. Nor, if you Google for clinics will you find places focused on alcohol abuse. Heroin yes, alcohol not so much.
It's not to say people don't have problems in every country. Clearly according to research they do. But perhaps problems are better handled the Serbian way.
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