Life in Serbia
It’s the little differences. I mean they got the same s**t over there that they got here, but it’s just — it’s just there it’s a little different.” - Vincent Vega ("Pulp Fiction" by Quentin Tarentino)
In a nutshell, we're doing great here in Novi Sad, Serbia’s second largest city. We have an apartment in a nice neighborhood with lots of trees, across the street from the university campus and only a few blocks from the Danube. People walk, bike and hang out on the long path by the river, the Sunčani kej (Sunny Quay). Not a bad place to be in the middle of a city.
About the Petrovaradan Fortress - I should mention the cornerstone for the current fortress was laid in 1692, but the site has been continuously inhabited since Paleolithic times. Its history and significance in Serbian history could fill volumes, but here’s a link if you’re interested. This weekend it’s the site for the massive Exit Festival, with its 23 stages and so many bands I’ve never heard of. It’s going on right now (yeah, we can hear it when the windows are open - damned kids!).
As a weather enthusiast, I have to report there have been intermittent heat waves here and all over Europe the last few weeks - Mid-90s! People are dying! - but we also had a few mornings when it felt cool, even a bit chilly. We have a pair of air conditioning units, which are uncommon here, and we’ve used them shamelessly. But now they’re turned off, the windows are open, and it feels pretty good. Eat your heart out, Houston!
Getting Around: Differences From Everyday Life In the USA
Like everyone else, we walk quite a bit. Which we like. We bought a car, but rarely use it except when we have to drive far or leave town. The traffic can be bad, even terrible, but the parking situation is downright ridiculous. It’s to the point that once we find a decent spot near the apartment, we hate to move the damned car. A tiny garage, if you can find one, would cost half as much as an apartment. The city predates the middle ages and some of the streets are almost too narrow to drive in, much less park.
The Serbs seemed to have a relaxed attitude toward traffic laws, and when I saw how people were parking on the sidewalks and chronically double-parking - like, completely blocking a lane on a busy boulevard to run into a store, for example - I thought, hell, anything goes. So one night, a week after we got the car, we came home late and parked next to an obscured No Parking sign, thinking we’d move it in the morning. Who cares, right?
Sure enough, we got towed. Turns out an old lady (actually, she’s probably about my age) who lives across the street is locally famous for keeping watch from her balcony and reporting scofflaws. Like us. So we’ll have to learn which laws are enforced and which are not, and that will take some time.
Like most places in Europe, the cars in Serbia are uniformly smaller than in the US. 1My Camry would look like a monster here. We once saw a camo-colored pickup in traffic, about the size of a regulation Ford F-350, and people were pointing at it and had stopped walking to watch it pass. It turned out to be some kind of publicity stunt.
The good news, for me, is that Novi Sad is a relatively compact city and 95% covered by real bicycle paths. These lanes were carved out of the extremely wide sidewalks that date back to a time before cars. It's not as bicycle-crazy as Amsterdam - where I once almost got run down by a wave of irate cyclists after I foolishly stood still in a bike path - but it's definitely the way to get around. You see a lot of people on scooters, skateboards and roller blades. It’s so unlike Houston, where you're asking for trouble and/or hostile death threats for biking on busy streets, and the so-called bike lanes are just collection places for rocks and broken glass.
So… I got this new bike, and I plan to use it as my main way to get around. I’ll report later on how that’s working out. I do wear a helmet, unlike anyone else I’ve seen recently. With bike lanes being so ubiquitous, people are pretty casual about bicycle safety. I’d say 25-35% talk on their cell phones while biking.
Enough about transportation issues, but that’s what struck me first as a displaced Houstonian. I’m formulating some thoughts about the mad driving style - it’s either macho-ism or a strange, daring trust in the forbearance and alertness of other drivers - but that will have to wait for a later posting.
That’s all folks! Stay tuned for number two in about ten days (we’re going out of town next week). I’m trying to stick to one topic per newsletter, and next time it will probably be food. Or something.
NOTE: gas is $6+ per gallon, and the average pay is reportedly $1500/month, take-home probably $400-600 per month.
Breezy! You and Lola are posing in front of an Althea or Rose of Sharon, just like we have here at our house. Same color, even. So as you say, same over there as over here.