Belgrade is nice so far. It’s a cute city, with fairly warm people, New England like climate, and good food. I checked out the gym tonight and was on the treadmill next to a guy. I ran a full 20 minutes straight, (not sure where the energy came from!) and when I slowed down he said to me “wow, that was impressive.” Are you a former athlete? Now that’s a pickup line if I ever heard one. He was Serbian and had a thick accent that I had a difficult time understanding while bobbing up and down. He said something about having played professional basketball. Definitely not anymore though, if he was really even telling the truth, haha.
There are many Americans staying at this hotel. I see and hear them everywhere. But, this hotel is interesting. It’s like everyone is part of one, big warm family. Everyone says hi to me. Are you from the states? Where? Sounds like there was a big concert tonight with Beyonce and Shakira. Wish I knew before I totally would have gotten some tickets!
This hotel offers free breakfast and dinner, both buffets. Never heard of that before. Food is actually half-decent too. And they have a lovely deck where I ate breakfast on a couple different occasions.
As one of my co-workers put it, Serbia is like a giant ashtray. I challenge you to find one Serbian who does not smoke. I guess they haven’t gotten the message yet that smoking is bad for you. Smoking is not banned anywhere, so it’s quite annoying to have to deal with it. Getting a non-smoking room is also very difficult. Another thing that’s hard to find here is anything that doesn’t have meat in it. Although; they do have a good selection of salads that are vegetables only, at least! But for main courses, you’re nearly screwed. If you’re a smoker who loves meat, Serbia would be your heaven.
The insurance agent whom I received car insurance quotes from is called Dragoljub. That is got be Dragon or something similar in English. Seriously? Who names their kid Dragon. It’s not easy to say, it’s not easy to write. I wonder if he’ll mind if I call him Dragon for short….
Men in this part of the world, as well as Azerbaijan and Turkmenistan, are much more touchy than what I’m use to. They kiss, (cheek, cheek), I have even seen some holding hands, of some sort. Even though I know for sure they are not gay. Being gay in these parts is very much looked down upon.
I have heard the same story, time and time again from different people here. It’s expensive (for locals) and the pay is not good. It’s hard to live comfortably here, something needs to be done. Though they aren’t protesting like the Greek are, they just deal with it, and struggle to get along. As one realtor put it, whom I met with, the gap between the rich and the poor keeps growing. There is no middle class anymore.
In Serbia – people share tables at restaurants all the time. Strangely, despite the disparity of wealth there are no beggars here…
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