on the town
Serbs, at least most of the ones that I have met so far, are night owls. Plans for a night out start with, "let's meet up around 11. . ."
And so I haven't been sleeping much.
Last Tuesday, I went out with G, the BVSer from 10 years ago back for a visit, & the women she's kept in contact with since she left. Many interesting people - most of whom spoke English, which was great. It is hard to spend hours a day listening to a language that I can only understand bits and pieces of. We went to a -nearly vegetarian- restaurant on the Danube. It's walls were covered with potraits of people in strange clothes - shirts printed with sumo wrestlers, octopuses, elephants. It would not have been out of place in Portland. And there was amazingly good music - a house band that was little more than a rhythm sections, a violin, & a couple of singers. They played traditional Serbian music, a set of American standards, some reggae, & the highlight of the night: Croatian pop hits of the '80s. They played songs that most people hadn't heard since the war. Everyone was singing along and many people stood up and danced around their tables. A lot of fun.
And last Thursday, it was with my boss's nephew and his friends. They came down from Novi Sad to see Deep Dish. Deep Dish is very popular here & my companions were shocked that I had never heard of them. I don't follow house music, but if they were HUGE, I think I might have heard of them. After being reassured by a companion that "if you like Depeche Mode, you'll like Deep Dish" (I like Depeche Mode.), we were off. And they were not like Depeche Mode. The music was boring: boom, boom, boom, with some repetitive female vocal on top of it. And the venue was crowded - there wasn't room to dance, so the purpose of "dance music" was defeated. I learned later that the show was oversold. The venue is only supposed to fit 700 people - over 1,000 people were inside.
The people watching and coversation was enough to keep me interested for quite a while. . . until I gave up at 5am and stumbled home, trying to figure out who else on the surprisingly full streets was still up from the night before and who was getting an early start on their Friday.
And so I haven't been sleeping much.
Last Tuesday, I went out with G, the BVSer from 10 years ago back for a visit, & the women she's kept in contact with since she left. Many interesting people - most of whom spoke English, which was great. It is hard to spend hours a day listening to a language that I can only understand bits and pieces of. We went to a -nearly vegetarian- restaurant on the Danube. It's walls were covered with potraits of people in strange clothes - shirts printed with sumo wrestlers, octopuses, elephants. It would not have been out of place in Portland. And there was amazingly good music - a house band that was little more than a rhythm sections, a violin, & a couple of singers. They played traditional Serbian music, a set of American standards, some reggae, & the highlight of the night: Croatian pop hits of the '80s. They played songs that most people hadn't heard since the war. Everyone was singing along and many people stood up and danced around their tables. A lot of fun.
And last Thursday, it was with my boss's nephew and his friends. They came down from Novi Sad to see Deep Dish. Deep Dish is very popular here & my companions were shocked that I had never heard of them. I don't follow house music, but if they were HUGE, I think I might have heard of them. After being reassured by a companion that "if you like Depeche Mode, you'll like Deep Dish" (I like Depeche Mode.), we were off. And they were not like Depeche Mode. The music was boring: boom, boom, boom, with some repetitive female vocal on top of it. And the venue was crowded - there wasn't room to dance, so the purpose of "dance music" was defeated. I learned later that the show was oversold. The venue is only supposed to fit 700 people - over 1,000 people were inside.
The people watching and coversation was enough to keep me interested for quite a while. . . until I gave up at 5am and stumbled home, trying to figure out who else on the surprisingly full streets was still up from the night before and who was getting an early start on their Friday.
posted by rachel @ 10:13 AM
1 Comments:
At 5:47 PM,
rachel said…
It's weird. I'm an outcast for like music produced on instraments, not computers.
And I like your music - that might be because always heard it in the background, as I was doing something in another room. You never made me listen to it for hours on end.
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