In to the fire

I have been back in Beograd for nearly a week and am finding it a bit hard to adjust.

I think there’s some culture shock going on. In two weeks, I went from Belgrade, to a mostly Christian retreat (despite promises made to F, I did not walk around in my bikini top as a ‘cool girl. It would not have been understood.) to anything-goes Amsterdam with law school-attending D and his professor-in-odd-corners-of-the-world (Kyrgyzstan, Nigeria, Seattle) father. And then back to description-defying Belgrade. In addition to the shifting cultures, I am back living alone for the first time in almost three weeks. It's an adjustment.

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But mostly, I blame the heat. In the north, I was wearing coats and jeans and long sleeves. Here, I am taking 2-3 cold showers a day. Tomorrow, it should hit 40 Celsius, which is a much less intimidating number than its triple digit Fahrenheit equivalent, but still equally unpleasant.

It makes people act like it’s winter again. No one leaves the house without a good excuse. I find myself plotting the quickest routes from one place to another if I have to go somewhere in the heat of the day. I spent most of the weekend holed up with a few friends in an out-of-town friend’s air-conditioned apartment. On Sunday afternoon, I went out for a coffee with a few friends. We were the only people in the café.

Today, there was no line at the post office when I went to pay the bills (usually I wait for at least five minutes).

The city has become a ghost town.