Pustolovina: adventure in Serbian

Tuesday, July 24, 2007

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.

2 Comments:

  • At 9:15 AM, Anonymous Anonymous said…

    Hi Rachel!
    That's also because it's VACATION period...and Belgrade is usually empty city at this time every year over and over the same stuff because Serbs are going somewhere to seaside...

     
  • At 9:51 AM, Blogger Newbie said…

    Rachel,
    While you were gone it got so hot that here in Novi Sad as well as in Belgrade water trucks were parked at various points throughout the cities for people to get water to drink and to wet their heads to avoid heat exhaustion. News reports were full of warnings to stay indoors during the day and the authorities recommended that those who work outside (construction, etc.) take a long break during the middle of the day and then resume work into the evening hours.
    I am very glad that the last couple of days have been cooler.
    Welcome back!

     

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