This Country Goes to 11

In the past month I have attended what may be two of the loudest events I've witnessed in my entire life. The first was a brass festival held in a small town of the same name, Guca ("goo-cha"). Guca is about 2.5 hours away from Belgrade along long, twisty, narrow highways. Once a year, tens of thousands of Serbs descend upon this small town in the mountains to drink beer, eat lots of meat and cabbage and make incredible amounts of noise. While there is a schedule of events, the excitement comes from the noise generated by hundreds of 6-piece brass bands wandering the streets. If you aren't careful, they will perform just for you. The performance consists of playing as loudly as possible, directly in your face, until you cough up a few dinars.

The food is truly traditional Serbian cuisine. Piles of grilled meat and this special wedding cabbage, which has been cooking in that clay pot for much much longer than I want to know.

Guca is a truly Serbian celebration. National pride comes out in full force. Considering the amount of alcohol consumed and the means by which the Serbs express their joy and pride, it's a wonder most people make it home in anything like the condition they arrived. Apparently, the most intrepid celebrators clamber for a spot atop the great Guca statue in the center of town. While you can't actually see it below, it's a statue of a trumpet player. Now covered in man.

Every evening of the festival ends with a concert in the main stadium. The concert kicks off promptly at 11:30 pm. I'm not used to this European schedule now and I don't think I ever will be. I'm quite pleased to report that we scored seats in the VIP section. This kept us out of the crowd on the ground level. While, to me, almost every song sounded the same (over played and out of tune) the Serbs went wild as their favorite songs came up in the play list. Their absolute favorites prompted them to climb on top of one another and light road flares. Lighters are too subtle I guess.

Just when I thought the ringing in my ears had stopped, it was time to head to the next musical sensation. Of course, this one was a long time in the planning. Madonna came to Belgrade last Monday. A group of us got ourselves tickets for the "fan pit" right up against the stage. I mean, really, if you're going to go. Go large. Luckily, the crowd at the Madonna concert was much more restrained than the Guca crowd. Fearing a stampede when she made her entrance, I was pleasantly surprised at the civility of it all. It was, without a doubt, a fantastic show. At 51, she's still able to put out quite the performance.

And, I have to hand it to Madge. She managed to put out more sound than all of Guca combined. For a girl who can't even shop in Abercrombie and Fitch anymore thanks to the soundtrack volume, it was a bit of a shock to the system. Maybe I'm older than I thought. Either way, I'll probably tone it down for the next few months.

The Plot Thickens

Remember my post about Bert and Ernie and their pigeons across the street? Well, summer is a very busy time for them. In early June they established a camp, of sorts, on the roof. Bert, Ernie and sometimes friends are in attendance almost every day. From loungers they use binoculars to stare at the sky for much of the day. Group meetings take place around a shaded table which looks perfect for cards and cool drinks. Their day starts early, usually before 8 and can go until dinner time. (Yes, I know I have too much time on my hands).

The other day, my housekeeper looked out the window and said, "Wow, they really do have a nice job." Thinking she was kidding, I replied with my theory about their unemployed status. "Oh no," she answered, "They are raising champion pigeons."

After closing my jaw, I jumped on the internet and began to do some research. It turns out that pigeon racing is a legitimate sport in this part of the world, and much of Europe. There is, in fact, even a Federation of Racing Pigeons branch in Serbia. The binoculars and bizarre staring into the sky seem to be an attempt to track and monitor the birds to find the best and fastest. I don't recognize any of the new members on the site or winners of recent competitions as my neighbors, but I'll keep my fingers crossed for them.

Not Just Another Church

Monastery and church tours are all the rage in Serbia. At least that's how it seems. I can't say that touring these religious buildings makes much of an impression on me. Most of the time I listen to the tour guide and what he's saying goes in one ear and out the other. This weekend we went to see the Oplenac Royal Mausoleum about an hour and 20 minutes outside Belgrade. I can't say I retained more of the historical lesson but the visuals got my attention. It's a gorgeous building that sits on a hill. Very with and bright.

More impressive than the outside is the inside. It is completely covered in small mosaic tiles which are a sort of a museum of reproductions of the frescoes from the Serbian medieval arts. According to wikipedia (and possibly the guide we had), "The entire mosaic has 725 painted compositions (513 in the temple and 212 in the crypt), on which there are 1500 figures. The entire area of the mosaic is 3,500 square metres (38,000 sq ft); with 40 million various coloured pieces of glass which have 15 thousand different varieties of colour, making the most vivid artistic impression."

Many people take better pictures than I do. You can see a good set of pics by a photographer I do not know on flickr : http://www.flickr.com/photos/jup3nep/tags/oplenac/ . The mosaic continues into the tombs beneath the church where many members of the Karadorde family are buried. It's the most sparkly and glittery catacomb I've ever seen.

After ogling the mosaics for a while we went for a great lunch and wine tasting at a local winery. If I must visit churches, I'd like all tours to end in such fashion.

Replace your horn every 12,000 miles

I suspect you've never had to get your car horn replaced. You've probably never even considered the fact that the horn on your car may not outlast the car itself. I also suspect that you do not use your car horn as regularly as your turn signal or brake.

When driving in Serbia, it is not only acceptable, but expected that you should lay on your horn at least twice every few miles. Now, I don't mean giving out a little "meep meep" to the driver who didn't notice that the light changed. I mean, laaaaying on the horn when the driver in front of you hasn't taken a rolling start into the intersection when the light is about to turn green. 

Let's examine this innovative use of the horn. First, it makes drivers incapable of considering alternative routes. For example, let's say you are about to pull onto a small, one way street and notice a tow truck up ahead is blocking the way as it prepares to tow an illegally parked vehicle. You may look ahead and decide not to turn onto the blocked street, thus avoiding the problem. But in Belgrade, you'd just pull up right behind the tow truck, wait 10 seconds, and then lay on your horn. This will not cause the tow truck to move. In fact, the work may slow down. In addition, it will degrade the quality of life of anyone who can hear your car horn. Even better, as you do this, other cars are drawn to the sound of your horn and line up behind you. They also begin to honk. It's amazingly ineffective.

Second, in general, honking will rarely have any effect on the other drivers around you. Honking is a tool for releasing frustration. Drivers don't inch up or move out of the way when others honk at them. Every driver has earned the right to put his or her car exactly where it is at that exact moment in time and no one can take that away from them. Now, at the next block, some jackass may very well be in his or her way and they will be come the honker instead of the honkee. Because, obviously, the situation is completely different.

Protesters have learned to harness drivers' inability to find alternate routes and their ease of horn use with the already bad traffic situation in Belgrade. It doesn't take a very large group to bring traffic in Belgrade to a complete stop. A couple weeks ago, a large protest was staged outside the Ministry of Foreign Affairs. This building sits on one of the main arteries into and out of the city (sort of like Constitution Ave in DC). The protesters managed to block the entire road in both directions on a Friday afternoon. At first, as I walked past I thought, "This doesn't look so bad, you turn right, head up the side street a few blocks, then cut back down."  But, the further I got from the protest, the more I could see the effects of the traffic snarl. The blocked road leads directly to a major traffic circle where 7 roads come together. Each of these 7 roads suffered major blockage because no one could feed into or out of the circle. The radiation of the backup penetrated every block I covered as I headed northeast in a textbook definition of gridlock. And, like clockwork, every time the light turned green in one direction, that entire line of cars would lay on their horn. Unfortunately, there was nowhere anyone could go.

As the car horns rang out in unison, I'd occasionally hear one give out. A sputter, a gasp, and then it sounded like an old goat. But did this stop the driver from pressing on? Oh no, each driver seemed convinced that his honk was crucial to the resolution of this traffic nightmare.

Viminacium

As an American, I still find it very novel to visit historical sites that are over 250 years old. The fact that there are Roman ruins in Serbia seems pretty cool to me. Last weekend we went to Viminacium which, it turns out, was a pretty significant Roman city. The site is only a little over an hour outside of Belgrade. This is the first time I left town to the east and it was amazing how quickly we left any sort of suburbs and entered into farmland. 

The trip to Viminacium provides a nice overview of Serbian life, you see Belgrade, then some enormous suburban housing areas, pass through some mountainous hillsides, then quickly get into fields and farms. Finally, you hit small, rural towns where the residents use their tractors for daily transportation. Avoiding the horse drawn carts and strawberry sellers, you continue down the crumbling streets through the tiny town. Depending on the route you take you can drive between the power company's near-bursting steam pipes and the trash dump or you can drive through the abandoned part of town now taken over by gypsy squatters. Then you drive right up to the entrance of the power company and pass it on by. It definitely feels like you're doing something wrong. In the end, your destination is out in the middle of a farmer's field.

Viminacium itself is an amazingly preserved and, to my untrained eye, a very well maintained and excavated site. We were taken on a private tour (being the only English speakers around) by an archeologist who explained the work that is going on. Most impressive to me is the way the archeologists have left things in place for visitors to see - like skeletons lying in open tombs. 

One of the best features of the site are the frescos inside some of the tombs. Rather than removing the frescoed walls of the tombs to museums, they have built tunnels up into the tombs and put dim lights inside. You can walk up under the tiny coffins and see the inside as the original inhabitant would have. Creepy? Yes, but the context was very cool.

Three major areas have currently been uncovered but there are hundreds of acres (at least) of city beneath the fields still to be excavated. The work could continue for decades more. A nearby power plant is interested in the coal below ground but there seems to be some sort of arrangement worked out due to the prior knowledge the plant had about the site's historical value. Somehow, the plant seems to be obligated to continue buying land from the local farmers as more sites are found to excavate and avoid strip mining the area. An oddly civil arrangement. 

Combining the easy, educational drive with the knowledge dropped by the tour guide, I place Viminacium high on the list of places to take visitors when they visit Belgrade. 

Ljubljana Restaurant Reviews

A girl's gotta eat. And when a girl is outside Belgrade, she heads for the ethnic restaurants. It should come as no surprise that our first priority was the Mexican restaurant. Joe Penas was recommended by several friends. Close to the city center, Joe's gets off to a very good start. The decor is right on with tacky signs, colorful walls, and rickety chairs and tables. The delicate scent of greasy tortillas wafts through the air and greets you at the door. 

When we opened our menus, the befuddlement began. No quesadillas? Burritos with potatoes? No cheese? Something was wrong. The European interpretation of Mexican food was worrisome. Undaunted, we ordered a pitcher of margaritas and some guacamole. Then stared at the menu some more. The margaritas showed up frozen (too bad) but were quite strong and tasty. The guacamole was made table side and very well done. All in all, we were quite pleased with the start to the meal. When Bob's fajitas arrived the waiter kindly offered to demonstrate the proper construction technique. Clearly Mexican food is a rarity in the area. I had decided to investigate the chicken/potato burrito. The description had not mentioned the 18,000 spices also included. The potatoes absorbed so much heat during cooking that I couldn't taste a thing after the first two bites. For me, it was all downhill from there. In the end, we both decided that there wasn't anything else on the menu we were interested in. We wouldn't return for anything other than margaritas.

For our second dinner excursion we decided to try out a recommendation from the Rick Steve's guidebook. DaBuDa is an Asian restaurant near Kongresni Trg. Thai and Japanese are the main features. The restaurant itself has a very cool vibe with a nice bar and good music. We were surprised at how empty it was on a Saturday night. Until we realized that 8:00 was probably much too early to eat. When we left at 9:30 things were quieter still. It was only when we were out getting coffee at 11:00 that we saw the street life pick up.  

As soon as we opened the menus at DaBuDa we were overwhelmed (in a good way) with choices. There were plenty of fun drinks to choose from. The house-made cranberry and ginger iced tea made my day after so much walking around. For dinner, I went with the sesame beef with coconut milk and basil sauce. It came with the most perfectly steamed vegetables I've eaten in months. The penang curry was really hard to pass up. I guarantee I won't be able to find that in Belgrade. I'd very highly recommend this place to anyone visiting Ljubljana. Especially if you're visiting as a "local" and maybe not so interested in delving into the Slovenian cuisine.

We also had a great lunch at the As Lounge -- not the expensive Gostlina As next door but the attached cafe. They share a kitchen so why bother with the real restaurant? The glassed in patio made for a great Sunday afternoon. The waiter's wine suggestion wasn't so hot but the slab of roast beef on my sandwich was far beyond my expectations. This was no deli sandwich.

It was a weekend of good eats and, now that our appetites are stoked, we are more determined than ever to locate the best Belgrade has to offer.

Ljovely Ljubljana

Serbians are serious about their Easter holiday so we took advantage of the four day weekend and went to Slovenia to check out Ljubljana. The six hour drive stretched into seven since the border crossing into Croatia took a bit longer than we anticipated on Friday morning. The drive was incredibly pleasant, if a little expensive. Aside from the expected gas-price shock, we were amazed that it costs 15 euros to drive across Croatia (each way). And I thought Delaware was a rip-off. 

As we passed into each new country the scenery improved, as did the roads. It's quite surprising how the character of the land distinctly changes at the border. This was especially the case when we crossed into Slovenia. It was like driving onto the set of The Sound of Music. Little towns with red roofs dot the hillsides. Each one surrounds a  church with a tall steeple. We passed through patches of rain but it was still a sunny day so the grass and trees were bright green and the trees all had their spring flowers on them. Ljubljana is not a large place. Only 265,000 people live there so we didn't even see the city until we got off the highway and drove into it. From our hotel window we had a nice view of Ljubljana Castle which sits above the city.

After dropping our bags at the hotel we headed right out into the city center which was only a few blocks away. We were thrilled to see people actually drinking beer at the bars and not just coffee. We weren't in the Balkans anymore. The next morning we would discover just how deep the Austrian influence ran when the beer drinkers were out again at 10 am. Not loud and rowdy beer drinkers. Just brunch beer drinkers. Very civilized. So, we started our evening in a smoke-free pub with a pint of Guinness. Then, well, of course, we located the Mexican restaurant! 

Saturday was probably the most perfect day for sightseeing I have ever been a part of. It was in the mid 60's and sunny in the morning. We headed back to the center of the old part of town, Preseren Square and briefly considered joining a formal tour. 

In the end, we trusted ourselves to Rick Steve's guidance and, after quickly reading the book, began our day by walking through the open market. This market is sort of like Eastern Market in DC except 1,000 times cuter. People cruise through on their bicycles, complete with baskets, to load up on flowers, bread, vegetables and cheese. We hit the hot spots and popped into a few stores as we made our way towards the Dragon bridge, which seems to be in all the pictures of Ljubljana.

Then it was time to head upwards, Ljubljana Castle sat high above us. There is a funicular you can take, and a little "train" that drives on the road. But there are also a couple walking paths you can take up to the top. Since the weather was so cooperative, we decided to hoof it. The walk along the wooded trail made us feel a million miles from Belgrade. The sunshine, fresh air, space, and lack of honking horns was just what we needed. In the end, the Castle was cute but not much to look at. We got a few good views from the top but the main tower was under repair so we couldn't get to the very top. 

In the afternoon the sun died down and it started to sprinkle on and off. We took shelter in stores when necessary and continued our walking tour through some of the city squares. We ventured outside the old city center to check out some lesser sites. For example, the fairly unattractive office building with the "world's largest digital watch" and the first Slovenian skyscraper which is a towering 12 stories. Ljubljana, once known as Emona, was connected with Jason and the Argonauts. As a result, there are a few fairly interesting small collections of Roman ruins with good signage. There is also one large Orthodox church, and the very adorable U.S. Embassy that looks like a chateau.

All of this was followed by a 2.5 hour nap before we could get up and walk some more. This time for a little stroll along the river on our way to dinner. Which, by the way, was lovely. I'll tell you all about the restaurants tomorrow.