August 10, 2008 – Bill's Blog

I have been pleasantly surprised with the great amount of bicycling paths and running routes one can have here in southern part of Belgrade. There are miles of bike paths along the Sava River and acres of parks near our home. It must be watching the Olympics and seeing all those great athletes competing that inspired me yesterday. In the morning I went with Ocean for a long run through the Košutnjak Hill (Doe Hill) park. This is a huge area of forest and open areas just south of our suburb of Senjak. It gets its name to the deer that once roamed there, as it was the Royal Hunting Grounds reserve until 1903. It is very nice except for the “hill” part. Our area of Senjak is all hills and they do take it out of you.

In the afternoon I went with Ollie and Ocean over to the school’s park. Owen and I then rode our bicycles once again to Ada Ciganlija island. It should be called “sport” island as it has facilities for almost every sport imaginable. There were lots of people biking and roller blading, as well as soccer, tennis, etc. There is even a baseball field.

We spent the evening in our backyard. We have a perfect little place for the kids to run around and it was great the Calzini’s (previous occupants) left a swing set for us!

I have a week of work ahead of me, as we are gearing up for the arrival of the new teachers and the orientation program which begins next Monday.

Belgrade Rail & Bus Station, originally uploaded by bill kralovec.

Yesterday morning Ollie, Owen, and I took our first trip downtown in public transport. We walked down the hill and first took a bus in to the main train and bus station in Belgrade (picture above). From there we took an electric trolley (tram) to Kalmegdan Park and the zoo. It was raining off and on quite hard so we had to wait out the rain several times. It costs 60 cents and about 20 minutes. The boys were thrilled with public transport and the zoo.

The zoo is big and has a varied selection of animals. I have mixed emotions about zoos. I think they are good in that people learn about and see the animals and perhaps this will lead to better protection of their habitat and population numbers. But on the other hand, it is still an “animal prison” and the amount of living space is limited. It was especially sad to see the chimpanzees in their cages.

Boys Play At Kalmegdan Park near the Belgrade Zoo

In the afternoon, the rains let up and the sun was shining. Owen and I were inspired after watching the Olympic Road Race, so we went for a long bike ride. Our neighbor, Radtko, brought a bike over for me to use. We went down to the Sava River bike trail and west to the Ada Ciganlija island. We rode on the river side of the island where Belgraders have small floating houses on the banks. It reminded me of the cottages on the lakes in my native Upper Peninsula. It was peaceful on that side of the island and many Belgraders potter about on weekends in their river shacks. We stopped for a Coke on the way home at Costa Coffee, the Starbucks of Serbia.

Saturday evening Nadia prepared a wonderful dinner of roast pork and vegetables. We watched an episode of the Spiderman cartoon, read a book, and went to bed. Ocean slept most of the night! We have been letting her cry it out the past couple of evenings. She was getting up 5-10 times a night, and now it is down to 2-3 and we don’t have to walk her until she falls back to sleep.