“March Madness” is a nickname referring to the end of the basketball seasons. The American universities and high schools complete their seasons in the month of March. I am a coach of the high school boys’ basketball team at the International School of Belgrade. March Madness started a bit earlier for us as we won the basketball tourney this weekend. It was hosted by the Anglo American School of Sofia, Bulgaria. We played against four private schools in Sofia over two days of competition. Yesterday afternoon we defeated the Sofia Christian Academy in the finals, by a score of 53-49. It was a great weekend of basketball and besides having fun, we improved as a team. We are preparing for our Central and Eastern European Schools Association (CEESA) basketball championship in two weeks in Riga, Latvia. The Dragons are now 9 wins and 5 losses for the season. We have 2 more games and then we are off to Latvia on March 9th.
Ollie With the Trophy
I also made is a father-son weekend by taking Oliver on the trip. The little guy was a trooper and was patient during all of the games. We went to Burger King three times and swam in the hotel pool. He would sit on the bench next to me and draw pictures. I would then have to run him out to the school’s playground between games. He was a fan favorite there and everyone knew his name. He is a charismatic little fellow with a ton of energy! It was nice to be with him alone and not with his brother and sister. Oliver kept wanted to get food or toys to take back to Belgrade for his big brother Owen.
After this summer’s World Cup Soccer epic game between the USA and Slovenija (I use the Slovenijan spelling) and Slovenijan Tina Maze’s duels with American Lindsey Vonn, I feel that my home country of the USA and Slovenija have a special sporting bond. It’s not fair that we have 305,000,000 more people than Slovenija. The tiny 2.1 million Slovenijans, however, are like most of the ex-Yugoslavian countries and have more than their fair share of great athletes.
I really like Slovenija. It is a strange mix of the Alps and Balkans. The scenery looks much like Austria, but the Slovenijans are more outgoing and Slavic like Serbia. The country was never an independent nation. It always was under the operation of a larger power. Most recently, it was a part of Yugoslavia, which makes sense in that they are Slavic with a Slavonic language. It was always one of the richest parts of Yugoslavia and they resented supporting financially some of the poorer areas of the federation. Before that, it was part of the Austro-Hungarian Empire and under the control of the Hapsburgs. This made sense because it bordered on Austria and has the same topography and Alpine lifestyle.
The Slovenijans I spoke with were very happy to be independent and would not change it. One of the women at the desk was extremely bright and interesting to talk to. She talked of the lack of economic opportunities in the rural areas and young people move to the capital Ljubljana. The ski resort we visited is located in the Triglav National Park. Triglav means “three heads” which refers to the three peaks. These mountain peaks are featured on the Slovene flag. There are lots of forests and parks in the country and it is one of my favorite spots in the former Yugoslavia. It was also interesting to hear that World Champion skiier, Tina Maze is arrogant.
Below is a picture of a stog which you see all over the Alps. I was wondering what they were and found out they are for drying hay in the spring. They are only used on small farms and it is a traditional way of doing it. The hay is supposed to be better and the milk and cows taste better from the small farms due to this hay. Some are double latticed, and young people are making cabins on top and converting them into a weekend home.
We will definitely be back this spring to do some mountain biking and tennis. The Alps are gorgeous and I do not get tired of them. It is also nice that Slovenija is only a few hours drive from Belgrade. We last visited in December of 2008 and you can read my blog post from then.
After leaving Slovenija, we stopped for the night in Trieste, Italy. It was our first time to Italy and we wanted to see a bit of the Adriatic before heading back to Belgrade. We had a really nice time at the Hotel Riviera Maximillian. The city itself was nice, although we spent most of the time near our hotel which was outside of town. The Hotel is a good spot. There is a beautiful walk along the coast from the hotel to several restaurants and Maximillian’s Villa. One downside is Italy is expensive compared to Belgrade and Slovenija.
The Italians were a bit offended when I spoke Spanish to them. I thought they would appreciate the fellow Romantic language, but they all insisted on English. Nadia heard that they do not want to be compared with the Spanish and look down upon them. It was interesting to learn about the city’s history around World War II. At the end of the war, the city and surrounding area was made a “free state” and US troops came in a occupied the city while it was decided who would get it. Yugoslavia got the southern part of the free state and Italy received the city and its environs. The US troops after World War II, were stationed in his villa near our hotel for almost 10 years.
Trieste for a long time was the main port for the Austrian-Hungarian Empire, and the Hapsburg Maximillian spent much time designing the villa located near our hotel. Max left Trieste to claim the throne of Mexico. The Hapsburgs were trying to spread their monarchy (mafia) to the New World. Max was eventually captured by the Republican forces and executed.
Today the city is still a crossroads of Slavic (Slovenians), German (Austrians), and the majority Italians. I wouldn’t go back because there are better places to see in Italy, but it was so close and a new country, we decided to visit. We didn’t see the plaza downtown and some of the historic buildings.
Below is a picture of our hotel that I took from Max’s Villa. You can see the concrete pillar which is the elevator of the hotel leading down to their beach.
We had a fantastic two days of skiing at the Kranjska Gora Ski Center in Slovenija. It was the perfect place for beginners with short lines, several intermediate runs, and an excellent ski school. There was plenty for the kids to do besides skiing, with a toboggan run, playgrounds, etc. The highlight was Owen, Oliver, and I making our historic first run together down a major mountain. We all took the tow rope up together and came down. The boys absolutely loved skiing and wanted to do more. I really enjoyed it and my skiing is much better after last year’s initial trip. Nadia was an champion taking care of Ocean and Oliver, getting them set up with lessons and occupied while I was with Owen.
I finished reading over the holiday break this book by 1998 Nobel Prize for Literature laureate, Jose Saramago. Saramago is from Portugal, and this 1995 novel is about a mysterious plague that turns everyone blind instantly. The book focuses on the group of people who first contracted the disease which causes people to lose their sight and see only a bright, white, light. The ensuing chaos is horrific and you can imagine how this affects society. Without electricity and water, things go bad in a hurry in a big city. The heroine of the book is the only person who does not go blind and leads her husband and a small group out of quarantine and out into the city.
I liked the book in two ways. First, I love post apocalypse, wasteland stories (Stephen King’s The Stand, 28 Days Later, etc). It is a great adventure story of survival. the other meaning of the book is a bit deeper. It made me think about how fragile our society is and what a small thing can happen and chaos and the worst of human nature comes out. I told the story to my family in the car and we had a good discussion about it. I thought it would make a good movie, and it was already done in 2008. I also want to read his book, “The Gospel According to Jesus Christ,” which is a fictional, alternative account of the life of Jesus. He was an atheist and in a strongly Catholic Portugal, he left because of official government criticism of his works. He recently died at the age of 87. In reading his biography, he came a long way, from landless peasant to Nobel laureate. He didn’t become famous until age 60.
I had to comment on recent events Bahrain. They are catching the spirit of revolt from Egypt and are having large protests. When I was in Bahrain for three weeks over the Christmas holidays I did notice somethings. So far the protests have been limited to the city, especially the area around the Pearl Circle. This is a traffic intersection with a huge statue in the middle consisting of 5 curved beams holding up a pearl. Bahrain used to be a pearl producing island before the discovery of oil in the 1930s.
My sister-in-law works at an international school in Bahrain. Her school is about a 30 minute drive outside of the main city of Manama and is quiet in that area. They are in a “lockdown” situation and are not leaving the area except for essentials. They are holding classes with low attendance.
I photographed this billboard during our holiday in Bahrain. It is one of literally hundreds showing the king on all of the streets and highways in the island. Any government that has that many pictures of its leaders on billboards is trying to say something and trying to stay in control of a situation they are not. The royal family named Khalifa, came from Saudi Arabia in the 18th century and are Sunni Moslem. Most of the Bahrain people are Shiite, probably because Bahrain was a Persian (Iran) island for many years before the Khalifas took over. Iran is prominently Shiite. Driving around Bahrain, one sees in the poorer neighborhoods all kinds of Shiite flags and signs. Driving home from the city during our stay, we always saw the police stationed outside of these areas on a permanent patrol.
The Kahlifa family has a tight grip on power on the island. The main three are pictured below. They are the king in the middle (Hamad), his uncle the Prime Minister (Khalifa ibn Salman), and the King’s eldest son, Salman bin Hamad, as the Defense Minister. Nadia jokingly referred to the three as “Los Tres Ridiculos.”
During the month we were there, all of the Shiite areas had black flags and banners posted everywhere. If one of my Arabic readers could translate for me, I would appreciate it.
I don’t think it is just about power sharing and a Shiite versus Sunni conflict that is going on in Bahrain and the other countries in the Middle East. I think it is bad economies with a poor education system that is not creating enough jobs and allowing companies to compete in the global market place. Plus, a big portion of the brain power, women, doesn’t have the same access to helping these nations. They will have to figure out a way to keep their young people engaged and making a contribution to society and the economy. I hope “Prosperous Days are Yet to Come” but it will take a complete make over and time to do so.
Nadia finally came home on Tuesday afternoon. We were all very happy to see her!!! I had a busy but wonderful time watching the three kids by myself for 5 entire days. We really reconnected after 5 weeks of school. We had plans to go to Mokra Gora, a small village in eastern Serbia, but we found out there is no snow there and the ski hill is closed due a competition. We decided to go to Bled, Slovenia, a small, picturesque village in the Julian Alps instead. We left at 8:00 PM on Tuesday and arrived 6 hours later in Slovenia.
I forgot to bring the cord for my camera so I’ll have to upload the photos when I get back to Belgrade. It is snowing as I write this and we are ready to go to breakfast and head up to the ski hill. Yesterday we unpacked and went swimming in the Ziva Wellness Center. I have to go now, but I’ll be blogging more later about Slovenija (Slovenia in English). It is a former part of Yugoslavia and we were last here in January of 2009.
Serbian documentary film director, Ivan Mandić worked with our Design and Technology students last week at the high school. Mandic and our Design Teacher, Dr. Gordetsky, taught the students animation with clay to produce short digital films. I’ll be posting some of their work on the school’s web site later. Ivan is shown above with the grade 9 students.
Mandic’s most famous documentary film is called “Disappearance of Heroes” and it is about the renaming of the streets here in Belgrade. After World War II, Tito and the Partisans changed the names of many of the streets in the city. In the past few years, the city formed a commission to look into revising the names of streets. They wanted to get rid of much of these Communist inspired name changes as well as correct redundancies and put a general order into the naming system. Mandic takes the human side of this work, interviewing members of the commission and the relatives of the Communist heroes who lost the honor of having a street named after them. Mandic also gives the historical background of the war which I really appreciated. It was the first time I saw Tito’s speeches and the baton celebrations of socialism in Yugoslavia.
As I live in Serbia longer, I am realizing the impact of the conflict between the Partisans (Communisists) and the Chetniks (Serbian Royalists) and its effects even today. I’m reminded of the maxim that history is written by the victors. I wonder what Serbia would have been like today if the Chetniks and Draža Mihailojvic would have taken power instead of the Partisans. This is an idea I will be further pursuing as I learn more about Serbia.
I would like to thank Ivan for coming to our school and donating the DVD of his film to our school’s library. I really enjoyed it and learned a lot. He has subtitles in English, French, Spanish, and German. It will be available for check out after the Ski Week holiday.
Nadia’s flight was delayed coming out of Dubai yesterday. She was forced to spend the night in Istanbul and she will be coming back today in the afternoon. We were all disappointed not to see her on Valentine’s Day.
What to do with young children in miserable weather conditions? Temperatures are hovering around freezing and Belgrade is at its ugliest in February. There are only patches of snow, brown grass, mud and water everywhere make it difficult to do anything with my kids outside. After running some errands in the morning, I took them to the Salon of the Museum of Contemporary Art of Belgrade. There is an exhibition by Belgrade artist Srba Travanov showing this month. As you can see if you follow the links provided, the guy looks like your typical European Av ant Gard artist. It reminds me of the Saturday Night Live parodies by Mike Myer, playing the character Dieter. The boys enjoyed the exhibition. They are very interested in form and function and for each piece, they made up what it would do. Travanov took old technological tools (typewriters, manual oil pumps, pencil sharpeners and made works of art out of them. He is also into the old petroleum derricks. His interview on the museum’s website is hilarious.
It is called the “salon” – room, because the museum does have a beautiful entire building in New Belgrade that can hold up to 5,000 pieces of art. Unfortunately, it has been closed for “renovation” since I arrived three years ago. Can someone put some money into the place to get it done. It would be good for the cultural life of the city as well as another tourist attraction. I wonder what the politics or economics are behind the scenes of this museum.
In the afternoon we did the Delta City Megamarathon. Delta City is one of the large shopping malls in the city. We did bowling, movie (Disney’s Rapunzel “Tangled”, which was excellent by the way in the classic Disney way), and food court. After a bath and reading books, they all kissed me good night and went to bed. Once again, an amazing day with my children. They are my Austrian Alps for this Ski Week holiday.
Yesterday we visited Avala, a mountain located in the outskirts of Belgrade. It is about 1,600 feet (500 meters) high and it is the highest point of the forested Šumadija region just south of the city. Because of its height, it has always been a strategic point and people naturally gravitated to it. Both the Romans and the Turks established fortresses there. The Serbian royal family and government also used the area through the years for various activities, like hiking, hotel, children’s clean air refuge, communications towers, etc.
Today it is still a preserved area with some interested things to see. The photo above is taken from the top of the newly completed tower. On April 29, 1999, NATO destroyed the tower as part of their attacks on the Milosevic-led Yugoslavian government. The purpose was hinder Milosevic’s use of the media, as the tower was used to broadcast the national television station. It didn’t stop the broadcast however because the station was broadcasted through many different stations. A big waste of money! Not only in the bombing raid, but also in the fundraising for construction of the new tower.
The kids were excited to go up to the top. Ocean was most enthused about handing the ticket to the lady at the elevator. The views over Šumadija were impressive. There is supposed to be a restaurant on the top but it was not open I guess. The attendant told me that between 500 and 2,500 people a day visit the tower.
I was annoyed to learn that the big monument on the mountain to the Unknown Soldier, built after World War I, was put over the ruins of a Turkish fortress. The strategic mountain must be rich in archeological history, but this has not been studied or developed. The medieval Serbs called the fortified city on top Žrnov. It was later taken over by the Turks. The Ottoman general, Gazi Porča, renamed it Havala, meaning obstacle or barrier. I guess it was a barrier against tribes from the south heading into Belgrade. Below is a picture I found in the Wikicommons of the remains of his fort. The monument is beautiful, but they could have preserved and improved the fortress AND build a monument. I would have preferred a center for Ottoman and Roman studies with the sites excavated, rather than monument.
Zrnov Fortress Oliver In Front of the Tower
There are a couple of other monuments on the mountain. One is dedicated to the Soviet military. A plane crashed in 1964 full of World War II veterans. They were going to Belgrade’s 20th anniversary of its liberation from the Germans. I want to see the Memorial Gardens in the nearby village of Jajinci. The Nazis used the area as a “killing fields” and over 80,000 Yugoslav were executed and/or buried there.
We got some popcorn and played “hide-and-seek” in the gardens around the monument. As we climbed on the monument, the marble is chipped in places. Owen was fascinated to learn that it was from flying shrapnel from NATO bombing raid 11 years ago. The kids slept in the car on the way home. It makes a good day trip any time of the year. We’ve gone several times and the kids always enjoy it.
I completed my second full day as a single dad. Nadia gets home today and we’ll head out to the airport this afternoon to pick her up. After Avala, I did some shopping while the kids slept in the car and we hung out at home. We have a sauna and hot tub in our apartment building. The steamy sauna was refreshing way to brighten up a cold February night.
Bill's Blog 
