Yesterday we went and found our Christmas tree. We had a great time going with our friends, the Moynihan family. As last year, we traveled out to the village of Zuce, located on the eastern slopes of Mount Avala in the Sumadija region of Serbia. This year’s selections of pine trees was not great, but we did manage to find a cute one. Owen and Oliver selected the tree. The park has a wide variety of trees and shrubs for sale.
It was very cold, the coldest it has felt so far this year. We still do not have snow, probably one of the few places in Europe without snow. I want SNEG!!!
A nice option at the Park Zuce is to take your tree, roots and all back home (see photo below). They dig up the tree and wrap the roots and soil in a bag for you to transplant back home. We stopped at a roadside shop and bought a big plant holder and extra soil. They tie the tree up for easy transport. We will decorate the tree today and then after the New Year’s holiday, plant the tree in a nearby park. Last year’s Christmas tree is still growing in our garden. This is a nice green option and would be a nice idea in the USA. Imagine how many trees could be planted!
It was a really nice day yesterday. Besides the journey to Zuce, we took the kids to McDonalds. Owen, Oliver and I then went to basketball practice. I played for the first time in a long time. My back is a bit sore today and I worry about my knee blowing out when playing, but I played well and it felt very good to get back out on the court. We finished up the night, worrying about Serbia being down 1-2 today in the Davis Cup. I’ll be posting photos of our Christmas tree today.
Last night Nadia and I attended the first of many holiday parties. The school held its annual Christmas party at the US Ambassador’s Residence. As you can see, Nadia was looking absolutely radiant! It is great to have such a beautiful wife.
It was a fun evening with lots of laughs. Below are two of our friends, Verica and Marianna. I would like to thank Ambassador Warlick for opening the official residence to us.
Belgrade is gearing up for the Davis Cup Tennis finals this weekend. Serbia is hosting France in the finals. I took the photo above during an earlier round in the Davis Cup, when Serbia defeated the USA here in Belgrade last spring. Since then, they went on to win at Croatia in the quarterfinals this summer, and earlier this fall, came back from behind to beat the Czech Republic.
There is a really good New York Times article this week about the Novak Djokovic family and Serbian tennis. It appears that Serbia is the favorite. They are at home in the friendly hard court confines of the Belgrade Arena. They have the world’s #3 player in Novak Djokovic, who should get 2 wins. It would then take one more win by Serbia to clinch the best of 5 series. If Djokovic falters, then Serbia could be in trouble. Assuming Novak comes through, where will they get the other win? France will be playing with world #12 Gael Monfils, who is one of my favorite players to watch because of his exciting and risky style of play. They are also bringing 30 year old Michael Llodra who is in top form as the world #23 player. He beat Novak last month in Paris at an ATP-100 tourney event. Serbia will counter with either world #30 Victor Troiki, or world #49 Janko Tipsarevic. Janko was the hero against the Czech Republic last round and I hope they use him, despite the lower ranking. The doubles match will be interesting also with Serbian veteran and world double #3 Nenad Zimonjic.
There is a lot of pressure on the Serbs playing at home, but there will also be a lot of support, which could rattle the French. Guy Forget, the Captain of the French team, has been playing up the “we’re going to a hostile scene” and the “Serb fans could get violent” cards in the media. A good strategy to get his players pumped up.
I won’t be able to attend the games this weekend, sadly. Nadia is going on her annual girls shopping and dining trip to Budapest, Hungary and I’ll be alone with the kids. We’ll watch the matches on TV. The Davis Cup web site will also carry live radio broadcast as well as a blog by The London Times reporter, Clive White, who is here in Belgrade to cover the matches. It really inspires me to play more tennis and get my children started in a tennis academy.
I would like to wrap up this post with a prediction. It is tough not knowing what the match ups will be as both teams are keeping their selections private until the day of the games. It would be nice for Serbia to win. The Serbs are much more fanatic and passionate about tennis than the French are and a win for Serbia would mean much to nation. I predict Serbia winning 3 – 2.
We didn’t get a chance to celebrate Thanksgiving on Thursday. We did have a nice Thanksgiving dinner on Saturday, however. The Moynihan family invited us as well as several others to a Thanksgiving feast at their apartment. The food was delicious and the company exciting. The highlight for me was the post-dinner dancing.
I have so much in life to be thankful for! I am a very lucky man and appreciate all of the family and friends I have. I am also thankful for satisfying career that allows us to live internationally. I was sad not to enjoy the holiday with our families in Michigan and Bolivia. We did do a Skype video conference with my brother’s family and my Dad got to see the kids, which was very nice. Thanks to Luiz for the photos.
DSCN1302, originally uploaded by bill kralovec.
Yesterday I accompanied the school’s high school journalism class on a tour of the B 92 media company. The “B” stands for Belgrade and “92” comes from their original radio broadcast frequency, 92.5 FM. Besides radio, they have two television channels, an internet site, book publishing company, music production company, and a cultural center. Sasa Mirkovic, one of the founders of the B 92, showed us around the B 92 complex yesterday in New Belgrade.
B 92 is famous for its role in the 90’s fall of Milosevic. They were one of the few independent media outlets and their radio station supported peace and protest rallies against the government and their policies. They were shut down and taken over by the government three different times. They were also shut down during the 1999 NATO bombing because they were a target. One of the founders, Dragan Dilas, is now mayor of Belgrade.
Today B 92 is the third most popular television outlet in Serbia. Their 11:00 news program is very popular in the city. I appreciate their English language web site which I link to on this blog. Their cable news channel is carried throughout the region and into Austria. They are still regarded as a serious source of independent news in the country. They balance this will “infotainment” and Sasa explained the business side of media. I was particularly interested in hearing about the delicate political side to this. The two largest advertising agencies in the country are owned by prominent politicians, hence B 92 is somewhat limited in freedom of the news. It sounds not much different than the US today, with Fox being very Republican and CNN more Democratic. Both of the advertising agencies are linked to the current pro-Europe integration liberal movement.
I was surprised at the size of the operation. The building was once the Yugoslav national bank building. They have over 500 employees. The news room was similar to the CNN Center I toured several years ago. I would like to thank Sasa, Ray (the journalism teacher above with me) and B92 for arranging this informative visit.
You can see more photos and videos on my flickr.com web site.
Zabranjeno Pušenje – No Smoking, originally uploaded by bill kralovec.
The Serbian Parliament last spring passed a public smoking law that went into effect last week. I was surprised at how well restaurants and cafes are enforcing the new law
Serbs love to smoke. According to the Ministry of Health, 1/3 of all adults smoke. but I would say it may even be a bit higher. In the US, according to the CDC (Center of Disease Control) about 17% of adults smoke. I believe this high percentage of smokers in Serbia is the same throughout Eastern Europe. I am not sure how many countries in the Balkans or Eastern Europe have anti-smoking laws. It would be interesting to get some statistics of smoking here and around the world.
The law gives police the power to fine individuals for smoking in prohibited areas (65 dollars) or businesses (13,000 dollars). It also bans smoking in theaters, cinemas, and most importantly, shopping malls. For restaurants, bars, and cafes, it depends on the size of the establishment. If it is too small, a business has to declare smoking or no smoking. Larger buildings must designate a smoking and a non-smoking area.
I say Hurray!!!! That has been one of the annoyances of living in Belgrade, especially in winter. There were so many places that we avoided because of the smoke. After coming home from a social gathering, our clothes were always stinking of cigarette smoke. We ate two great meals at Zodiac and Daco restaurants this weekend. They both had large non-smoking sections with the signs above posted. We also had smoke free experiences in the Usce and Mercator malls. What a difference!
I am sure some businesses do not like the new law. The smoking sections of restaurants that we see has more people than the non-smoking sections.
The nice weather continued this weekend in Belgrade. It was a bit cooler, but still unseasonably warm. I cut the grass, hopefully for the final time on Sunday. We also played with the kids in the yard as you can see below.
I thought my Dad would like the fact that his alma mater, St. Norbert College, came to the International School of Belgrade this week recruiting ISB and Belgrade students. There were 20 private universities on a tour of Eastern Europe and they made their first trip to Belgrade. It was great to have all of the admissions people at our school.
St. Norbert is a Catholic university in De Pere, Wisconsin. They only have about 2,000 students. I was telling Sam Dunlop above, the representative from the school, about my Dad’s experiences at St. Norberts. He went there from 1950-1954. It was a all-male college then and heavily influenced by the church. It is now coed and surprisingly international. It will be one of the universities I will think about sending my children to.
I still have lettuce and peppers growing in my garden. This is very unusual for November in Belgrade. The weather this month has been fabulous, with high temperatures in the low 70’s / high 60’s and lows in the evening in the mid 40’s / 50’s. We’ve taken advantage of the glorious autumn days and spent much more time outside. Belgrade is 44 degrees north latitude and has a climate similar to Washington DC, but this November, it has been warmer than normal. The normal average high is 50 and the low is 9.
I was also proud that I planted this lettuce in August and I am harvesting it in November. We’ve only had one slight frost and it survived. This is the first time sowing seed and eating the product for me. I hope to do some more gardening this spring.
Owen is also shown above adding to our compost pile. The school is doing compost piles on all three campuses this year and he brought in a bag to add to the school compost. We decided to do one here also. The Kralovecs are getting more green. I heard they now have a recycling program in Senjak. We’ll check that out.
Last night I got the chance to see Bosnian Serb film director, Emir Kusturica’s “punk opera” Time of the Gypsies.” The opera is based on his 1988 movie by the same name. It is a story about the Roma community and follows the lives of two gypsy orphans living with their grandmother in the ex-Yugoslavia and a criminal gypsy living in Italy. It was a very good movie and I really enjoyed the show last night. I am glad I watched most of the movie before attending the show so I could follow along with what was happening. The libretto was in a Roma dialect with Serbian subtitles. My Serbian is at the point where I can recognize 2-3 words per sentence and can kind of put ideas together.
I liked the music. It was a combination of classical music, gypsy folk music, and rock – all live music with the musicians down in the pit. The scenery and props were visually stimulating – a great night out. I would like to thank LJ for the tickets!!!!
You can read the New York Times review of the opera. I got a bit burned out on magic realism while living in Latin America, but it is a good story nonetheless. The Roma are fascinating to me and the movie gives a bit of insight into their world. Kusturica is a very interesting fellow and I highly recommend seeing the opera or any of his movies if you get the chance. It was a full house at the “communist science fiction” styled Sava Centar, and this was the fifth night of the performance.
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