It has been a busy week. Yesterday I was over at the Hotel Zira until 8:00 PM working on the graduation ceremony. Tonight, I have a Grade 5 transition meeting with the parents at 7:00 PM. Saturday is the Spring Fair. Does it ever end? – Yes, on June 24th!
A couple of nights ago, Nadia called me over to take a picture of Ocean in her crib, hugging her doll. She looks so cute! Ocean is sleeping more through the night. I only get up once or twice every other night. Much better than the 2-3 times per night a few months ago.
Owen is taking swimming lessons with the Plivaćki Klub “Free Style.” Plivački means swimming in Serbian. Owen is shown above with his coach, Nenad Milojević. Coach Nenad is showing him how to dive. Swimming and especially water polo is big in Serbia. The lessons take place at the Partizan Water Polo Club pool in the Banjica suburb of Belgrade. The facility is huge, with an Olympic size pool and 1/2 of an Olympic size pool. There are also multiple swimming pools outside that will open on June 1. Besides the pool, the recreational complex houses a table tennis school, a tennis club, and right next door is the RAD professional soccer club.
The Partizan Water Polo Club in Banjica
The lessons are for elementary age students and take place every Saturday and Sunday at 5:00 PM. There are about 20 kids in Owen’s group, with Owen being just about the youngest. The classes cost $40 per month. They spend a lot of time with the kick boards and Owen is developing a good kick and back stroke with the board. He is also starting the fundamentals of the free style and sort of diving. He is improving rapidly. Serbia always in medal contention for water polo so I hope it rubs off on Owen.
Typical European changing rooms – unisex, with men and women right next to each other. It is no big deal here, but in Puritan USA, it would be a scandal. They are separate rooms with no doors and everyone respects each others’ privacy.
We want Owen to feel safe in water and these classes will hopefully help him do that. He is very coachable, and I see him doing a lot of laps compared to the other kids, who sometimes are off-task. Nenad and his assistants do a good job of getting the kids to not fear the water and develop good fundamentals. The classes also give me a chance to work on my Serbian lessons. I take my book along and do a lesson while Owen is in the pool. Nenad (Nesha for short), wants to practice his English with me and always helps with my Serbian.
I highly recommend the swimming club to anyone. Owen is the only foreigner, but we are treated very well by all. That is one thing that everyone always says about the Serbs here in Belgrade, they are really nice.
Spring is in full bloom and the markets are full of cherries. We have been eating them off the trees at school and going to the markets and buying kilos for devouring at home. Love ’em and can’t get enough of them! This morning I took the kids and we walked down to the local “green” market here in Senjak. Serbs call markets with produce for sale, “green.” It was a beautiful day today with temps in the 80’s. It was such a European thing to do – walk to the market with our rolling basket to buy fruit, eggs, and milk. The boys love ža ža (pronounced like Zsa Zsa Gabor), which are these bite sized pastries. In our neighborhood besides the market, there is a regular super market, a hamburger place, car wash, gas station, several cafes, pharmacy, etc. Everything we need within walking distance. Quite convenient.
Ollie and Owen Eat Pastries
We had a really good day today. I mowed the lawn, we went grocery shopping for the week, and Owen had his swimming lesson. We played in the backyard and went up to the park at school. Nadia made a nice risotto for lunch.
At last weekend’s Serbia Open, we had a pleasant surprise upon arriving. I parked my car on a side street and we went through someone’s yard to get to the stadium. When we emerged through the yard, we came upon two policemen that directed us across some railroad tracks. On the tracks, was the ex-Yugoslavian leader, Tito’s famous blue train. Serbia being a relaxed country, (I think of it as a Slavic Spain or Latin America), they of course let us enter the stadium via this unofficial route and gave us a tour of the train.
Tito and his wife's chair were bigger than the rest of the chairs
Tito didn’t like to fly and so he ordered a train to be constructed. It had bedrooms, bathrooms, dining rooms, meeting rooms, etc. Very presidential like the Air Force One plane for the US President. It was built in the late 40’s early 50’s and he toured around Europe with it quite a bit. Many world leaders were hosted on the train.
After his death, the train stood idle, but about 10 years ago, it was restored. The train is available to rent for groups and it is perfectly restored. My son Owen commented that it looked like the set from an old James Bond film. So right he was as you can see from the photos.
I really felt a sense of history walking through a few of the cars. The train was as the tennis tourney because they hosted journalists and guests for a luncheon and press conference. I wonder what conversations took place in it. I definitely want to rent this train for my farewell to Serbia. So I guess it was in a way, a visit to the Air Force One of its time. Except in this case, instead of the presidential plane, it was a train, and about 50 years ago.
There is much nostalgia for the time of Tito here in Serbia. Yugoslavia was then ahead of its neighbors in Eastern Europe as it was out of the Soviet sphere of influence. The economy and freedom of travel in the 50’s – 70’s was very nice. Tito died over close to 30 years ago and those living memories are being forgotten. It was not a sustainable economy however, and the bottom would have fallen out of it, but nevertheless, during the Cold War, Yugoslavia mattered. It is sad that all of the former republics of Yugoslavia felt so strongly about being independent. I believe the quality of life for all would have been better if they could have kept it together. Brotherhood and Unity!
Tito's Bedroom (his wife slept in a separate room)
I am pictured with a group of our Amercian Students
Today I went on a field trip with Ethan and a group of American students at our school. For all the details, check out the school ISB blog post I wrote.
Ocean last week moved from her blue swing seen to the left in the video to the red swing. In this video, Owen and Oliver are pretending to fall over when she swings forward and touches them with her feet. She thinks this is the funniest thing ever. What a doll!
As expected, Novak Djokovic won the inaugural Serbia Open in a straight sets victory over Lucasz Kubot. It wasn’t as easy as I thought, as Novak had a flair for the dramatic, going down 2-5 in the second set, only to come back to win, 7-6 (7-0) in a tiebreaker. Djokovic won the first set, 6-3.
Kosovo Serb Djokovic Serves
Kubot did not have history on his side. He was a Lucky Loser from Poland and ranked #179 in the world. Kubot did win the doubles tourney however, his second career ATP title. This was Novak’s 13th ATP tour title.
It was a celebration for Serbia. The hero brought the ATP tour to this tennis mad country. It was a beautiful day, with the Kalmegdan Fortress on one side of the stadium, and the confluence of the Sava and Danube rivers on the the other. The President, Prime Minister, and Serbian military representatives were all there as well as a packed, enthusaistic stadium.
Owen, Nadia and I really enjoyed the game. We got to see Tito’s Blue Train (a future post) and some world class tennis.
Serbian President Tadic & PM Cvetkovic Watched the Game Too (blue shirts)
Nadia, Owen and I are excited for our first ATP Finals tomorrow. We will be attending the Novak Djokovic, err, excuse me, Serbia Open. I joke that it should be called the Novak Open as he bought the rights to the Dutch Open tourney and moved it to his hometown of Belgrade. Thankfully, he didn’t disappoint his family and the home crowd and made it to the finals. Unfortunately, all the Serb players ended up in the same side of the draw and Djokovic cruised through defeating two Serbs, including the second highest ranked Serb, Victor Trocki (#40 in the world). It was almost like a Davis Cup practice. Tonight he got by the Italian, Andreas Seppi, but lost one set.
He will be taking on a “Lucky Loser” named Lukasz Kubot, from Poland. He is the first Polish player in an ATP final in 27 years. The term lucky loser means that Kubot lost in the qualifying rounds to get into the tourney, but due to an injury, was the alternate and got to enter the main singles draw. Only 5 lucky losers have won ATP events in the last 30 years. Lukasz is a decent doubles player, with one ATP doubles title, and he is currently ranked #22 in doubles, but #179 on the singles tour. After catching a lucky break to get into the tourney, he got another one when #25 ranked Russian Igor Andreev, withdrew in the first set of their second round match. This afternoon he defeated world #24, Ivo Karlovic, the 6 foot 10 inch big server from Croatia. For Kubot, with a career singles record of 15-16, this was the biggest win of his career. The 26 year old will have the biggest match of his career tomorrow.
Kubot from today's win in the semifinals. (photo courtesy of the Serbia Open)
Does Kubot have a chance tomorrow? His only hope is that Djokovic played late tonight and played three sets, and he might be tired tomorrow afternoon. Will Novak be over confident? Kubot has to be happy already with getting this far and the guaranteed 40,000 Euros. Will his luck continue?
I predict a straight sets victory for Djokovic, and if Kubot wins 6 games in the two sets, he should still consider himself lucky.
With our finals tickets, we also have access to the doubles final. I see that tonight, Kubot won again and he will be playing in the doubles final as well with partner Oliver Marach.
There are many little challenges in living in a country other than your own. When we bought a car this year, we needed to fill it up with gasoline. I pull up to a gas station and see these choices of fuel. Which one is for my car?
I immediately eliminated the two choices with “dizel” which is a cognate of diesel. My car is a 1996 Honda Odyssey and requires unleaded gasoline. So what is the difference between the two premium choices? I usually trusted the attendant, as in Serbia, there is no self-service.
I did a bit a research on line and found out that the “BMB” is unleaded fuel and “MB” is leaded fuel. I am surprised that Serbia still uses leaded gasoline. This was phased out in the US in the 1970’s and across much of the world. Leaded gasoline is still used in less developed nations like Afghanistan, Fiji, Iraq, etc. There are three of the former Yugoslavia nations (Bosnia, Macedonia, and Serbia) still using leaded fuel.
Expats to Serbia always complain about people smoking, but rarely do I hear them complain about leaded gasoline. I wonder what the health effects are, especially with my children. We live in relatively traffic free area, but we must still be exposed to lead in the air.
I’ll definitely do some more research on the topic. If any readers of my blog have any thing to add to the discussion, please do so.
I must remember then, to put “BMB” in my car as that is the Unleaded Gasoline. A mnemonic to use is “un” is one extra syllable and “B” is one extra letter. “B” is good, no “B” bad.
The Clearing-House together with the REC country office supported a one-day national round table
discussion 8 May 2006 that included the phase-out of leaded gasoline. The Clearing-House plans to carry out an
awareness campaign that will include blood lead level testing, in cooperation with REC and the Institute of
Public Health of Belgrade. A ban for phase-out is not clearly defined; according to the National Environmental
Action Program, an optimistic forecast is given as 2015, whereas a ‘business as usual’ deadline would be 2020.
As of 2006, 58% of fuel used was leaded, with no price difference between leaded and unleaded. Serbia is in the
process of privatizing its refineries, and there is currently no political interest in improving fuel quality in the
country. The PCFV Clearing-House, together with the US EPA and the REC, plans to participate in the
upcoming UNECE Environment for Europe ministerial conference, Belgrade October 2007 to bring more
attention to the issue.
Our nanny reports that Ocean is now walking to school with her instead of sitting in the stroller Ocean is advancing quite quickly, more so that her older brothers I think being the youngest helps, and surviving two very rough brothers.
Vera, shown with the red hair on the bench, is very good with Ocean. She treats Ocean like a granddaughter. Vera is extremely hard-working, helping us manage a busy household. Everyday she walks Ocean to school to see Nadia and to pick up Oliver and Owen. They are pictured in the school playground.
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