This week we had a nice Christmas party at one of my colleague’s home in Belgrade. The administration team was celebrating the end of the semester and the start of the holidays. We have three glorious weeks of freedom and time for family. All of us are really looking forward to taking a break and Nadia and I can’t wait to spend lots of time with the kids.
Above is a photo from the party of the children of some of the admin team. We had a really nice night and lots of laughs.
I hope to blog extensively during the holiday.
Left to right in the photo are Sophie, Ocean, Eve, Ollie, Nick, Matija, and Owen.
Snow is still falling as I write this late Thursday evening. Above, I snapped a photo of our yard on Wednesday evening. I shoveled the side walk, driveway, and steps and then walked out in the yard and snapped some photos. This is the most snow I have seen in Belgrade in my year and a half of living here. Today I managed to finally put on the snow tires on our car. It really makes a difference! We have struggled to get the car out of the garage and to a major street. The snow plows do not come down smaller streets here in Senjak, partly because of all of the cars parked on streets. They do a good job of the main roads.
Ocean Helps Tata Shovel
Ocean loves the “sneg” as she calls snow in the Serbian language. She helped me shovel Wednesday evening. It looks like it has snowed another inch tonight, and at this rate the accumulation will be another 2-3 inches by morning. Perfect timing for the snow as Christmas is approaching and our school holidays start tomorrow afternoon.
Last Thursday evening Owen and Oliver performed in the annual Winter Show put on by the International School of Belgrade. Above, Owen is performing with his buddies in his first grade class. The music teacher introduced the boys to the music of Michael Jackson and they danced to “Black or White.” It has been a MJ festival in the Kralovec house as that is all that they want to listen to. Both the boys are good dancers. I encouraged Owen to continue with his “boy band.”
Oliver really has rhythm especially for a four year old. He wasn’t able to demonstrate that during the show, but at Owen’s party yesterday, he was the star. More on that later.
This past weekend I was alone with the kids as my wife went to Budapest with girl friends. On Sunday I took the kids out to Mount Avala for a morning of adventure. It is only 18 kilometers outside of Belgrade and a nice day trip.
This is our second time there, and we found some areas away from the monuments that were great for kids. It was a foggy day (the fog seems to stay around Belgrade for days) and with the woods had a special feel to them. We played hide and seek in the trees near the monument as well as hiked some of the trails going down the mountain. A highlight was going through a tunnel that ran under the road near the Roman mine shaft. The mountain is a former island in the Pannonian Sea, and was always a focal point for people heading to Belgrade. The name “avala” means obstacle or shelter in Turkish. Both the Ottomans and Romans settled the area.
There are plenty of trees, herbs, and wildflowers to identify and the kids loved it, so we will definitely be back. They are reconstructing the TV tower that NATO took out ten years ago. It will have a restaurant and tourists will be able to go up to enjoy the view.
Sunday evening we went out to watch the Russian Ballet perform at the Sava Center here in Belgrade. The Sava Center is a great place, it looks like a Sci Fi movie set from the 1970’s, ie Logan’s Run. The architectural style is a lot of cement, glass, and dark panelling inside.
Scene from the 1976 Sci Fi Film Logan's Run
It was built in 1977 as a convention center and concert hall in New Belgrade. It hosted an IMF congress when it opened. Wikipedia some nice photos of the place and a bit on the history.
We went out with friends for dinner first and had a great time. It was the first time I have seen ballet live. The dance form originated in the royal courts of France (hence the name) in the 1500 and 1600’s. It is kind of a stylized form of fencing. It is appropriate that I saw the Russian ballet performance, as that is the country that popularized it around WWI after it was declining for a long time.
I enjoyed the evening. A lot was lost with the format of the performances. It was a “best of” with short pieces from a variety of plays. I think with one full play with context, I could be engaged a bit more with the form. I like dancing and we hold periodic dance contests in the house with the kids. When I showed videos of the performance to Owen and Oliver, they thought it was a bit boring and they preferred the “free style” dance form of Michael Jackson videos. I will attend the ballet again, but will wait for a full performance of a piece.
The dancers were quite flexible which I admired. The outfits were a bit too much (see above) for my taste.
The school held the annual Thanksgiving party last night. It was graciously hosted by the Canadian Ambassador to Serbia. We all ate well and had lots of laughs. I am pictured above with Ivan, who works in the Fine Arts Department at the school.
We don’t have the day off, but I did get a chance to see the Detroit Lions lose on ESPN America. It is one of our special Kralovec family traditions for Thanksgiving. I gave my family a call and my Dad was over at my brother Jim’s place, enjoying a big meal. My brother Andy is on a beach in Ecuador, taking advantage of a long weekend from his school.
We are celebrating Thanksgiving again on Saturday with a meal over at some friends home. Nadia looked beautiful tonight.
Owen and Ollie are pictured above in the Magnolia Tree in our garden. Boys will be boys and even in 2009 and the age of video games and computers, they still love climbing trees. The magnolia is the perfect size for them and if they fall, they won’t get hurt. It reminds me of the Frangipani tree we had in our garden in Venezuela.
Ollie Climbs Frangipani in April of 2008
I also took the kids to Hajd Park where there is a public school with a large cement area and wall. It is perfect for playing tennis. Owen is taking tennis lessons at the school and the past two weekends, he asked me to take him to play. We usually play for a while before Ocean, Ollie, and Owen want to climb the bleachers or hillside at the school instead of hitting the tennis ball.
Friday night Nadia and I watched Inglorious Basterds, the latest film from Quentin Tarantino. I absolutely loved it! The movie is about a crack American team of soldiers fighting the Nazis in Vichy France in World War II. Tarantino’s flair for dialogue and violent melodrama is magnificent. Saturday I did a lot of yard work, raking leaves, etc. Nadia redecorated the house by rearranging furniture, etc. On Saturday night we went to our first Slava (more on that later) and on Sunday we visited the Naive Art Gallery in Kovacica (more on that later also.)
The weather has been holding out but Sunday was cold and foggy. School year is flying by!
The traditional school photos were taken a couple of weeks ago. I usually post the photos for family back home to see the boys as they grow. Above is Owen’s grade 1 photo from this year. He is definitely an improved version of me, thanks to Nadia’s beauty. Oliver’s a handsome fellow also, and his Pre-Kindergarten photo is below.
Oliver Age 4
The boys teachers this year are Ms. Marianne Whaley (Owen) and Ms. Duda Vesić.
Thursday evening Nadia and I attended the Eros Ramazzotti concert at the Belgrade Arena. Nadia is shown above in the suite that we usually get tickets. We have a friend who gets tickets to all of the concerts at the arena. They are free and it is really nice to see so many artists.
Eros Ramazzotti is very famous in the non-English speaking world. He is Italian and is popular in non-English speaking Europe and Latin America. He records songs only in Italian and Spanish. He is most similar to Phil Collins, with a bit more romantic ballads that Collins. He has a very distinctive, nasal toned voice. We enjoyed the concert, especially Nadia because his older songs bring back memories of her growing up in Bolivia. Eros is 46 years old and still going strong, but definitely in the twilight of his career. The music is very pop with the romantic ballads, and medium rock anthems. He put on a good show playing for about 2 hours. The stage lighting and showmanship was very professional.
Owen and Ollie are shown above this morning in our yard. It snowed yesterday a few inches and it temporarily turned Belgrade into a winter wonderland. Sadly, it was warm and sunny today and almost all of the snow melted. The boys did find time after school to make a snowman, although I was not able to because of work. I love when it snows and hope we have more this year.
Bill's Blog 